Expressive Interiors | Jo Berryman — Decorating by the Book

Jan 15

Jan 15 Expressive Interiors | Jo Berryman

Suzy Chase: When two podcasts collide, magic happens. Welcome to Dinner Party, the podcast where I bring together my two hit shows, cookery by the book and decorating by the book around here. We're all about cooking, sharing stories behind recipes, and creating a cozy home. I'm your host, Suzy Chase, a West Village wife, mom and homecook. Inspired by Martha Stewart trying to live in a Nora Ephron movie, surrounded by toile, plaid, cookbooks, decorating books and magazines, cooking in my galley kitchen and living my best life in my darling New York City apartment in the cutest neighborhood in the city, the West Village. So come hang out and let's get into the show.

Jo Berryman: Hello, my name's Jo Berryman and my new book, Expressive Interiors is out now.

Suzy Chase: What inspired you to make the transition from fashion styling to interior design? I'm so interested to hear about that.

Jo Berryman: I had a sort of a reawakening, I fell so out of love with not fashion per se, but the industry and I craved something that just had a little bit more longevity and meaning. And I had a shop at the time in Marylebone in London, it was called Jezebel. And I was going through a whole slew of changes, massive changes. I just had my first baby. I was in the process of separating from my husband. My business was unfortunately folding, and I just knew, right, I have to make this transition of this transition doesn't happen now, when am I ever going to do it? And interiors and interior styling and curating beautiful spaces was just like the organic next step and it just kind of ricocheted from there. Well, I first, at first had my home featured in a few magazines, and I would get approached by women who would carry magazine tears of my bedroom in their handbag for months on end. And I remember my very first project that I took on with just simply myself and my wonderful Polish builder, purer, was this gorgeous pied-à-terre in Notting Hill, and that was just so much fun. That was my birth into the interiors domain and now the rest is absolute history.

Suzy Chase: So how does being born and raised in Hong Kong inspire your design choices today?

Jo Berryman: It's interesting actually because I, without a doubt, Hong Kong, that sort of bed draw. I mean, it was like Hong Kong is a city of opposites and beautiful chaos. So it helped me embrace polarity and I think it's really given me a really quite canny sort of eclectic eye. In Hong Kong, you'll quite often see a corrugated iron shanty dwelling next to this bear moss of a gleaming high rise or a beautiful sort of little shrine on the corner of Tsim Sha Tsui and a really sort of heady, chaotic street, the ability to embrace opposites.

Suzy Chase: Is that where you got your love of pattern clashing?

Jo Berryman: It must be be this subliminal love of it because I've always loved conflict and tension, but tension used in a playful way. Opposites for me creates movement and dynamism, but certainly paddle clash, not just a thing. I guess it's like how can you work with a pattern and a texture, work with them so that it can convey some kind of movement, some kind of poetry without it being so to OnOne? One of my absolute pet hoes is things being too trite or too contrived or too matchy, matchy. I hate that expression, but you get what I mean. It's like, come on. It's like we live in this earth. Nature is chaotic and it's beautiful. Nature is a perfect example of how pattern clashes to perfection. And you just look at the colors on a tree and in the autumn and just the ombre effect from red, gold, brown vareen to olive, and there's pattern clash everywhere and it just feels so correct to kind of use it, I feel. So it's been my humble opinion. I enjoy using it as a modality within design for sure.

Suzy Chase: I'm looking at your pattern clash section in the book now. I think the word clash is wrong because there's nothing clashing about everything goes together.

Jo Berryman: Exactly. Well, it's about creating a subtle sort of disruption. I think clash actually. I agree. Clash makes it seem like a negative modality, but it really isn't a way of elevating or twinning in a way that creates kind of some kind of spark or ignites a kind of, oh my God, oh, la la that's a conversation starter. Oh, I love the leopard print with the tartan. Or let's go for some graphic print wallpaper. And I tell you what would be the perfect sofa in there, but we'll go for something much more traditional. Let's go for a velvet flocked chesterfield. Do you know what I mean? It's like there's kind of this tension of opposites creates interest and spark, and that for me feels so important to use within a space or to at least create spark within space within spaces.

Suzy Chase: Now, do you have some kind of a through line like a color? How do you pull it together?

Jo Berryman: Well, it depends. Obviously it's entirely different. For myself, I can talk from my own experience. So for me, I always start with some sort of kernel image or a kind of a nucleus, a point of design, be it a piece of artwork or a fabulous cushion that I've just held on for years and years and years. And from that I tend to kind of discern a palette, whether it's just a subtle sort of neutral backdrop. And then upon that backdrop, that's the canvas that holds the drama, so to speak. Upon that, I just start displaying and applying with abandon and frenzy, but it's different. And with myself, obviously I can be a little more chaotic and my husband would complain that I do it way too often because I'm a complete and utter change maker all the time, and that drives him and rest of my family insane.

But with a client, I go in a very sort of more ordered trajectory, but I start the process in much, much the same way. I begin with a, I could call it, it's almost akin to speed dating. It's like I talk to them about everything and anything, stuff that they love, food that they want to eat, music that they're into colors, a band that they were obsessed with when they were a teenager. It just helps sort of color discern the palette that I'm wanting to imbue their home with. And often someone would present me with something that they want to be the source of inspiration for their homes, whether it's a beautiful ceramic piece or a piece of jewelry that belonged to their grandmother. They'll say something like, please do I want my bedroom to be sort of imbued with the luster of this brooch that belonged to my granny Vera. Inspiration comes from so many different sources, and it's like a sort of, I guess it's a distillation process that emerges, hence the use of, I often use, so rather than your traditional mood board, I refer to my process as a bloom board, which kind of suggests an organic fluorescence. It's like if you think of the franci code, it's like this idea of how so many different sparks, so many different ideas can emerge from one little kernel image or idea or song or a fragrance even. You can use pretty much anything that inspires you.

Suzy Chase: Now is that the very first thing you do in the design journey with your client? Do you sit down with them? Do you have a set list of questions or do you just start talking?

Jo Berryman: eIt is, it's talking. It's like how can I extract as much information from them as possible without being too invasive or too forensic? Well, I mean sometimes often it's very much like a therapy session, so they feel that they can be quite open and quite honest with me. And I've often joked that it's like, especially if you're dealing with a couple, it's you are the third person in the relationship. It's a bit like a menina ois. You're kind of dealing with quite different sort of personalities and trying to hold each one in their own space and take everything in and take what they want in collectively as a family, as a couple, and also really be quite nuanced and quite intuitive with what their individual needs are. But yeah, no, it is. I don't have a hit list of questions. It really is. As we're just chatting now, it's like a wonderful dinner with a girlfriend where you just sit and you just talk candidly for hours.

Suzy Chase: So you're a huge fan of lace along with industrial concrete. The improbable duality creates drama that you love. And can you talk about how you pair industrial concrete with lace?

Jo Berryman: I know. Well, again, it's what I've been harping on about that kind of this idea, this notion of embracing polarity or duality In this day and age, it's like there is no set thing and we are so disciplined in so many different areas of our life. So if you cannot find or truly authenticate within the confines of your own home, and if you love, so for me, I love the delicacy of lace, but for me, lace in its entirety on its own or used within a sort more traditional capacity feels quite twe. And I don't mean that, I don't to be too demeaning about lace, but lace is beautiful. It's become a very sort of suburban kind of trope, really. You have your lace curtains, there's something quite sort of old school about it too. However, playing on sort of riffing on that traditional aspect, it's like, well, how can you disrupt it a little so concrete or any sort of industrial finish, like a sort of flash metallic or some sort of oxidized brass is quite a beautiful juxtaposition to have alongside lace. It's very much in the similar vein as how one would dress themselves. It's like you're not going to be, I mean, there's nothing wrong with being head to toe and lace, but an amazing,

Suzy Chase: There kind of is something wrong with that.

Jo Berryman: There is something wrong, but no, I mean, let's say let's, you've done, okay, maybe won't, won't don a lace catsuit, but yeah, let's say someone wants to don a beautiful bright red lace catsuit, whoa, alarming perhaps, but no, not if you disrupt it with some incredible piece of chunky architectural jewelry, just creates that pleasing disruption. And it's all about pleasing, pleasing and sort of quirky sort of, Ooh, I love it when people are surprised at how things work out or often I will gently coerce the client to sort of push the boat out, and more often than not, they're often a little reticent. Maybe they don't want to go for the green moha, but more often than not, they do have a go and when they opt for the selections that I've kind of suggested, they're very pleased with the result. One particular project actually that I feature in the book called Suburban Maximalism, I think that was the one that you were referring to with all the Hatten clash lesson. And she was just wonderful because she just was so up for everything and just up for color and pattern and art, and it was an absolute joy to work alongside her. It just became this sort of beautiful sort of collaborative journey where she was just like, should we just go for it, Jo? What color should we go? Let's just do the pink. When someone's really up for it, that makes the job a whole lot more fun.

Suzy Chase: In the beautiful forward, Rachel Ashwell wrote, Jo Berryman lives down the road from me in the English countryside, each of us in our own magical historical homes. As I began the process of renovating my home, I was massively inspired by the world Jo has created in hers. To me, her decorating style is where rock and roll meets beautiful, brave storytelling and an infusion of pure spiritual energy. How lovely is that?

Jo Berryman: I mean, she's just an absolute angel. That woman, I love her and I have copious amounts of respect for her. We have mutual, very dear mutual friends in common, and it's just such a treat that she's literally moved 10 minutes down the road. When I say 10 minutes, I guess. Yeah, I mean it's a 10 drive down the road and she's bought the most exquisite wizard stone farmhouse, and both of us, we have our gripes, our kind of big country house problems, but she's been a wonderful mentor actually, and it was her that inspired me to activate my book process. She said, Jo, this house is so incredible. You should really write a book. And she inspired me to come up with expressive interiors. Yes, I am. It's only grateful to Rachel because she really saw the vision and she kind of mentored me through the process.

Suzy Chase: On page 10, you described the day you knocked on the door of an incredible Victorian home in the wilds of Somerset. I'd love to hear that story.

Jo Berryman: That's the home that I'm in right now. Well, it's quite interesting, really, because to be fair, my husband had seen the house loosely. It was very, for a heartbeat, it was on the market, and then it suddenly got withdrawn. So he managed within that tiny little heartbeat window, he managed to see it because he was out here doing some business, and I physically never got to see it in the flesh. And when he was telling me about it, he was saying, Joe, you're going to love it. It's amazing. They withdrew it from the market and it was obvious that they didn't want to sell. And so we just moved to the neighborhood. We knew that we wanted to be in Somerset, and it was just somewhere that I'd done some work here. I helped develop a beautiful retreat center up in wit, friary, and we've got lots of friends in this neck of the woods.

It's quite a kind of progressive, interesting town. So we were doing, what we normally do is you do your kind of little drills we do driving around where you would potentially want to live, and we came across an ivy clad gate, and Philip was just so alarmed. He was like, Joe, I think this is it. I think this is the property. And he said, let's drive through and let's knock on the door and let's see if they're in. So we drove in through the door and it was very much, it was a very sort of classic over, I mean the house is stunning, but it's like it was kind at the time it, it needed a lot of undoing to it. So we knocked on the door quite gingerly, expecting that no one to be in. And our lovely predecessor opened it and welcomed us in with open arms and a whole sort of, in the UK we call it like a tea and biscuit deal.

We just come in for chats and tea and biscuits, biscuit and a deal kind of emerges. And what was clear to us was that they really wanted to get to know the next owners of this house because it was almost like a sort of energetic passing on of the baton. And they phoned up and they said, when they knew that we were desperate to buy it, they phoned us up after quite a bit of winter and they were in their eighties. And a large stone house is quite uncomfortable to live in when you're in your eighties. They were literally inhabiting just one little tiny area of the house and they said, it's yours if you're willing to meet us at this price. And we just jumped at the opportunity and the rest is kind of history. But I'm so just grateful because they've left us so many wonderful gems. I mean, it's quite incredible to think that this property that we're in was their downsized property. They'd moved from a chateau in France, so you can imagine every surface, she was a master upholsterer, so every surface was clad in paper. There were helmets and curtains and fringing and haded walls everywhere. So in order to get it to the state that I needed it to be in, we had a lot of undoing to do before any doing could actually be done.

Suzy Chase: Have they been back?

Jo Berryman: Only to the door? Bless 'em. I think we've changed it so much just to pick up some mail and those usual requisite things, but not for a very long time Now they've moved quite far away now. They did so much. They did the, I'm so grateful for just the delicate bones they left and the spiritual architectural pieces. It was so beautiful.

Suzy Chase: And on this house, you worked with architect Takero Shimazaki?

Jo Berryman: I did, yeah. Well, he's worked on a few of my projects, a few of my projects for clients and all of my personal home projects. He's a good friend and we're good collaborators because we couldn't be more different. He's like a zen master. He's so brilliant. He's such a brilliant architect and he kind of has such a beautiful language when it comes to sort of visualizing the spacing and existing spaces of buildings. And he actually came up with the vision for our kitchen during lockdown actually, and we were just, we'll go with anything. We'll go with whatever you sketch up. We just need something to change here. Yeah, it was based just on a few videos, like little kind of iPhone videos and some photos. So it's quite amazing what emerged from just sort of very candid photos and lots of deep conversations on Zoom.

Suzy Chase: Speaking of emerging, talk about the plaster finish in the library.

Jo Berryman: Oh my goodness, yes. Well, wow, that was quite a revelatory find really because, and it was a complete happy accident because I went through this process of okay, of this undoing, so scraping back the layers, but as we were scraping back these layers, something so beautiful started to emerge beneath and this wonderful, you can probably see it physically now, it's not as, it doesn't come up as nuanced across the screen, but the most beautiful sort of faded plaster finish with just the essence of decades of papering that had just been left before leaving, almost like ghosts of wallpaper past just kind of imprinted onto the wall. And we just thought, wow, this just looks magnificent. Let's just keep this as is because not only does it imbue the space with such a lovely warm womb-like feel, it just looks so rock and roll. It looks amazing, and it's like the perfect canvas firm just displaying beautiful artworks and all my lovely timber finishes and metallic finishes, and it kind of takes in, we've got beautiful windows just throughout, and the light changes just seasonally. And I think this particular room just always maintains this kind of sense of warmth and just feeling like you're sort of cocooned in a womb. It's my favorite womb like space throughout the house.

Suzy Chase: I love the chapter called Artful Mysticism about Alice Instone's historic property near Rye. You wrote, Alice's connection to the past is palpable, not only in her connection of the physical aspects of her home, but also through her approach to household objects. I would love for you to chat about Alice and then that quote,

Jo Berryman: Oh my goodness, Alice is one of my most favorite humans on the planet, and she's like this ultimate cray tricks. She's just incredible how she kind of manifests so much beauty sort of within her world. She's an artist first and foremost. And initially she started, she's completely self-taught. She started painting beautiful figurative visuals, images of women predominantly she's painted quite famous, sit like Annie Lennox, and I've sat for her, not famous, but I've sat for her, which was how I got to know her actually. But it was a wonderful process actually, just sitting with her and actually being studied by her. Quite searing, very thoughtful gaze. But yes, she's built this wonderful, this literal Alice Wonderland in Rye, and her home is just a complete reflection of who she is as a human. Everything that she owns has been reaper. There's nothing new. She never purchases anything new.

She just repurposes existing objects. If something's broken, she fixes it. She'll find some kind of flea market piece of someone's trash, which will be her treasure, and she will just ignite it with a whole new lease of life. And her art is so folkloric and whimsical, and her home is exactly that. It's so funny, when we were shooting, we went up into her attic space and there was no joke. There was this spinning wheel sort of embedded into the eaves of her rooftop, but it literally was, it was like this kind of ominous wooden spinning wheel hidden in the rafters. But it's just loads of wonderful elements like that there in one of her outbuildings. So it's this wonderful sort of chime of many different eras. So fundamentally, the base, it's a Tudor farmhouse with sort of Georgian outbuildings and 1960s intervention. So there's lots of really interesting little sort of insertions dotted throughout her home.

But in one of her outbuildings, you can even see there are these jacobian, so that's like 17th century, which Scrawlings just emblazoned all across her walls in the upstairs bedroom. And it was there. They were these protective kind of talismanic kind of scrawlings to ward off evil spirits. And it's that she sees that and she turns it into even more of an artwar it. It just fills me with so much joy. I just had to absolutely feature her home within the book because for me, she is the true embodiment of just expressive and authentic interiors.

Suzy Chase: Now, for my segment called The Perfect Bite where I ask you to describe your perfect bite of a favorite dish,

Jo Berryman: Food is my love language. So I really hope I don't offend any sort of staunch vegan listeners, but it has to be. My favorite bike would a succulent leg of salt marsh lamb that has just been massaged in a really good olive oil and a good Cornish sea salt and homegrown rosemary, maybe a touch of lemon zest, seared to beautiful, crisp around the exterior, but beautifully blushing and moist within. So I pair that with some sort of nutty Anya new potatoes, which are like these gorgeous knobbly, little kind of earth apples that they look like little fingers and just a very fresh Herbie salad. And that for me would be my meal to end all meals.

Where can we find you on the web and social media?

My website is jo@joberryman.com and my Instagram handle, it's Jo Berryman Studio.