Yards Ahead
There is something about this place that you don’t get in Chelsea or Hampstead. It is a mixture of things, but Notting Hill is very special. I can’t believe it has taken me so long to move here.” Kelly Hoppen, interior designer extraordinaire, is a girl after The Hill’s own heart. That one who has made such a huge impact on the world of interiors chooses to live here – in this little W11 pocket and not anywhere else – is, in many respects, a privilege.
An MBE no less, Kelly has made her name over the years applying her magic touch to homes and retail collections, writing several books on her craft and teaching budding creative types to be the best at what they do. “I had stopped the school for a while for purely selfish reasons as I simply did not have enough time,” Kelly says. “But this new space made it the perfect opportunity to start it up again.”
Instead of the standard showroom or shop, Kelly has created a mini Hoppen World, tucked away off Chepstow Road. As you enter the cobbled stretch of St Stephen’s Yard you are met with a room turned inside out. In the courtyard, huge comfy armchairs sit upon a Persian carpet; palms rise up to meet oversized hanging lampshades. Vases hold candles and giant pieces of white coral, while rustic chairs with their own back stories await someone to sit on them and start telling a tale. Nothing, though, says “please don’t touch” – if anything, it is incredibly welcoming and a breath of fresh air from the stuffiness of a large shop.
“It’s a miracle that we found this place,” says Kelly. “It is not a shop front and not on the road. I could have had another shop but this was too perfect a concept. People can come down, have a coffee, wander around and then, if they want something specific like a light or something, we can take them into the design studio to look through thousands of catalogues and my private archive.”
Thanks to this amazing space, Kelly is also adamant in helping others raise their profile right alongside hers. “I want exhibitions here of young artists, professional artists – all along the walls. We currently have a display of images from a photographer named James Herner, a local guy from Portobello. It is really important for me to become a part of the area and embrace everything within it.”
Kelly has had a turbulent year. In April, she split from hair stylist Nicky Clarke and Kelly split amid rumours of the celebrity coiffeur’s wandering eye. No doubt the current recession has added to a rocky 2009, but it seems Kelly’s new home has given the designer a new lease on life too.
“This year has been difficult but it’s made me that much more determined to keep going. The recession hit everyone really hard and whilst I am very busy and always have work, times have changed.
My suppliers have had to adjust their prices and I now have a different outlook. America is much better at being upbeat. Sadly the British have an affinity with wallowing in their own crap. Since I am the leader here and everyone looks to me, I have to have a very positive attitude and be grateful we are still in business.”
For someone who works so hard, and travels so extensively, Kelly is positively glowing. Incredibly petite and with that barely contained hair framing her features, it’s clear Kelly herself is as carefully turned out as the homes she designs – turned-out enough to meet the Queen, perhaps? “I couldn’t believe it when I found out I was going to receive an MBE. I was supposed to keep it a secret until the official announcement, but I called my mum straight away and cried.”
On the day, the press however decided to focus on Kelly’s killer heels that, she says, have a story of their own. “The shoes were possibly the most comfortable I had ever bought,” she remembers, “but on the day my feet shrank and the shoes were too big.I had to walk up the aisle with the Queen at the other end, knowing that I had to curtsey afterwards, in these shoes that were now too big. I clawed my way up there with feet like a crow, gripping on for dear life.”
Despite having met the Queen before, this, Kelly says, was much more special.
Up close, HRH reminded Kelly of her grandmother, with radiant porcelain skin and a “pretty tiny” frame. “She was so lovely, she asked about my career and offered me congratulations, but all I wanted know was what does she keep in her handbag? I am desperate to know!”
Closer to home, Kelly speaks with such enthusiasm about Notting Hill, of being able to leave her house, get a coffee on the way to work and talk to the local shop owners with a familiarity often lacking in other communities. “I get up and go for a run at around 6.30am along Portobello Road and down Golborne Road. I see all the market-stall holders, and they wave and call out. I love the fact that we even still have a market, that it is a tourist attraction; that it is historic. And I love the banter. I can sit at Daylesfords or 202 and one of the guys from Karma Kabs will pull up and come and talk to me about politics, and then a friend of my daughter’s might ride by on his bicycle and stop for a chat. This place is certainly one of a kind.”
102a Chepstow Road, St Stephen’s Yard, W2 5QW, 020 7471 3350, www.kellyhoppen.co.uk