Living Colour

It takes just a glance at the joyful prints and palette of her brand to realise Tory Burch is a consummate colourist. It’s a skill that infuses her whole life, as Marianna Cerini discovers when she visits the designer in her New York home

I see my life in colour. It’s the first thing I notice. I’m drawn to the way colours interact with and complement one another… The subtle variations within the same shade: navy, cornflower, and periwinkle, or orange, mandarin, and coral. Living in full colour is my guiding principle—from the way I raise my children to the way I approach my work.” So reads Tory Burch’s introduction to her 2014 book, Tory Burch: In Color. Stepping into the designer’s home on New York’s Upper East Side, the words ring true. Artfully layered furnishings, each in vibrant shades of red, orange, or green, sit by opulent wallpaper or deco-style monochrome walls. Prints—of flora and fauna, geometric, all ebullient—are recurring fixtures. So are artworks both large and small, Chinese pottery, and old collectibles. The overall effect is a luxurious riot of bright hues and patterns. “It’s eclectic,” says Burch, “and very much me.”

Occupying an entire floor of the Pierre, a lavish Fifth Avenue hotel facing Central Park, it’s been home to Tory for 20 years, “although for the first four we [she, ex-husband Chris Burch, and sons Henry, Nick, and Sawyer] lived only in one of the apartments.” Tory acquired the floor’s other apartment and hallway about 15 years ago and worked with her friend Daniel Romualdez, an architect and interior designer, to meld the spaces into one home. “I remember Daniel sketching out the framework for the expansion on a napkin one night over dinner,” she recalls. “It took him only a few minutes, but we stuck to it. Nothing has ever changed from a structural standpoint.”