Faded Glamour by the Sea | Pearl Lowe
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book, hosted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
Pearl Lowe: I'm Pearl Lowe, and this is my latest book, Faded Glamour by the Sea.
Suzy Chase: It has always been a dream of mine, too, to have a house by the sea. I'm curious to hear how this became your dream. Did you spend a lot of time by the sea as a child?
Pearl Lowe: Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this, this morning. My dad, when we were really, really young, was obsessed with Miami, and so he bought a little condo there. It's so weird. As a kid, we used to go every Christmas, summer, and we'd just be in Miami all the time. Yeah, my childhood was full of the sea and things. My Nana was the one who brought me to the English, the British seaside.
Suzy Chase: What was it about Miami? That's so interesting.
Pearl Lowe: I don't know. Do you know what, it's so weird, because I think about it now and he was quite brave because we were pretty young, I've got two older brothers. I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was the food or obviously the warmth and he loved Americans. He just thought they were really positive and really lovely. He was so happy there.
Suzy Chase: Now, are you the person who likes to be just near the water or do you have to get in the water?
Pearl Lowe: I swim every single morning. We have a local swimming bath place near my house in Somerset, so I swim every single day. The sea here isn't like American sea, it's bloody cold. I only went in a few times last summer, but it was lovely just being on the beach and looking at it, but it was just a little bit cold for me.
Suzy Chase: You would have this conversation every summer with your husband, Danny Goffey, who's the drummer in Supergrass.
Pearl Lowe: Yeah.
Suzy Chase: Talk a little bit about that conversation.
Pearl Lowe: The thing is about Danny, he's not as into being in hot climates, because he's very British, very pale and he gets burnt and then white again.
Suzy Chase: Me too.
Pearl Lowe: Yeah. He also gets allergies, so sometimes if we go tropical he's like, "Oh, I've got my allergies back, my heat rash." I think what happened was we all had these knee jerk reactions to lockdown and I just was craving the beach and the sea. We've obviously had Brexit as well, so it's quite hard to just go to Europe and buy somewhere now, you're only allowed to spend 90 days there. I just said to him, "Why don't we just get somewhere by the sea and we can just go there whenever we want and we don't have to get on a plane and it's so easy." We found this house in Cornwall, but we lost it because somebody came in with a higher offer.
Pearl Lowe: To cut long story short, we found this pretty house. It's not on the beach, but it's about a five, 10-minute walk to the beach. You can't see it from the house, but you walk through this beautiful natural reservoir and you walk through and there you are. It's like you're on the beach.
Suzy Chase: What house did you finally agree on and where exactly is it?
Pearl Lowe: Cornwall's very overpopulated now. I mean, it's crazy, and especially since lockdown. This place is quite untouched, our beach is really private and it's so pretty. Honestly, in the height to summer last year, there'd be like one other person on there. It was crazy. We really lucked out. But it's near Hastings. Have you ever heard of Hastings?
Suzy Chase: Yeah.
Pearl Lowe: Yeah, so we're right near there, but it's so pretty and there's so many incredible antique shops and vintage fairs and warehouses. I've really lucked out.
Suzy Chase: Talk a little bit about your nostalgic love of the British coast and why it makes your heart sing.
Pearl Lowe: Well, I was really close to my Nana. She was called Betty and she was really amazing. She had bright red hair, she was six foot tall, she was amazing. She was a dress maker and she ran a casino at night. She was just so much fun, she used to take me with her. All her girlfriends, who were all dressed still in the '50s, they'd have big bouffants and bright red lipsticks and they were crazy. I spent so much time with her. She passed away when I was 18. I don't know, it just makes me feel like I'm close to her when I go there, you know? I'm kind quite near those places now, which is quite weird. Yeah, it's kind of weird because I'm about 40 minutes from Eastborne, well, not even, and also all the places she took me, Brighton's about an hour away. It's great.
Suzy Chase: Your aesthetic is faded glamor, which happens to be the title of your last book. Can you describe this?
Pearl Lowe: Yes. I mean, for me, I love anything history. I loved studying history at school, I love anything that has a story. For me, the flapper girls in the '20s, totally I would like to emulate. I just love them so much. The style and the beauty and the craftsmanship of anything from the '20s to the '50s too, but anything like that. I love things that have a history story, chipped, a bit imperfect, maybe a knob's falling off, I just like things that someone's loved and enjoyed and now it's yours to loan for a while.
Suzy Chase: Now, does that go into your fashion too?
Pearl Lowe: I make dresses for girls with boobs and bums. My dresses are based on '30s and '40s patterns, because I'm not stick thin. I buy a lot of vintage dresses, but unfortunately, if you think about it, they're 80 years old or 90 years, so they're really falling apart and the fabrics can't last. Also, you can't wash them, you have to dry clean them all the time and then you get holes on to the arms. I decided to create my own, but with the same aesthetic, but with lovely fabrics that you can put in the machine and wash.
Suzy Chase: I love that this book chronicles your questions and doesn't just focus on romanticizing the process of purchasing a house by the sea. Talk a little bit about some of the issues you had to deal with.
Pearl Lowe: With lockdown, we were only allowed to visit it once. Because we'd lost so much money on the previous house, we didn't do a survey. I don't know if you do surveys over in America, do you?
Suzy Chase: Yeah, we do.
Pearl Lowe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't do a survey, which is so stupid. Then basically the house was on biomass, which is this eco-heating system where you have to put logs in twice a day. That was actually broken anyway. It was just a money pit, it was crazy. Because it was off grid, we had to put a cesspit in. I didn't even know what a cesspit was. I mean, it was just like, "What? What's a cesspit?" It needed re-plumbing, we needed two boilers, we needed all new radiators, all new electrics. The first night we got here, my husband was like, "Oh my God, we've bought a glorified shed," and I said, "Well, yeah, I guess so." I was like, "I guess we have, but I'm sure it'll be amazing," but he couldn't see through that at first. A year down the line, we've done everything and it's just perfect.
Suzy Chase: In the book you say you no longer have the sense of wanderlust. Do you think it's because you found your dream home?
Pearl Lowe: Yeah. I mean, it's funny because there's a few things I love to change. I'd love to be able to see the sea and the house. In some ways it's great not being able to because then you're protected, because a lot of the houses that are on the beach, because we're one back from the beach, and those houses have to do quite a lot of maintenance throughout the year because of the sea and the air and quite a lot of damage happens. In some ways, we're really protected. But apart from that, I feel like it's such a retreat for me because I work 24/7. I mean, I'm always working, I'm working at midnight, I'm still answering emails and stuff. When I come here, I really switch off and it's great.
Suzy Chase: Danny says you have quite a bit of stuff. With a lot of stuff, you need to think creatively. In your kitchen you installed a beautiful brass rail across the beam, it's on page 14. Can you chat about that?
Pearl Lowe: Oh yeah. Yeah. I work with a company in the UK. Actually, they have a store in New York as well. It's called deVOL kitchens. I found them on Instagram. I saw this kitchen, I was like, "Oh my God, that is the most beautiful kitchen I've ever seen." I just called them up and I was like, "Look, would you like to collaborate?" This was when I was decorating my Somerset home, which is in the Faded Glamour. They said, 'Oh my God, we love your style. Yeah, of course we would." We worked together and I created this island. I wanted it to be like a haberdashery island with glass inside. They did this beautiful job in Somerset.
Pearl Lowe: When I came here, there was no question, I was going to ask them to collaborate again. They said, "Oh, Pearl, we've just got this new brass thing where you hang," and I was like, "Yep, that's perfect." They said, "We've got these new little curtains that go inside the cupboards," and I was like, "Brilliant, I'll have that as well then. Thank you." I think they look great.
Suzy Chase: Can you just describe what it looks like for people who don't know?
Pearl Lowe: It almost looks like a pipe, one of those copper pipes, and then you just hang all your pans and sieves and all that of stuff. Even though in the pictures our kitchen looks like it's fairly big, it isn't. It hasn't gotten much cupboard space, so it's good to put it up and not have it in the cupboards.
Suzy Chase: I love that idea, because you can so easily get to everything.
Pearl Lowe: Yeah. I mean, the thing is, like I said, I have so much stuff. I know I am a hoarder, I know I am. I find it really difficult to throw things away. Apparently, I get that from my Nana, but no one else in my family has it. That's quite hard, so then I have to think, okay, I've got to find alternative spaces for things.
Suzy Chase: Faded Glamour By the Sea is a collection of homes other than yours. Tell me about the homes in this book and how did you come to choose them?
Pearl Lowe: Again, it was lockdown, which was so tricky, because this book was supposed to be created abroad really. We were going to fly all these places and everything, and then obviously lockdown happened and we were very restricted. There were a few people, one, Helena Christensen, who I follow on Instagram. I've known her for years actually, but her style is unbelievable and really sums up faded glamor for me. She's a photographer, so she sent some of her photos and they just fitted in really perfectly with the book. Then obviously we've got Rachel Ashwell, who's art directed the book, and I love her Malibu home, it's so beautiful. Then my next door neighbor's house is just this labyrinth. You walk in and you're transported into another world. I mean, it doesn't even feel British. I asked her, she was a bit reluctant at first. She's very shy and she agreed in the end. That's one of my favorite chapters.
Pearl Lowe: There's a couple of other, again, it was very local. There was a video director that we went to in St. Leonards, who's got an amazing apartment, and this stylist that I knew from London called Mitzie Lorenz, she had this incredible house, which is in Hastings.
Suzy Chase: You just mentioned Helena Christensen. Her entry is on page 97 and it's entitled Beauty By the Sea, which I love. In the book she said, "I'm sure I was a mermaid in my former life or maybe I'm morphing into one for my next." Oh my gosh, I can totally relate to that quote.
Pearl Lowe: She is something else. I mean, not only is she one of the most beautiful women in the flesh, as well as on camera, but she's also super funny and super stylish. I mean, she's just got everything. She was definitely at the front of the queue when things got handed out.
Suzy Chase: She lives down the street from me here in the West Village and I see her all the time. I just want to be like, "Helena," but she'll be like, "Who are you?"
Pearl Lowe: She's really friendly and lovely. I was so happy when she said that she'd be included in the book. Like I said, I think I met her, honestly, something like 21 years ago or even longer. Yeah, I was quite struck by the way she dressed and her beauty. I mean, she's so incredible, but more than anything, her eye, she just throws things together and it just really works.
Suzy Chase: I'm dying to know. What is your favorite thing about living by the sea?
Pearl Lowe: Well, I have two dogs. I have one King Charles cavalier, who's 13 years old and she's called Angie, and I have a new dog called Doris, who's a year old, who's a little bit boisterous. I just love getting up super early in the morning and walking down to the beach with the dogs and just sitting there and just looking at the sea. It is so enchanting and I just feel like I've come home.
Suzy Chase: How does Danny like it? Does he love it like you love it?
Pearl Lowe: I think he does, but he's a real worrier and so he worries about everything. I think because it's been quite stressful, the build and the amount of money that we've had to spend, I don't think he's enjoyed it as much as me. The thing about Danny is he'll moan and moan and moan, and then when it's finished, he'll be like, "Okay, I get it." He's always like, "Pearl, what mess have you got us into this time?" But then when it's all finished, he probably even slightly takes credit for it.
Suzy Chase: You know, there's something about this book and faded glamor that gets me super excited about interior design, I think because you focus on the uniquely personal, well lived in decorating style. I get so much inspiration from that. How about you?
Pearl Lowe: Yeah, me too, because I always love innovators. I love people that just don't have to try very hard, that they just have it, and in that's in any style, I appreciate so many different styles. Especially what's going on with our planet right now, it's so good to think of our carbon footprint and not buy new and recycle and upcycle and buy vintage and antiques because we've got to save our planet. It's brilliant that people are starting to get into this look.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Pearl Lowe: Instagram is just Pearl Lowe and my website, www.pearlowe.co.uk. You can find textiles, furniture, clothes, everything on there, and I do ship to the US.
Suzy Chase: To purchase Faded Glamour by the Sea and support the podcast, head on over to DecoratingbytheBook.com. Thanks, Pearl, for coming on Decorating by the Book podcast.
Pearl Lowe: Oh, thanks for having me. It's been so lovely talking to you.
Outro: Follow Decorating by the Book on Instagram, and thanks for listening to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book.
