THE ANSWERS WITH... BRIGETTE ROMANEK

The interiors maven talks about photography, her favourite cars and the watch she rarely wears.

- Justin Fenner

SHE MAY HAVE founded her award-winning design practice only in 2018, but over the past five years Brigette Romanek has achieved a list of accolades that would take some a lifetime to accrue. Since setting up shop, the Los Angeles-based interiors maven has applied her aesthetic eye to everything from the Piaget boutique in Beverly Hills to the stylish homes of Beyoncé, Gwyneth Paltrow and Joe Jonas. Each of her spaces is filled with a joyful mix of furnishings, artwork and decorative objects as wide-ranging as her own life story.

Before she came to the design realm, Romanek, 49 – the younger daughter of singer-songwriter Paulette McWilliams – scored her own record deal and later created a successful line of handbags stocked at Barneys and Harvey Nichols. (Kate Moss called her directly to place an order.) She landed her first big interiors project when a friend, who was enamoured of Romanek’s much-referenced Laurel Canyon residence, asked for help with her own space – and insisted upon paying the designer for her efforts. A (second) career was born.

Ultimately, Romanek says she’s driven less by a specific aesthetic and more by emotion, which guides her whether she’s working for a family or tackling big projects, such as her recent furniture collaboration with Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. “My work is being able to figure out what will make people feel good, and that’s hugely important,” she says. “I’m in the business of making people feel joy and feel safe in the world when they close their doors. So I take it very seriously.”

What have you done recently for the first time? 

I went to Gstaad. I’m working on a chalet there. I read about it before I went, but you cannot capture it just with words. It’s so, so beautiful.