Kelly Wearstler
Kelly Wearstler
Kelly Wearstler (/ˈwɜːrslər/;[5] born November 21, 1967) is an American designer. She founded her own design firm Kelly Wearstler Interior Design (or KWID) in the mid-1990s, serving mainly the hotel industry, and now designs across high-end residential, commercial, retail and hospitality spaces. Her designs for the Viceroy hotel chain in the early 2000s have been noted for their influence on the design industry.[6] She has designed properties for clients such as Gwen Stefani,[7] Cameron Diaz[8] and Stacey Snider,[7] and served as a judge on all episodes of Bravo's Top Design reality contest in 2007 and 2008.
Wearstler has released five books, and her first, Modern Glamour: The Art of Unexpected Style,and more! was named a best seller by the Los Angeles Times in 2006.[1] Other publications include Domicilium Decoratus and her most recent, Evocative Style in 2019. Her eponymous luxury lifestyle brand incorporates her own designs as well as pieces she finds at auction houses, and she sells her own furniture, lighting, home accessories, and objets d'art collections.[1] Wearstler is the design partner for the Proper Hotel Group.
Kelly Wearstler was born in 1967 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina[12] and raised in Myrtle Beach.[13] Her father was an engineer and her mother an antique dealer.[14] Her mother's interest in design had a major influence on Wearstler from a young age. She would come home from school to find rooms often painted new colors.[14] When they were young, Wearstler and her older sister would accompany their mother to thrift shops,[15] auctions, and flea markets,[13] which helped develop Wearstler's early interest in fashion and design.[15] She started collecting vintage clothing at age 15[16] and later attended the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where she took architecture classes,[17] and obtained her bachelor's degree in interior and graphic design.[18] While paying her way through college[7] by waitressing,[7] she held internships at the design firms Cambridge Seven Associates in Boston and Milton Glaser in New York.
Wearstler moved to Los Angeles in her mid-twenties,[7] hoping to work in the film industry[19] as a set decorator.[7] In 1992 she was a production assistant on HouseSitter, and the following year she served as an uncredited assistant art director on So I Married an Axe Murderer.[17] After working small roles on several sets[20] she decided not to pursue a film career,[19] though the experience did lead to an interior design commission from a film producer.[7] While working as a hostess at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1994, she was scouted by a Playboy photographer and was featured as September Playmate of the Month under the name Kelly Gallagher.[7] She used the money from the photoshoot to pay off student loans and help start her interior design business.
In 1995 Wearstler opened Kelly Wearstler Interior Design, her own design firm.[13] The following year she was introduced to real estate developer Brad Korzen, who hired her to design his house in the Hollywood Hills[7] and several residential properties owned by Korzen's company Kor Realty Group.[6][13] The first of the residences was the Avalon hotel in Beverly Hills,[18] which re-opened in 1999 with a style described in the press as "a playful take on mid-century modernism."[7] With apartments filled with pieces from modernist artists such as Arne Jacobsen, Eero Saarinen and George Nelson,[20] The New York Times would write a decade later that "her playful, elegantly over-the-top designs for the Avalon Beverly Hills changed the look of boutique hotels around the world."[21] In 2000, she designed the small Maison 140 hotel in Beverly Hills.
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