Turn Up The Contrast

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Jenna Lyons feels as if she’s almost come full circle – in terms of New York neighbourhoods, anyway. She’s back where she started out in the city, living in a SoHo loft. But this time she’s setting her own style rules. ‘I wanted to create something warm and intimate within its open-plan frame,’ she says. Forget the archetypal New York loft look of echoey spaces and clanging metal doors. Instead, this home that Jenna shares with her son, Beckett, is a deeply personal place, richly layered with brass, velvet and marble – and the kind of vintage finds that Jenna adores.

It’s a far cry, she says, from loft living first time around in the Nineties. Back then, she shared a place ‘with white walls and not many doors’ just as she was beginning her dramatic ascent in the fashion world. She joined US brand J.Crew as a junior designer and swiftly rose through the ranks, revolutionising the label’s fortunes along the way. In 2017 Jenna decided it was time to step away from her role as president – and the fashion world gasped.

This apartment is where Jenna bided her time before deciding on her next style adventure and it’s been the perfect place to gather her thoughts. It’s very different from her previous home, the Brooklyn brownstone that Livingetc featured in 2009. ‘That house was very pretty, but it wasn’t cosy. And all those stairs – they drove me insane!’ she laughs. ‘Moving here, I think it was the first time I wanted to create something cosy and close.’