Storage is the unsung hero of the home, whether displaying collections or hiding clutter. To celebrate its work we meet three homeowners to discuss bespoke solutions and pick the best new designs for an organised life
The sneakerhead: Alice-Emma Starr
When trainers replaced stilettos as the fashion world’s favoured footwear, Alice-Emma Starr was already one step ahead. ‘I’m tall, so I’ve never really been a collector of heels,’ she says. ‘I was really into trainers when I was a teenager, then they became this cult thing and it was brilliant for me. You can wear a beautiful outfit and put on a pair of Jordans and it looks really cool.’
Starr and her husband have amassed an impressive collection between them and, when planning the wardrobe in their new-build Hertfordshire home, wanted a stylish and functional system to house them. They were inspired by Flight Club, a sneaker store in New York, and had some practical considerations. ‘The sections had to be large enough so the pairs could be seen perfectly,’ she explains. ‘We didn’t want them looking stuffed in, so the design had to take over a whole wall.’
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Tiffany Duggan of Studio Duggan realised the couple’s vision. ‘We wanted the collection to be displayed like pieces of art. The shelving needed to perform the practical task of storage whilst looking clean and striking.’ She took the shelves right up to the top of the pitched roof, adding a sliding library-style ladder for easy access. ‘We kept the ceiling and shelving dark and used back-lit glass to add drama and illuminate the collection – giving the trainers maximum impact.’
Another notable feature is a Mondrian-inspired mirrored wall (described by Starr as ‘a pure selfie mirror!’) in smoked black-and-yellow glass. This simple visual trick effectively doubles up the collection– ‘a little smoke and mirrors,’ jokes Duggan. With around 200 pairs currently on display, Starr is a serious collector, but ‘none of them are box-fresh,’ she assures us – every pair gets worn.
High-fashion collaborations are a weakness (‘Adidas with Gucci, New Balance with Miu Miu...’), but her oldest cult classics are the Off-White x Nike Fly trainers by Virgil Abloh in bright pink. ‘They were hard to get,’ she confesses. ‘My most precious pair, though, are probably my first Air Jordan1s – my husband gave them to me when I opened my activewear shop.’ This is a family obsession that will only grow: ‘My 12-year-old son is the same size as my husband. We haven’t given him full access yet, but give it six months!’ studioduggan.com
The vinyl addict: Thomas Twigg
It was a 1,500-strong vinyl collection that was the most integral element of the brief when Thomas Twigg asked design firm Selencky Parsons to reconfigure the Victorian townhouse that he shares with his wife and son. ‘I wanted to make the records part of our lives, easy to access and visible,’ he explains. Selencky Parsons suggested installing a mezzanine, the stairs to which would house the vast collection.
The shelves are simple modules made from plywood with solid-oak fronts. ‘I wanted the most efficient use of space because there will come a time when I do fill it up,’ Twigg says. A local carpenter was engaged to help the vision become a reality. ‘You can see the storage blocks’ verticals, but they are slightly offset and that helps to break up the eye-line,’ he says. ‘It looks more pleasing.’
‘One of the things that annoys me in most houses,’ Twigg adds, ‘is that the record decks are often facing the wall, so when you’re DJing, everyone is dancing behind you!’ In this home, they sit in the centre of the room. ‘They act as a border between the old part of the house, the lower level of the new extension and the garden.
The sunken area becomes a little dance floor,’ he explains. A bespoke lighting system from Faith in Strangers (the event space Twigg co-runs in Margate) was chosen to spotlight the collection. ‘The squares light up and change colour. It reminds me of the big book stack in The British Library – at night it becomes this beautiful, glowing thing.’
It’s easy to understand the love lavished on this collection when you realise that, for Twigg, his records are an extension of his social life and memories. His most treasured disc is one his dad had as a kid, The Pioneers’ Long Shot (Kick the Bucket). ‘When he comes round I sometimes sneak it on; he’ll look at me and go “it’s my record”,’ says Twigg with a smile.
This project was realised at the height of the pandemic, which led Twigg to focus on what’s important in life. When he surveys his wall of sound and picks a record for friends to dance to, there’s his answer. ‘Ultimately, what I want to leave the world is a really good record collection,’ he confirms. ‘When this wall is full, you’ll be able to understand 90% of my personality.’ selenckyparsons.com
The bibliophile: Christen Pears
As a child, Christen Pears would return from secondhand bookshops carrying stacks of Enid Blytons and Nancy Drews. The habit became a life-long obsession, which now defines the design of the 18th-century farmhouse near Penzance that she shares with husband Chris and three cats.
During renovations, a living-room alcove proved the same depth as a Penguin paperback, so she tasked her builder with making bespoke shelves from the leftover Dinesen Douglas fir boards that had been used for the house’s floors and cabinetry. ‘In the early days, when I was trying to fill the space, I would buy a lot of new titles – it became a bit of an obsession for a while,’ she admits. ‘I still collect, but not in that frenzied way! There’s a few hundred, but I haven’t got round to counting them.’
Pears’ builder devised a self-supporting system where the shelves are attached to the wall but also joined together by uprights so that they don’t bow underneath the weight of her collection. And, as for the vexed question of colour-coded bookshelves, the Penguins have their own visual logic. ‘The fiction ones are orange, green are crime, pink are travel and adventure,’ she explains, adding, ‘I organise them in numerical order – not the easiest system for finding anything.’
Pears runs Middle Colenso Farm holiday cottages and admits to feeling infuriated when guests rearrange her carefully curated bookshelves, confessing: ‘I’m obsessed with keeping everything where it should be!’
Her paperbacks may be beautiful, but it’s their history that matters to Pears. ‘The whole paperback thing started,’ she says ‘when Allen Lane [Penguin’s founder] was on a station platform, fed up with lugging around heavy hardbacks. The books are iconic. Some are delicate. You have to be careful with them, but they’re there to be read. I love it when you find an inscription on the flyleaf or someone’s bus ticket inside.’
What happens when she runs out of shelf space? ‘I’ll just build more, because I find it hard to part with books! I get ridiculously attached to them. If you’re a book person, that’s what it’s like, isn’t it?’ middlecolensofarm.co.uk
