For someone who works in an industry based on trends, Georgiana Huddart is refreshingly unswayed by a ‘what’s in or out’ mentality. The creative director of Hunza G – whose sustainable swimwear is worn by the likes of Rihanna and Dua Lipa – admits she would only redecorate her house out of need, not want. ‘I don’t change my mind based on trends. The objects are what we’ve acquired, rather than decorative or specifically meant to sit in one place. It’s not curated; rather it’s cosy, minimal-ish and traditional,’ she says.
The entrepreneur’s uncomplicated approach to decorating derives, in part, from her upbringing in a Victorian house in Camberwell as one of six children to interiors-loving parents. ‘It was very Eighties, with wooden floors, a grand piano and flowery curtains,’ she says. One of her most valued childhood relics is a statue of her great-great-aunt Margaret, passed down to her sister, which she’d regularly dress up in hats with her siblings. ‘I like things to be cosy, but to look nice – I grew up with that vibe from my mum,’ she notes, adding of her current property, ‘our house is very much like how I want to live. I don’t like uncomfortable living’.
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Situated close to family in Ladbroke Grove (‘my mum lives around the corner’), Huddart’s home now is a large redbrick three-storey Edwardian house that she shares with her husband Gabriel Andrews and two children, Stella, two, and Frank, four- and-a-half. Located in the middle of a terraced road, the house is approximately two feet wider than its neighbours. ‘The builders built inwards from the end of the road and realised they had too much space when they reached ours,’ she notes, adding that the property is one of six in the road that backs onto a plot of undevelopable land. ‘All of our neighbours have ladders going over the back of the walls into the land, where all the kids play,’ she says of its Secret Garden-like magic.
Huddart bought the ‘modern but a bit rundown’ house two and a half years ago, and intended to keep renovations to a mini- mum. ‘Obviously that turned into changing the floors, walls, light switches, removing the doors,’ she lists, crediting a collaboration with Marcus Ayshford Sanford from Archidrum interior-design studio. ‘He had a really strong idea of what I wanted,’ Huddart says of the year-long renovation, which took place while she was pregnant with her second child and busy running her business. ‘I find making decisions quite easy and I’m pretty pragmatic.’
While she conforms to a strict ‘uniform’ of white, black, red, grey, and navy (today, she’s in all black: Helmut Lang jeans, a hoodie and Alaïa pumps), the creative director confesses to being ‘secretly quite girly’. ‘I wanted it to feel like an Italian palazzo,’ she says of the walls painted in Little Greene’s Linen Wash. ‘It’s hard to know how you want a house to look without living in it, so I went pretty safe with colours.’ Apart from her pink-hued bathroom, that is. ‘I either don’t like any colour, or like pink. It’s weird.’
Considered injections of colour are also to be found in the kitchen, with its aubergine-coloured marble splashback (‘I was quite scared of it at first, because you pick your slab of marble and then commit to it months before it’s installed’) and green Camaleonda modular sofa (‘we have kids climbing all over it every day’). Huddart’s love of minimalist traditionalism is also evident in her family-sized Julian Chichester dining table, Knoll Cesca chairs and Rose Uniacke chandeliers.
Rather than buy furniture specifically for the property, Huddart prefers to decorate with beloved collectables. ‘We’ve used what we have and made do,’ she notes of the living room’s green ottoman, gifted to her 15 years ago (‘it has stood the test of time’), a green Perspex ‘lady’ lamp, and a two-centuries-old, two-metre- long, angel-gilded mirror she bought from Kempton Market. ‘I bought it while earning the worst salary, living in the tiniest flatshare with three friends,’ she says, laughing. ‘I couldn’t not buy it, because I knew I’d want it at some point in my life.’ Other ‘souvenirs’ include crystals, fossils and a petrified-wood bowl by the fireplace. ‘When it comes to shopping for antiques or in markets, your expectations have to be really low,’ she advises. ‘If you go looking for a specific thing, you’ll drive yourself mad.’
Huddart has a keen eye for art, and works by the likes of Alba Hodsoll Studio, Faye Wei Wei and Sweeney Toddla hang around the house, creating a contemporary and classic, fuss-free aesthetic. As does a framed picture, made by Huddart’s son in nursery, in the downstairs bathroom. ‘He stuck lots of bits of leaves and wood on a piece of paper,’ she says. ‘People often ask me who the artist was, because they think it’s some conceptual, abstract piece of art. It brings me joy whenever I see it.’
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Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
