- We actually back
onto a very large deconsecrated cemetery.
It's quite quiet around this area
because everyone is dead.
[laughs]
[classical music]
Hi, Vogue.
I'm Erdem.
Welcome to my home.
Today we're gonna talk about some
of my objects of affection.
[classical music]
We are in Bloomsbury.
This is a very kind of old area in London.
I'm married to an architect
who designed this beautiful house.
My first object is this painting
that used to belong to Duffy Ayers,
who was the previous owner of the house.
She bought the house in 1953
and sadly passed away at 103.
She was an amazing portrait painter
and actually the kitchen where we are now,
was where she used to do all of her painting.
This was her studio and I managed to find
this painting at an auction
and I thought there was something
really beautiful about bringing something back
into the house that would've been here,
something kind of poetic about it.
[lively music]
I went through quite a long phase
of collecting busts.
I would describe it as a kind of a compulsion,
my addiction to auctions.
The next object I'd like to show you
is this bust that I found
in an auction house in America.
She was listed as a 1920s wooden bust
from Florence and that's actually
all I know about her.
There's something really wonderful
about her kind of living here
on the windowsill with the light streaming in
and wee back onto a very large deconsecrated cemeteries,
one of the oldest cemeteries that existed
in London from around the 17th century.
It's quite quiet around this area
because everyone is dead.
So this is an amazing drawing by Cecil Beaton.
It's actually a sketch of Barbara Hutton,
the American heiress and she's wearing the kind
of Romanoff jewels.
It's also based off of a very famous photo
that he took of her as well.
What I love about it though, is the apology note.
To Barbara, with love
and apologies, Cecil Tangier.
What I'm intrigued to know is
what's he apologizing about.
Sometimes artworks can kind
of lead into collections.
A few years ago, I actually based a whole collection
around Cecil Beaton, called "The Age of Silver".
[playful music] [foot tapping]
This is our bedroom.
There's something really nice about the fact
that this is just the room that we sleep in.
One of my really favorite objects
is my coffee alarm clock.
The alarm goes off, the water boils
and then it kind of comes through here,
roll outta bed, move your arm, reach
and have your first coffee of the day,
which is great.
I definitely don't get eight hours,
which I should try to get.
The coffee alarm clock helps.
Just stay awake. [laughs]
Why sleep?
This is a collection of Victorian photo albums.
I think the Victorians were the ones
that really started this idea
of the family photo album.
Most tend to be kind of from that time.
This one's really special.
[gentle music]
It's also a music box.
Just a little bit creepy. [laughs]
Over here is another object
which is my parents' wedding photo album,
which I love.
My mother was from Birmingham, England
and my father was from Eastern Turkey.
They met in Switzerland and emigrated to Canada.
Sadly, they both passed away
when my sister and I were kind of barely young.
It's nice to keep them kind of close
and it just kind of reminds you
of where you're from.
This is a suit that I designed from...
It's actually from one
of my first menswear collections.
It's one that I very much love
and that I often wear.
In kind of creating a menswear collection,
there was something so liberating actually
in a strange way because so much
of that language that you have was something
that you could use or not use.
I kind of felt like a tremendous sense
of freedom to it actually.
We're just gonna go straight ahead
into our bathroom.
[bright music]
You get really beautiful light in here.
Over here is another one of my favorite objects.
There's something wonderful about having a bath
and having all of these faces kind of staring
at you while you're in the bath,
which is a bit funny.
Another object I have to mention that's here
in the bathroom is the shower
that Philip designed.
I love this shower
and you can see it's very open.
There's also something
almost kind of slightly institutional about it.
It's really wonderful and it's a wonderful thing
to enjoy in the mornings,
and I also love it because Philip made it.
[cheerful music]
I love this room.
It's the room that we hang out in,
generally where we relax.
We have a friend who's come to say, hello.
This is Pippy and I definitely
don't think she's an object
but she is someone I have a lot of affection for
and she's two years old
and she's a little cockapoo.
Shall we show them the next object?
Go on.
It's a full set of the "Yellow Book",
which was a magazine that was published
in the 1890s.
The artistic editor of the magazine
was Aubrey Beardsley and he designed
all of the book covers and illustrated all of them,
and he was probably most famous for illustrating
all of Oscar Wilde's books.
There was a rumor
that Oscar Wilde was carrying a copy
of the "Yellow Book" when he was arrested.
The "Yellow Book" is named
after literally yellow books
that they used to make around that time
that were basically kind of erotica.
This next object is probably actually one
of my favorite objects.
It's a painting by Kaye Donachie.
The painting's called "Glaze of Desire".
She explained that it's about catching someone
in between kind of a thought
and being present and not being present
and there's something so dreamlike
about her face.
She's kind of somewhere else.
We bought this painting on the day
that we got engaged, which is really special.
We both really fell in love with it.
Philip and I have similar taste
and then we also have very, very different taste.
I quite like a dusty antique store
whereas Philip's more architectural
in his approach in what he loves.
I think there's something really interesting
about the contrast about what we both love
and I think this house is very much about that.
It's a kind of a contrast between two people
and you can kind of feel it
when you're in the house.
So this is a large photo
of a young man by Wolfgang Tillmans.
It's actually the first piece
of art I ever bought
and I think his expression is kind of amazing
and it looks like he's being kind
of up all night dancing.
You can kind of see the perspiration
around the t-shirt.
There's just something that kind of reminds me
of that kind of a rebellious and kind of youth
that I think is so amazing and I think also,
it's such a modern image and the contrast
of it in this very old house feels really great.
So from the top floor,
which is probably maybe one
of the brightest areas in the house,
I'm gonna take you now
to the darkest area of the house.
Our basement.
Come on, Pips.
Here we are in the basement
which is where one of my objects
of affection lives,
which is just through this door.
So this is where the Japanese bath lives.
You can maybe tell
it's a little bit darker down here.
We're in the basement.
Philip had this genius idea
of lining the walls with cork
and you can see here this is a Japanese Ofuro Tub
which is a very traditional Japanese bathtub made
out of hinoki wood, which is a kind of type
of cedarwood which has a really,
really beautiful smell.
There's something kind of wonderful
about the fact that you can't actually
have soap in here.
It's just purely for soaking
and the kind of the ritual of soaking.
It's definitely probably the most relaxing object
of affection that I've shown you today.
[bouncy music]
Thank you, Vogue.
I've shown you all of my objects of affection
but someone needs a walk, so I better go.
[bouncy music]