The Unstoppable Kelly Wearstler
The interior designer has transformed herself from an influential voice in American decor to an incessant force of nature.
Keeping up with interior designer Kelly Wearstler sounds utterly exhausting. On a fall afternoon that appears to be completely normal for the 54-year-old powerhouse, she is personally overseeing a five-day photo shoot of her latest hotel, the 148-room Downtown LA Proper; working on various residences and commercial projects, including another hotel in Miami; churning out new products and collaborations with artists; and ramping up her own e-commerce efforts to include limited-edition pieces created in collaboration with artists and craftspeople she’s commissioned in the past. Not to mention designs for a 200-foot, new-construction yacht—”probably the most detail-oriented project I’ve ever done”—and various mixed-use developments.
Sounds a bit manic, doesn’t it? Not to Wearstler. “I have about 60 people working in my studio now, and we take a very curated selection of projects,” she says. “We’re definitely a boutique firm, and I want it to stay boutique.”
The best way to think about the designer wouldn’t be to compare her to a New York architect or to an industrial designer like Philippe Starck. Instead, it’s best to think of the svelte Angeleno as a modern-day Walt Disney in heels. No type of work sounds out of bounds, and everything stays close to the chest in terms of its adherence to a kind of personalized brand vision, fueled by a loyal cadre of partners and collaborators. Case in point, and further veering into Tinseltown territory: her studio’s latest department is one dedicated to CGI renderings and video projects. In March, she starred in a video created by her team that imagines a fantastical futuristic mega-garage in the Southern California desert for the new electric Hummer from GMC. It’s part Star Wars, part ultraluxe real estate video, and all so very Kelly. “I would never have thought that I would be working on the reimagining of a new car,” she says. “It’s kinda cool!” she continues in a typically relentlessly sunny Californian way. “You just never know who’s going to call.”
Wearstler was born and raised in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, by a young mother who was a fan of vintage design and interiors and sold vintage pieces on the side, and a father with a “math brain” who was an engineer. Somewhat isolated from high culture growing up in her hometown, she was inspired by fashion and design and devoured magazines but had little exposure to high design, and originally went to school in Boston for graphic design. But thanks to a handsome architecture student who was in her college studio, Wearstler picked up the idea to take classes in architecture, which led to a double major and encouraged her to spend her free time in New York, where she absorbed the design culture there like a sponge. “My projects have a real graphic quality, and I think that’s where this all came from,” she says.
After her Boston years she continued to take classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York while assisting the late famed graphic designer Milton Glaser (known best for his iconic “I Love New York” logo). Through it all, Wearstler waited tables to support herself and pay off her student loans. “I just loved the social aspect of it,” she recalls, once again adding a positive spin on a past that others might recall reluctantly.
Think of the svelte Angeleno as a modern-day Walt Disney in heels.
After she moved to LA to pursue design work in the film industry, Wearstler continued to wait tables until a friend of a friend needed help with a dining room in Venice Beach. One commission led to another, and soon she had enough resources to open her first studio, a tiny space on La Brea. Her big break came with the redesign of the Avalon hotel in Beverly Hills. It started when she met real estate developer (and future husband) Brad Korzen through an actress friend from her waitressing days, and helped Korzen redo the common spaces in his properties. When he began work on the hotel with a group of investors, she managed to convince them to hand the reins over to Wearstler. When it opened in 1999, the midcentury hotel was revived to its glory days—Marilyn Monroe once lived there—and, in turn, a major element of her design aesthetic was born: a crowd-pleasing reinterpretation of Hollywood Regency glamour that felt contemporary, livable, and luxurious.
Then, in 2004, her book Modern Glamour made Wearstler a media darling, and she used its pages not only to sell her designs, but also to place herself front and center, which was unusual at the time for someone so young, glam, and naturally at ease in front of the camera. (Her early books, which frequently featured Wearstler in different gowns and fashion statements, could be seen as presaging her status today as an Instagram superstar with more than 1 million followers.)
Later on, Wearstler’s restaurant at Bergdorf Goodman in New York spurred an invitation by the retailer to create her first shop-in-shop and sell her own creations. In just six months she created her entire retail concept—pulling ideas from the bespoke pieces she created for her residential clients and other vintage finds—and the New York outpost launched a new era for her career as a product designer that she would continue to expand to this very day. The store at Bergdorf’s would last 10 years.
The rest is design history. Wearstler shifted the visual culture’s balance in the U.S. to the West Coast years before it was cool to move to LA. The kitsch-heavy town was ripe for reinvention, and the young designer was a pioneer in that respect. Not that it was easy. “It was hard to find great, talented people” in LA in her career’s early days. “It was a really difficult, stressful time.”
Today she’s a bit of a booster for the LA scene, as one of her many recent projects was guest editing this fall’s edition of the Los Angeles City Guide from Louis Vuitton. Her advice on visiting the city? “It’s about a mix of high and low,” she says, sometimes lamenting the loss of the many boutiques she used to frequent as a younger designer, often driving around town and manually hauling antiques in the trunk of her car for her projects. “I love the East side of the city; it reminds me of the LA that existed when I moved here.”
In addition to her collaborations with the likes of GMC for the Hummer, her discerning gaze has extended to the four corners of the design world: a line of paint colors for historically minded English brand Farrow & Ball; a series of small sculptures that look like melting disco balls with Dutch art collective Rotganzen that is sold on her own site; and Transcendence, her latest line of furniture and accessories that includes striped dining tables in wood and a series of resin storage pieces that are lined in walnut and appear to be made from clay. She loves promoting her collaborations and using her hard-won fame to lift up others in the business. “I adore being their megaphone,” she says.
Aside from her many hotel projects and endless collabs, one of her most inviting and intriguing projects was her own Malibu Beach house, which she lived in during the pandemic for eight months so she and her family could be closer to the water during lockdown (she surfs, too, of course). The 1953 house was in remarkable, near-original condition. “It was such a special house,” she says. “It has such a special energy.” The house has since sold, but the photos of the space—warm, midcentury vibe with lots of Italian influences and natural materials—illustrate in detail just how far the designer has evolved in her 20-year career, whereas most of her contemporaries would simply hit the repeat button and churn out the same schtick year after year.
Did the pandemic even begin to slow down Kelly Wearstler? Of course not. Her latest obsession is tennis, which she plays with her sons. The dynamo works out two hours a day, frequently starting with tennis lessons at 6 a.m., followed by pilates before lunch. “I thrive on being busy,” she says. “I don’t sit around. Ever.”
L'OFFICIEL Winter 2021 is now on newsstands and is available to order online here.
