Homako Love

all pictures by Yoko Minemura

It's so exciting when you finally get to set up house with the one you love. It's one of the stages in our life when we nest creating a space that feels like it belongs to both partners. He adds his big TV she adds a new duvet cover. Ok I'm generalising but you get what I'm talking about. I really adore Yoko and Ryan's story. She shares her time in Japan waiting for a visa to move to L.A to be with her man. This is one Flick'r link you will love. Yoko aka Homako is oozing joyous creativity with a threaded story filled with heart warmth love. Check her etsy store here

The Rachel Zoe Project

When I went to Rachel Zoe's Hollywood home there was a flood, water damaged designer gowns, Brad her assistant having a break down, assistants packing for New York Fashion Week and a film-crew filming Rachel's T.V. show The Rachel Zoe Project. Looking at these pictures photographed by Richard Powers you would never guess! Hollywood stylist Rachel Zoe brings her trademark red-carpet glamour to her LA pad.


























Trendsetting stylist Rachel Zoe masterminds the wardrobes of Hollywood’s hottest stars, and has numbered Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway among her clients. It’s a world of high-end fashion, leggy models and unrelenting pressure but when she comes home, Rachel looks forward to throw off her stilettos by the front door and collapse on her oversized Fendi sofa in the open and breezy living room.

The glass-walled, mid-20th-century home and studio she shares with husband, investment banker Roger Berman, overlooks Sunset Boulevard and is a vibe of minimal bohemian living. ‘My work life is really busy so this is my oasis where I can hang out with my husband. It’s also central, so it’s near my clients and the red carpet events they attend,’ says Rachel.

I asked Rachel a few questions about her style, home and life.

AT: What will be the next big interiors trend?
RZ: Luxury. The detail and texture on my dining table is like an oversized Fendi handbag. It’s something I’ll love forever.

AT:What do you collect?
RZ:My passion in life is the vintage clothing and jewellery I have collected since I was 12 years old. I group my dresses, coats and scarves according to designer, style, period and hue.

AT:Where are you most creative?
RZ:I like to sit in the living room and flip through my collection of fashion books. When I’m feeling creatively stifled, I look at the sketches and muses of my heroes: Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and Halston.

AT:What are your home styling tips?
RZ:It’s not about having a lot of money, it’s about having that one thing that makes you feel fabulous – from artwork to a sumptuous throw to spread across your bed.

AT:What is your favourite piece in the house?
RZ: I love my Visionaire dolls. They’re highly collectable and each one has their own personality. I move them around the house all the time. If I am working a lot in my office I will often sit them on my desk and when I have some time to hang out in the living room they will follow me there.

AT:How often do you change your interiors?
RZ:I buy pieces in my home that I will love for a long time. However, what changes my interiors is the gowns that arrive for the Grammy’s and the Oscars. The dresses and accessories transform the mood with their colours, patterns, sparkle, fabrics and glamour.

AT:How do you display favourite objects?
RZ:Accessories are very important to me. I use the same style tricks for my interiors as I do for the red carpet. I prefer to have a dress in one block colour as this leaves more room to add jewellery, scarves and belts. In the home I have the big pieces of furniture in neutral colours and add colour with a great lamp, Missoni blanket, and my fashion books.

AT:What sort of atmosphere were you trying to create?
RZ:Rodger and I spend so much time in hotels we have been influenced by the designs. We liked the idea to make the house feel like we were in a luxury hotel or spa which had some kind of Zen quality.

AT:How do you keep the space fresh and relaxing for when you’re not working?
RZ:I keep it uncluttered. The minute it starts to get untidy I start to get anxious. My life is so hectic I need a place where I feel like I can escape and find a little peace.

AT:What side of you dominates the space – the personal or the professional?
RZ:Unfortunately my biggest downfall is my personal life is my professional life. My poor husband has gone to sleep and woken up with gowns, furs, bags, clutches and shoes for fifteen years.

AT:How do you cope with all your assistants and film crews who come to your house?
RZ:My assistants are like family to me. We spend a lot of time together and we will often sit and eat meals with each other. My favourite time is when everyone has left for the day and I am able to walk around the house and enjoy the quiet.

Season 2 of The Rachel Zoe Project premieres Monday August 24th at 10 p.m. EST on Bravo.

Mullholand Drive - Star Gazer

This was my first house feature I ever did and I think it's still my favourite. After all these years the home is still as seductive as when I went there. It really shows when designing not to follow trends but aim for over the top  grandeur and you will have a home that will forever wow your visitors. 

"LA is a sexy place. If you are going to live here, you want a sexy house" says Steven Silverstein, in his native Los Angeles accent. "Somewhere that puts you in the mood to have a drink - to have a party. You know what I am saying?" Steven, a semi-retired fashion photographer and his Texan wife Gina, gave themselves the unthinkable time frame of one week to find a Fifties Modern house to purchase when they moved back to the United States from Paris. 

Their agent, a former Rodeo Drive haridresser, found them a 1958 classic by architect Richard Dorman which was completely out of the, couples price range. But the pressing time frame and 'love at first sight' prompted them to seal the deal. Today it's a place that has recaptured a romantic age of cocktail parties and the silver screen.

The house was built as one of the first show homes in this exclusive area, high in the hills above Hollywood, just off Mullholland Drive. These dwellings gave many movie stars, film directors and LA socialites their first taste of life in a modern home. Its striking roof, which swoops down from seven metres at its apex to just 1.5 metres at other corners, is all that can be seen over the boundary wall, but on the other side, three walls of glass means the boundary between indoors and the green canyon below with its deer, raccoons and coyotes, vanishes. It's the nuances of different light here that Steven loves. 

The mostly original interior includes turquoise splashed on redwood, mosaic double-sided fireplace, natural wood built cabinetry and Fifties light fittings. "The reason why we fell in love with this house is because it was unchanged, it was pure. We were taken aback," says Gina. "Dorman visited us which has made us really respect the house. He said it was his favourite project".

"Although we were cautious not to change the original colour schemes, there was a little too much turquoise in this house for our taste," admits Gina. The couple decided to sand down the kitchen counter top and the wood panel walls in the den, just leaving a trace of the colour in the wall's grooves. The original mosaics in the bathroom were repaired and a new slate floor put down in the bedroom. Even the Fifties black lino tiles were retained and waxed to a sheen. "We are both preservationists at heart," she says. "I think people rush into doing up homes to quickly". 

Antique stores in LA and Dallas were scoured to find furniture by legendary Fifties designers, such as Eames, Knoll and Nelson. "Because the house has nostalgia, it felt only right to have furniture and accessories that had contemporary clean lines and bold colours to match the preiod," says Gina. 

Guests who don't want the couple's infamous Hollywood parties to end are drawn to the kitchen in the early hours of the morning. The kitchen, a cocoon in the middle of the house, is lined with rich timber. It is the only room that is sheltered from the windows overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

The Silverstein's honesty to the period could have made their interior predictable but the couple's fun choice of colour and mixture of old and new have made it unpretentious and full of character. They were given a head start by purchasing an original Saarinen Knoll table and a chandelier from the previous owner which had been in the house since it was built. They also inherited some Eames chairs which, after their tattered shark skin covers were stripped off, revealed their original coloured fibreglass.

Steven has always had a love affair with Fifties and Sixties glamour. "I grew up in LA. I grew up with cars with fins. I saw turquoise mixed with white and colourful interiors. This way of living is in me from my childhood," he says. At 223 square metres it is small but, he says, "Who needs a McMansion to be happy? I have always dreamt about living in a house like this".

All pictures by photographer Richard Powers