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The fascinating and fashionable characters featured in
our annual Style issue are all wildly different from one
another, and the resulting mix of homes feels to me a
lot like a fun-filled dinner packed with surprise guests.
Our cover siblings, It Brits Cara and Poppy Delevingne,
share a new and seriously sassy Los Angeles residence
that can only be described as a party palace. Meanwhile,
Crown Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece returned
to her Manhattan roots, moving her large family into
the majestic 1913 town house on the Upper East Side
that her parents had bought in the late 1980s and
hired Renzo Mongiardino to decorate. Referring to the
Italian maestro’s signature rich velvets, major curtains,
and heavy wood furniture, Marie-Chantal quips, “We
called it the dark ages because there was no light”—one
of the rooms was even illuminated solely by candles.
Determined to “freshen it up,” Marie-Chantal enlisted
a longtime friend, the legendary AD100 decorator
François Catroux, who had worked with her parents
and on Marie-Chantal’s own London home. Fashion
designer Ulla Johnson, a native New Yorker, also
lives in a singular town house, this one in Brooklyn’s
Fort Greene. Retaining the stately bones of the 1850s
structure but renovating and decorating in the warm,
organic boho vibe her own successful line is known
for, Johnson says, “When I design clothes, all I think
about is, Well, it’s beautiful, but how does it make
you feel? That, for me, was an organizing principle in
this house as well.” And a final treat: the vast Sicilian
estate (a former monastery) of eminent French designer
Jacques Garcia, which must be seen to be believed. 1. OBERTO GILI; 2. FLOTO + WARNER; 3. TREVOR TONDRO; 4. STEFANIE KEENAN/GETTY IMAGES; 5. NGOC MINH NGO
editor’s letter
“This was the
chance to build our
dream sister house.
Miraculously,
we are still talking.”
—Poppy Delevingne
1. A SITTING ROOM IN VILLA
ELENA, THE ITALIAN ESTATE OF
JACQUES GARCIA. 2. CROWN
PRINCESS MARIE-CHANTAL OF
GREECE AT HOME IN NYC WITH
HER DAUGHTER OLYMPIA. 3. ULLA
JOHNSON IN HER BROOKLYN
GARDEN WITH HER CHILDREN.
AMY ASTLEY
Editor in Chief
@amytastley
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4. DE GOURNAY WALLPAPER IN POPPY DELEVINGNE’S
BEDROOM. 5. POPPY AND ME AT AN EVENT. 6. POPPY
AND CARA DELEVINGNE HANGING OUT IN L.A.
