Opposites attract

Swedish-born designer Vanessa Fristedt’s East London home successfully combines a Scandinavian passion for clean lines with a collector’s eye for quirky British memorabilia and design

In the converted basement and first-floor flat of a period terraced house in Hackney, Swedish designer Vanessa Fristedt has skilfully drawn together the twin threads of her life. The large, bright inner hall, with its open staircase and wall of glass which looks out on to the sauna at the end of the garden, answers her Nordic desire for light and air, while the quirky decor and playful artworks speak of her immersion in the East London art scene.

A lot of the building work was done by an architect who lived there before Fristedt, but she has furnished the place in her own style. The wallpapers she has used are limited-edition designs by her friend Abigail Lane for the brand Showroom Dummies. In the study, dancing skeletons shimmy across the walls, while in the upstairs cloakroom the walls are adorned with a rich turquoise paper printed with shapes based on antlers – real examples of which can be found in the entrance hall, where they double as coat hooks.

Elsewhere, illustrations by contemporary artists such as Sir Peter Blake and Gavin Turk are employed in Fristedt’s art “tax discs”. Lane designed the circus-themed patchwork quilt and lion-motif cushions which dress the tongue-and-groove boxed bed, and Fristedt’s fascination with the circus is further reflected in the collection of framed photographs of clowns and clown masks on the wall above.

Another Showroom Dummies print, which Fristedt adapted, is the aptly titled Bottom, which can be seen on the cover of the piano stool in the open-plan living room upstairs. The out-of-tune piano was brought over from her family home in Stockholm, as was the large oil painting of Gustav III which hangs over the dining table. “It is a copy of an original that hangs in Sweden’s National Museum, but my uncle, who really bought the thing for the frame, customised it by adding a sixth finger to the right hand, a syringe, a plaster and a Mayflower badge on the coat lapel,” says Fristedt.

Perhaps Fristedt’s irreverent view of life and art stems from her family, but it was also the reason that she came to London more than 20 years ago. “I enrolled on a foundation course at Chelsea College of Art, and have simply stayed here,” she says.

Settling in the East End, she became friends with the artistic fraternity that lived there, and traces of them and their works can be found around her home. On the piano is a Richard the Lionheart toby jug by Sarah Lucas. Another of Lucas’s works – a crucifix made out of cocktail sticks together with a cigarette butt – hangs in a frame on the shutters of the window that overlooks the garden. Also hanging alongside it are illustrations from the art collective Le Gun and a piece by Gavin Turk.

In front of the shutters is a small table with a backgammon board set under a sheet of glass. Breakfast is served here on plates made by Lane for Fristedt’s 40th birthday, and strong coffee comes in mugs produced by fashion designer friend Pam Hogg. This small breakfast area is separated from the more formal dining table and the main sitting room by the kitchen, which is contained by a high-sided island unit.

Although Fristedt’s Swedish heritage is evident in her home, her love of her adopted country is also seen in her affection for the Queen Mother and the pomp and circumstance that surround the Royal Family. On the mantelpiece of the sitting area there is a trio of models showing two Chelsea pensioners with a small figure of the Queen Mother between them.

Fristedt has also created a range of jewellery from pearls and dried broad beans decorated with portraits of the Queen and Queen Mother. “In Cockney rhyming slang ‘old broad bean’ means queen,” she says with a grin, showing that she is as at home with our offbeat sense of humour as she is with British style.

swedishblondedesign.com

Wallpaper by Showroom Dummies can be seen in Walls Are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, until May 3 (0161-275 7450; whitworth.manchester.ac.uk)

Writers name

Vinny Lee, The Times 06-02-2010

Advertisers Company:

Consort Property

Advertiser's website:

http://www.consort24.com