Sophie's World

With over 200 days a year spent travelling, global citizen and interior designer Sophie Mir knows how to trod the path more travelled.

- Audrey Phoon

To describe Sophie Mir in a nutshell, we need to talk about bicycles. Specifically, the velocipedes in the basement carpark of her Orchard apartment block. Seven of them are installed proudly on a wall rack, gleamingly handsome things bearing some of the most well-known brands in the cycling world. At the end of the row, off the rack and leaning quietly in a corner, is a simple unmarked model in subtle matte silver accented with a pop of orange.

The minimalist design belies its pedigree, as we later learn. The bicycle is by two-year-old Swedish maker Velosophy, which partners Unicef on a one-for-one programme not unlike that by social enterprise and shoe label Toms. For every bicycle sold, it donates another to a school-going girl in Ghana, where research has shown that bicycle ownership can lead to better class attendance rates and academic results. But this one belongs to Mir, who, among many other hats, also wears that of a Unicef ambassador.

Who is Mir? Like her bicycle brand, it’s not a name that will ring familiar to most. The Swedish-Persian interior designer isn’t one to seek out the limelight and has so far been studiously tight-lipped about her business, Sophie M Home, not least because it serves royals, top-tier celebrities and corporations across Europe, the US, the Middle East and, now, Asia. (This interview, in fact, took months of persuasion.)

That global grid means Mir’s life is a madcap whirl of planes and apartments, private jets and palaces. The petite, frenetically energetic brunette works across time zones and spends over 200 days a year shuttling among her bases in Dubai, London, New York, Stockholm and Singapore. In fact, she’s just stepped offa flight the day we meet her. “I can’t let you in,” she worries at the start of our interview in her apartment, only half-joking. “I left the hairdryer on the floor, it’s a mess.”