It's no surprise that fashion designers have beautiful homes. After all, they know a thing or two about colour, texture and design. Off the runway, their homes are inspirational spaces bursting with opulent architecture and luxurious furnishings. From Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade to Gianni Versace and Yves Saint Laurent, we've rounded up the best and most outrageous abodes in the business for you to tour...
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel is known for her timeless female tailoring and making the 'little black dress' a wardrobe staple. Chanel went beyond the realms of couture clothing, putting her self-designed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s, onto jewellery, handbags and even fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, is an iconic product, worn famously by Marilyn Monroe.
Known for adoring the finer things in life, Coco of course had a beautiful home, but it wasn't a typical one. Instead she chose to stay permanently at a high-end location; a luxurious suite at the Ritz Paris, frequented by the fashion icon for 34 years. Chanel first stayed in this regal hotel in 1937 and moved in full-time during the Second World War.
The suite also houses some of Chanel's personal belongings, including various photographs and portraits, some of which have never been seen on general display. Fancy spending the night in this luxurious room? You can enjoy this piece of fashion history first-hand, if you have a spare €5,300 ($5.7k or £4.6k) per night that is!
The Louis Vuitton label was founded by Vuitton (seen here in a version of his famous portrait) in 1854 on Rue Neuve des Capucines in Paris. Lovers of monograms and fine leather goods flock to his designs to this day and his iconic style lives on through his original family home. The Louis Vuitton’s Art Nouveau house outside Paris, is open to the public. Located in Asnières-sur-Seine, a quiet suburb of the French capital, this property includes traditional trunk-making ateliers and a renovated gallery space.
Recently renovated by Xavier Lemoine Interior Architecture, the Vuitton family home is now an elegant and timeless space where made-to-measure furnishings, bold wallcoverings and delicately painted murals create a nature-inspired Art Nouveau property.
With a calming green colour pallet and plenty of natural light from the large windows, the interior of the home reflects the high-quality craftsmanship of the Vuitton brand, a blend of artisanal products, classic French style and practical innovation.
The Vuitton family left the home in the mid-1960s, maintaining the workshops for production. As well as the original family home, you can take a look around the gallery space, La Galerie, which features 23,000 artifacts chronicling the history of this iconic fashion brand.
Famed for her use of sleek lines, simple colours and sexy female silhouettes, Donna Karan knows all about simplistic, effortless style. It's no wonder then that the American fashion icon’s Caribbean holiday home oozes sophistication.
In 2014, Donna Karan sold off part of her 10-acre Caribbean estate, known as The Sanctuary which she bought in 2002. Priced at a whopping $39 million (£31.5m), the two luxurious villas on offer were located on the popular resort of Parrot Cay on the archipelago of Turks and Caicos.
Covering an impressive seven acres, these stunning villas offer three outdoor swimming pools, a private guest lodge and a formal dining veranda for intimate alfresco gatherings. Plus, with the golden sands and crystal waters of the ocean just moments away, this Caribbean retreat really is heaven on earth.
Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was well known for his daring creations and glamorous lifestyle. His mother was a dressmaker, so it was only a matter of time before Gianni created a brand for himself, putting his learned skills to good use. His most famous designs included sophisticated bondage gear, polyvinyl chloride baby-doll dresses, and silver-mesh togas... not for the faint of heart! Despite his unique sense of style, Versace was a powerhouse figure of the 80s and 90s creating an empire.
And his love for opulence continued at home. In 1992, Gianni Versace purchased this stunning villa on Ocean Drive, Miami Beach. Known as Casa Casuarina or the Versace Mansion, from the outside, it may seem like your average luxurious celebrity mansion, but take a look inside and you'll see this home is anything but standard...
That’s right, inside the property dazzles with the vibrant and daring style that we’ve come to love the Versace brand for. Renaissance frescoes, antique furnishings and vivid colours meet in this truly exceptional high-design dwelling. Today, thanks to a sensitive renovation, the property maintains the lively decor that Versace put in place. Vivacious, loud and hard to ignore, Gianni's former home is still a reflection of his personality.
Versace purchased the property for $2.95 million (£2.2m), as well as a neighbouring Art Deco hotel for $3.7 million (£2.8m). Despite the fact the adjacent hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Versace controversially demolished it in order to build himself a 54-foot swimming pool, complete with 24-karat gold tiles.
Now a luxury Miami hotel, The Villa Casa Casuarina was purchased by Victor Hotels Group at auction, Donald Trump even put in a bid, in 2013 for $41.5 million (£33.3m) and remains a living memorial to an incredible designer. Fancy spending the evening in this stunning property? Rooms cost anywhere between $617 (£496) and $1617 (£1300) for a single night.
Although she spends most of her time on her estate in Connecticut, this striking rooftop dwelling is part of Furstenberg’s six-storey pad in the trendy Meatpacking District of New York City. Also used as a headquarters for her brand, the live/work space looks incredibly futuristic from the outside.
Designed by WORKac, the penthouse apartment is built from an angular diamond of glass and sits on a scenic green roof offering fantastic views over the city. “We wanted a shaft of light that would cut through the building diagonally,” says Andraos, Co-Founder at WORKac speaking to AD, “and we knew it needed to originate at the top of the building. We were inspired by the bold, faceted jewelry Diane was doing at the time.” Inside the luxurious light continues, with strategically placed heliostat mirrors that direct sunlight down the 80-foot staircase, which is covered in around 3,000 Swarovski crystals.
The contemporary structure is not only home to von Furstenberg’s penthouse apartment, but to her design studio, flagship store and administrative offices. Sadly, only the flagship store remains after the business faced financial difficulty in 2020, but you can still shop the iconic brand online.
At its height, the Marc by Marc Jacobs brand had over 200 retail stores in 80 countries. Although dissolved in 2015, Jacobs maintained his other brand, called simply Marc Jacobs, and continued as a fashion powerhouse, acting as Creative Director of Louis Vuitton from 1997 to 2014. A committed advocate for gay rights, Jacobs also has a passion for interior design, as you'll see in his homes.
Jacobs sold his New York City townhouse for an estimated $12 million (£9.6m) just as he was getting wed to partner Char DeFrancesco in Spring 2019. The designer had originally put the three-bedroom West Village home on the market the previous year for nearly $16 million (£12.8m) but dropped the price by $4 million (£3.2m) in the run up to his wedding, finding a buyer for the 4,346-square-foot property the next day. Jacobs bought his Manhattan home in 2009 for $10.5 million (£8.4m), so he still made a tidy profit.
In the living room, a 1962 Ellsworth Kelly painting hovers above the mica mantel, Diego Giacometti bronze stools and Jean Dunand lacquer cocktail table. “I just want to live with things I genuinely love—great Art Deco furniture, pieces from the ‘70s, and contemporary art,” Jacobs told Architectural Digest in 2017. “But I didn’t want the house to feel like a pristine gallery or a Deco stage set—just something smart, sharp, and comfortable.”
Soon after his 2019 marriage, Jacobs purchased this stunning 6,000-square-foot Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Rye, New York for just over $9 million (£7.2m), according to The Wall Street Journal. The designer had been searching for an architecturally significant home in Westchester County to use as a weekend retreat, while he sought a smaller property in the city during the working week.
US fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger is known for his chic lifestyle brand, where classic styles meet sleek lines in block primary colours. Founded in 1985, Hilfiger wanted to create his own menswear line. Speaking in 2010, he said "maybe it's the small-town boy in me, but I've always loved the prep school look, traditional Ivy League, and the clothes that sailors and jocks wear. I wanted to take these familiar old things and give them a more laid-back attitude, to make them modern and cool". But how does this translate to his home's style?
Far from the Ivy League, both geographically and in style, Hilfiger's former beach house in Miami, which he bought in 2013 for $17.25 million (£14m), seems slightly removed from his renowned all-American vision. Inside Tommy Hilfiger's house is anything but preppy. The home was created by interior decorator to the stars, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who took inspiration from psychedelic art galleries of the 60s and 70s. Photographed by Zachary Balber, this colossal mansion covers over 14,000 square feet and boasts seven individually-styled bedrooms and eight large bathrooms. "If it's not shagadelic or groovy, it's not coming into the house," Hilfiger's wife, Dee Ocleppo is said to have told Lawrence Bullard.
The designer is clearly a man of eclectic tastes, because his 22-acre estate in Greenwich, Connecticut is a world away from his kaleidoscope pad in Miami. Hilfiger and his wife Dee bought the traditional-style six-bedroom house and grounds for $31.4 million (£25.2m) in 2010 before off-loading it for £45 million (£36.2m) in January 2021, according to Business Insider. The estate includes a 13,344-square-foot turreted main residence built in 1939, rose and water gardens, a swimming pool, tennis court, guest cottage, greenhouse and detached garage.
Seen here in 1982, French designer Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, better known as Yves Saint Laurent, is responsible for one of the world's best-known designer brands. As well as couture, YSL is also the makeup and accessories go-to for celebrities and luxury lovers alike. After impressing Vogue Editor Michel de Brunhoff with his sketches in 1953, Laurent became head designer at Dior at only 21. A true talent, he also had a spectacular home.
Nestled in a secluded spot in the city of Marrakesh, Villa Oasis was once home to one of the world's most iconic fashion designers, Yves Saint Laurent. With its azure blue facade and vibrant yellow accents, the dwelling's architecture is a vivid celebration of colour, Art Deco and Moorish design. The acclaimed designer purchased the gardens of Jardin Majorelle in 1980 when he discovered they were about to be snapped by real estate developers. Along with the lush estate, he acquired the adjoining villa, which had once belonged to the painter Jacques Majorelle.
Yves Saint Laurent and the fashion brand's co-founder, Pierre Bergé, began to restore the gardens and house, creating a museum of Islamic art designed by Bill Willis in Majorelle’s former studio. In 2011, the museum was converted into a museum of Berber art.Over the years, the two would frequently retreat to the sanctuary of Villa Oasis, with its calming blue architecture and intricate Moroccan fretwork. When Yves Saint Laurent passed away in 2008, followed by Pierre Bergé in 2017, it's where the ashes of the pair were laid to rest.
Just beyond the house, the enchanting garden of Jardin Majorelle features a private pond pavilion. The gardens draw almost 700,000 visitors each year, but tours of Villa Oasis are restricted. One of the only ways to glimpse inside the elusive dwelling, which doesn't permit photography, is through an organised tour with the Four Seasons Resort Marrakesh, making it one of fashion's best-kept secrets.
A staunch environmental activist, particularly in her latter years, Westwood and her husband created something of a lush garden paradise in the backyard of their Clapham home, growing roses and jasmine amongst other flowers and plants. Unlike many of her fabulously wealthy fellow designers, Westwood did not speculate with real estate. “This is the first time I’ve been able to afford a house and I intend to stay in it, not sell it for profit,” she once said.
Nearly 50 years since he launched his own ready-to-wear label, Giorgio Armani, who turns 90 in July 2024, remains the emperor of luxury fashion and at the helm of a global company spanning fashion, home, travel, fragrance and sportswear. From humble beginnings in Piacenza in northern Italy, the designer is thought to be worth around $9.6 billion (£7.7bn) and has residences throughout Europe, the Caribbean and the US, where he owns a multi-million dollar mansion in Manhattan.
Although already the owner of an enormous apartment in the same building, Armani paid just shy of $17.5 million (£14m) to buy the penthouse next door in a 16-storey building overlooking Central Park in 2019 which dates back to the 1920s. He bought the place from John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile US, who bought the pad back in 2015 for $18 million (£14.5m) so it was a bargain really!
The purchase made Armani the sole owner of the entire top floor of the historic building, which features a 1,700-square-foot wraparound terrace with stunning views across Central Park. The four-bedroom four-bathroom apartment spans more than 3,000 square feet and is a fitting mansion for the designer, who is known for his exquisite red-carpet-ready gowns, loved by the likes of Cate Blanchett, Julia Roberts and Margot Robbie.
Built in 1929 by Schwartz and Gross, who designed several prestigious buildings along Fifth and Park Avenues, the apartment retains much of its intricate original detailing, although it has been remodelled and updated in recent years. The finely carved floor-to-ceiling mantel, which frames a wood-burning fireplace is a central feature of the living room, which boasts an 11-foot-high ceiling and leaded stained-glass windows.
Unique to the apartment is this high-ceilinged tower that overlooks the city and features arched stained-glass windows which lend a church-like feel to the space. The apartment, according to Architectural Digest, is rumoured to have once belonged to publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies. In an earlier refurbishment, her initials were discovered in one of the apartment’s fireplaces and a woman resembling her appears in one of the panes of stained glass.
With homes in Milan, where he is based, the Sicilian isle of Pantelleria and even in Antigua in the Caribbean, the king of stylish tailoring is never at a loss for a place to lay his head. But if it’s Christmas, he’ll usually head to La Punt, just outside the fashionable ski resort of St Moritz, where he celebrates the festive season every year at his three-storey traditional 17th century stone parchment-coloured house.
Creative director of Chanel, Fendi and his own label, Karl Lagerfeld was one of the world’s most influential designers. Born in Hamburg in 1933, he was credited with reviving Chanel’s fortunes in the 1980s and did a pretty good job at igniting his own. By the time he died, aged 85, in February 2019, he had amassed a fortune estimated to be around $190 million (£153m) and had homes in Paris, Hamburg, New York...and a villa in Monaco on the French Riviera.
Karl Lagerfeld totally renovated the Belle Époque-style Villa La Vigie on the French Riviera when he made it his summer house in 1988, just five years after he began his long association with Chanel. Built in 1902, the creamy white property is located in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, on a hilltop overlooking the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean and is one of the most prestigious residences in the area.
The 6,400-square-foot mansion has six-bedrooms, four-bathrooms, two dressing rooms, a library/billiards room and elegant reception rooms like this one, where the designer conserved the original wall panelling, columns and crown moulding throughout. Beyond its connection to Karl Lagerfeld, who lived here until the late 1990s, it is well known for being used as an observation post during World War ll by German forces.
It is easy to imagine the enigmatic designer entertaining his illustrious guests in this spacious dining room, and now it’s your turn to live like the so-called Kaiser of Fashion if you happen to have deep pockets. The property is now available to rent through Edge Retreats from upwards of $53,000 (£43k) per night over the summer period and includes access to famous Monte-Carlo Beach Club private beach and Olympic pool.
Outside a 2,500-square-foot terrace offers plenty of space where you can soak up the sun, or you can stroll in its exquisitely landscaped gardens. The designer used the location for his other passion, photography, according to the Monaco Tribune. Princess Caroline of Monaco and other members of her family were photographed here several times and the designer used the villa as a backdrop to display his work.
Alexander McQueen was in the throes of renovating a home in London’s exclusive Mayfair when he was tragically found dead, aged 40, in another of his properties in nearby Green Street in February 2010. The innovative British couturier founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992 and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. McQueen, who had dressed everyone from Nicole Kidman to Rihanna, passed away just nine days after the death of his mother.
Alexander McQueen was planning to return this striking Georgian townhouse to its original status as a family home. The blue plaque building was once owned by Jeeves and Wooster author PG Wodehouse. Queen Victoria’s grandson, Alexander Mountbatten, also lived there at one time with his wife.
It is unlikely the trailblazing designer would have decorated the apartment in quite the same style seen when the upper floors of the house came up for sale with Knight Frank in 2016, as seen here. The cream satin furnishings and glass chandeliers of the 2,500-square-foot luxury pad would perhaps have been a tad too cliché for the Lewisham-born son of a taxi driver, who was known for his original creations.
The upper floors of the house had been bought by a property development firm following the death of McQueen and were transformed into a duplex penthouse in honour of the designer, with photographs of his work adorning its walls. It was listed at £8.5 million ($10.5m), significantly more than the reported £2.5 million ($3.2m) McQueen paid in 2009.
McQueen had intended to turn the apartments back into one house and, according to an interview before he died, was anxious to move in so he could hang his art and do lots of cooking. The penthouse was on the market again in 2018, this time for the reduced price of £6 million ($7.4m), while the lower floors of the six-storey building were repackaged and listed after his death for £7.25 million ($9m).
Co-founder and co-owner of the designer brand Kate Spade New York., Kate Spade created beautiful and unique handbags and purses spotted frequently on the arms of celebrities and royalty alike. Kate also began Kate Spade at Home, a homeware brand, in 2004, also publishing books on style, etiquette, and decorating for occasions. Sadly, a housekeeper found Spade dead in her Manhattan apartment on June 5, 2018.
Spade's New York apartment came on the market just over a year later for $6.35 million (£5.2m). The 55-year-old designer had bought the immaculate Park Avenue residence with her husband and business partner Andy Spade 20 years previously for a reported $2.67 million (£2.1m) in 1999, and spent years gradually renovating it to reflect their unique style and vision.
The designer invited People Magazine on a tour of the apartment in 2016, where she explains it was because of the hallway she bought the apartment: “I loved that there was this breathing space when you walked in,”. The creative filled the space with carefully chosen artworks. “It’s the way I live and how I dress,” she explained.
The living room was much more eclectic when Spade resided here. The designer said she wanted to maintain the pre-war feeling of the apartment, but also introduced many modern touches in her choice of art works, including a black sculpture to right of fireplace she nicknamed “Snowman” and a painting above. Elsewhere are her wonderful collections of ashtrays and cigarette boxes. “I love this room. It’s open and doesn’t feel stuffy or uptight,” she told the magazine.
Kenzo Takada was born in Japan, but moved to Paris in 1964 to start his fashion career. Inspired by Yves Saint Laurent he made his own mark on the industry with his Asian and Japanese influenced style. He founded Kenzo, a worldwide clothing brand that also creates skincare and perfumes. Here he is in front of his exquisite Parisian villa, recently redesigned by celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, best known for Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium and Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen Museum. Sadly, Kenzo died in October 2020 of Covid-19 related complications aged 81 in Paris, reports CNN.
The villa is in Paris’s bohemian Bastille district and currently available to buy for only the third time since 1993 through Christie’s International Real Estate, with the asking price available on request. Accessed through the courtyard of an 18th-century apartment building, the awe-inspiring cedar-shingled structures is four storeys high and has four bedrooms and six bathrooms extending across 14,000 square feet of stunning living space. In addition to three studio living quarters for staff, it includes a gym, wine cellar, music room and sky-lit television room as well as an elevator.
A highlight of the East-meets-West lifestyle interior is a Japanese-style pavilion, with a traditional tea ceremony room, tatami-mat floors and Shoji sliding doors opening on to a serene Japanese garden with its own must-have stone-encased koi pond, stocked with Nishiki carp.
The expansive living room features a wood-burning fireplace and oak steps leading up to an elevated dining room that is separated from the kitchen by more Shoji screens, traditional Japanese paper screens which diffuse light throughout the house. Kenzo sold the villa in 1993, along with his influential brand to LVMH and downsized, selling off much of his art and antiques, and moving to a smaller house on the Left Bank, reports Interior Design.
The unique residence, with its own inner courtyard and planted terraces, took seven years to complete since all the materials were imported from Japan, so Kengo Kuma was reluctant to move too far away from its original spirit. “My idea was to keep Kenzo’s aesthetic vision and to see the house as a bridge between Japan and the West,” Kuma explains. The mezzanine-level study is decked out with floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, a freestanding stove and glass doors.
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