Celestial Objects

Through her new platform, Gallery, design superstar Kelly Wearstler is bringing unique art and furniture to a global audience

- Melinda Sheckells

KELLY WEARSTLER KNOWS how to make a first—and lasting—impression. Whether you just discovered her via her Instagram account, bouncing through the streets of Paris, flea-market hunting and gallery strolling in mismatched Nikes, or if you fell in love with her almost two decades ago as the bestdressed judge on Bravo’s Top Design, Wearstler’s distinct style has written its own chapter in the 21st-century canon of interior design. File it under contemporary Hollywood glamour with nuances of Malibu maximalism—an explosive combustion of unexpected colors, materials, textures and forms.

Visually defining the modern West Coast aesthetic wasn’t something she set out to do. Originally from South Carolina, Wearstler earned her communication design degree at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design before following her star to L.A. Her eclecticism, which she describes as an “intuitive juxtaposition of contemporary and vintage, architectural and organic, graphic and instinctual,” captivated a high-profile client base, including real estate developer Bradford Korzen of The Kor Group. (Korzen would become her business collaborator and husband.) In addition to designer, her long list of titles includes author, retailer, television star, creator of collections of furniture, lighting and fabrics—and now gallerist.