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Issue 59 - The Life Outside Issue

Issue 59

The Life Outside Issue

Introducing the Life Outside issue of Habitus magazine. With life increasingly being absorbed into a digital space, there is never a more important moment to hold something tangible. In this context, the power of nature to have a physiological impact on our sense of wellbeing has never been more important. So how can we cultivate the benefits of the our natural environment in the most intimate of places – our homes? This was the question that helped to bring this issue of Habitus to life.

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Design Hunter Q+A with Kerrie Brown
PeopleHabitusliving Editor

Design Hunter Q+A with Kerrie Brown

Renowned designer and Academy Award nominated set decorator Kerrie Brown shares her considered and eclectic design favourites with Habitusliving.


Your name: Kerrie Brown

What you do: printed textile and furniture designer and set decorator

Your latest project: printed tables, cupboards, wardrobes

Who are three people that inspire/excite you:

1) Ang Lee all his films are so visually interesting, and completely different from each other, he seems to be always pushing boundaries, I love that.

2) Patricia Urquiola I just love everything she does, so clever and classy ,two of my favourite things!

3) Yves klein, I can never get enough of that blue, at the moment I’m obsessed by it so I have to include him. The list could go on for days though!

What is your favourite…Car/bike/plane/boat model: Not my thing, but I do like Pirate ships so I’ll say The Pirate ship from PJ Hogan’s Peter Pan… I had the best time decorating it… lots of gold leaf and dark moody treasure filled spaces… Yummmmm 

Chair model: The peacock chair, ever since Morticia Adams sat in one, I love them all, wicker, painted, covered in canvas, covered in gold leaf (like the peacock throne)! Patricia Urquiola even has a version.

Residential space: Thomas Fowler’s apartment in The Quiet American… I’ll always love it . It was one of the hardest sets I ever had to dress because the space was round… I remember seeing it when it was ready to dress and thinking… thanks a lot Roger (Ford the production designer)! However, eventually the puzzle fell into place and like magic Michael Caine stepped onto the set and became Thomas Fowler and the set came to life and worked so well! In real life the rooftop apartment I stayed in in Prague which was owned by a lion tamer… it had photos of baby lions laying around on the couches and beds in the apartment, fabulous views over the rooftops and Cathedral. It was filled with a lifetime collection of gorgeous linen, crockery and quirky keepsakes… nothing really worked properly but it had a wonderful mad humanness and none of it was mine… I got to love it and leave it, heaven!

Commercial space: The China Club in Hong Kong stunning 

Decorative product: makeup… especially bright red lipstick!

Functional product: spectacles… great for a visually impaired design hunter!

Handmade good: Antique Lace

Mass-produced good: flowers – I remember driving past fields of commercially grown sunflowers outside Prague… they were an extraordinary visual feast… simply amazing!

meal: Local tomatoes, cheese, bread and wine served on a plastic food storage container lid, cut with a plastic knife, eaten on the roof top of an apartment in the village of Monterossa Mare in Cinque Terre.

restaurant: Celeste Restaurant on top of the Dancing Building, Prague, simply a beautiful space to be in, and Cha Ca Thuy Hong restaurant, Hanoi – terrible space , amazing food .They only have one recipe that the same family have been cooking for 100 years.

drink: red wine

bar: The Temple Club Saigon 2002.  The Upper House Hong Kong 2012 

item in your studio: my new jungle bird printed cupboard and The Arts Table top 

piece of technology: 3d digital printers wowee can they be real!

historical figure: Leonardo Da Vinci for being wildly visionary and other obvious reasons, Mary Shelley because she got to hang out with Shelley and read all his poetry before anyone else (probably) and mostly because she wrote the first science fiction/horror story: Frankenstein, Marylin Monroe … she was the first actor to show real emotions on screen and I think she was completely mesmerizing.

fictional character: Scout and Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird

vice: red wine

virtue: pilates

What does the term ‘Design Hunter’ mean to you? A visual obsessive compulsive with Libra rising.


About the Author

Habitusliving Editor

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Kerrie Brown


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Issue 59 - The Life Outside Issue

Issue 59

The Life Outside Issue

Introducing the Life Outside issue of Habitus magazine. With life increasingly being absorbed into a digital space, there is never a more important moment to hold something tangible. In this context, the power of nature to have a physiological impact on our sense of wellbeing has never been more important. So how can we cultivate the benefits of the our natural environment in the most intimate of places – our homes? This was the question that helped to bring this issue of Habitus to life.

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