Thee dining room at Alexa de Castilho’s Brighton home is a sultry affair. The polished black glass table, surrounded by curvy gold Seventies chairs, reflects a dazzling vintage light that hangs from the ceiling. There’s a mini-bar housed in a shiny black jeweller’s safe and rattan chairs – though thrones might be a more accurate description – clustered around a huge African goatskin drum that doubles as a coffee table. Green jungle-print paper climbs the walls, echoing the real-life palms and banana trees in the small back garden. One half expects to bump into Bianca Jagger in her Studio 54 heyday, holding a cocktail and trailing cigarette smoke.
“When I designed this room I was having a lot of parties,” smiles Alexa, a striking Brazilian in a boilersuit and tiger-print utility jacket. “My style was dark and disco because that was what my life was like. It’s changed a lot since then but I’ll always be obsessed with the Seventies.” The interior designer and stylist grew up in that decade, in the Brazilian capital of Rio de Janiero, where her father worked as a coffee trader. “It was such a glamorous place back then. My mum and dad had a lot of parties and I remember big sunglasses, lots of jewels, sexy bikinis. It was a decadent time and I’ve always tried to recreate it in my work.”
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
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Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
