Above: Annie’s
studio. Left: a Yayoi
Kusama artwork.
Right: the kitchen
them. But with Idris, the decision was quick.’
The choice to purchase the house might
also seem swift, considering it didn’t have
any electricity when they
moved in and the only
bathroom was buried deep
in the basement. ‘It was
completely crazy, we lived
in one room on the top floor
for quite a while,’ she says.
Today, one of her favourite
s p a c e s i s t h e k i t c h e n , w h o s e
ceiling, door and floor are
stripped back to the 18th-
century wood, and which
comes complete with a reclaimed Aga, and
a fireplace picked up in France. The vibrant
yellow colour on the walls, originally
inspired by Claude Monet’s house in
Giverny, comes from a sample that Annie’s
mother had kept from a previous project:
‘It’s amazing that after all those years they
can take a chip and create a whole gallon of
paint based on that one tiny bit.’
Despite her home’s colourful allure, she
admits her own aesthetic is rather more
pared down. ‘I always wear the same thing- jeans and a James Perse T-shirt,’ she says.
More recently, the American architect Peter
Marino asked her to contribute to Louis
Vuitton’s flagship store on Place Vendôme,
and a series of her tapestries were hung
in the Ned hotel in London. ‘I think my
love of fashion goes back to when I was
at the Beaux-Arts and we would sneak
into the building, hide upstairs and secretly
watch the shows from the balcony,’ she says.
Last year saw her first joint exhibition
with her husband at Galerie
Isa in Mumbai. ‘He’s been
such an amazing influence
on me,’ she says. ‘I used to
be much messier and would
always trample drawings
and spill coffee on them,
but he is very respectful of
work and good at treating
things with care.’ They met
through a mutual friend
and following a whirlwind
romance, moved in together after a matter
of weeks – by the third month they were
engaged. ‘I was someone who never com-
mitted to anything, so that was unlike me,’
she says. ‘I find decision-making extremely
hard, I need endless options. In fact, my
sculptures are made up of things that get
assembled together, so I can always changeLeft: in the
living-room wearing
crepe dress, £1,180,
Stella McCartney.
Patent boots,
£1,190, Fendi