Preen And Proper

The Preen designers’ bohemian home perfectly complements their diverse, sophisticated brand.

- Lucy Halfhead

Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi have been residents of the same quiet street in west London for over a decade. The husband-and-wife team behind Preen used to occupy their elegant Victorian townhouse alone; now they share it with their two young daughters Fauve and Blythe, a goldfish called Sushi, and the latest addition to the family, Ginger the cockapoo. “It was quite hard to actually see the house when we first looked around, because the previous owners had so much stuff,” says Bregazzi. “But we fell in love with the proportions, the natural light, and the fact that there’s a park at the end of the road—it was perfect for us.”

Today, as we sit sipping peppermint tea from vintage china cups, Thornton is dressed in his ‘uniform’ of suede Clarks shoes, Levi’s jeans, and navy Hartford linen shirt, while Bregazzi wears a diaphanous Preen dress imbued with the darkly romantic aesthetic cultivated by the brand over the past 20 years. While they look like born-and-bred Londoners, the duo hail from the Isle of Man. “It was an idyllic childhood,” she says, “and we were free to play anywhere we wanted to.” They lived at different ends of the island, and only met after enrolling in the same art foundation course. “I remember seeing Thea on the first day with a leopard-print bow in her hair and Dr Martens, and I thought she was very cool,” he says.