Inside Out

Can interior design be as personal as therapy? The chameleonic, loyalty-inspiring work of Charles & Co. suggests an answer.

- By Gaby Wood.

“People tend not to cheat on their interior designer,” says Vicky Charles, who, along with her business partner, Julia Corden, has spent the past decade embedded in the private lives of public people. “You can cheat on your architect or your contractor but not on your designer, because they get to know your life.”

When Vicky and Julia founded their interior design firm, Charles & Co., in 2016, they were 39 and 35, respectively. Their assets included a hard-earned reputation (Vicky had spent 20 years overseeing interior design at Soho House), stellar connections (Julia is married to the actor James Corden), and an instinct for discretion. Other than that they were, in their own words, “winging it.” Since then their client list has grown to include David and Victoria Beckham, Amal and George Clooney, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Harry Styles, Emma Stone, and many more. Some 70 percent of these clients come back—and those, Vicky says, tend to need, on average, attention paid to at least three homes. (Charles & Co. has designed four interiors, including offices, for the Beckhams.)

That level of loyalty doesn’t stem from the color of the cushions. It’s because Vicky Charles—proudly adaptable—listens to the way you want to live. This goes for a centuries-old canal house in Amsterdam or a lodge in upstate New York, a house in Barcelona or a hotel in the Alps. “So many people say to me, ‘What's your style?’” Julia reflects. “Well, our approach means that there is no style.” Instead, she suggests, with the air of a life coach, she and Vicky “take you on a journey to know yourself better.”