Words: Russell
Photography: James Harvey-Kelly
Luke Edward Hall was once described by Vogue as a “wunderkind”, which makes him sounds terribly modern. But, in many ways, the young artist is of another era entirely.
Luke’s enduring appeal is his remarkable marriage of the contemporary with the wonderfully anachronistic. His work is peppered with references to the authors of the 1920s and 1930s; it’s a world of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies and his bright young things with dashes of Jazz Age colour and splashes of Martini and Dubonnet.
Lots of colour and equal amounts fun on this drinks tray
His distinctive, semi-scrawled handwriting recalls a time when people wrote letters (or at the very least still penned desperate notes in the heat of some young summer love) and has adorned dozens of London’s oofiest invitations and event posters in recent years. If you bring up Vogue’s wunderkind epithet with Hall, however, he will suddenly turn bashful and admit that it was something he never asked for, though “it’s still very nice of them”.
What makes Hall a wunderkind?
Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2012, Hall has become something of a barometer of good taste in London. He is an interior designer and furniture sourcer extraordinaire at households up and down the country and has curated campaigns with Burberry, Bicester Village and the Parker Palm Springs hotel in Los Angeles.
Interior design advice from the master
Leopard print carpet might not be for everyone but it works in the world of Luke Edward Hall
His advice on design is pretty simple: “Don’t be afraid of colour.” There is nothing wrong, for example, with having pink walls and leopard-print carpet. After all, if you get tired of such an outlandish colourway, “you can always just paint over it”. In this brave new world, you might change your surroundings as often as you change outfits.
Colour can be added on a big and a small scale
Still, there are simpler ways to add excitement to a home. “Lampshades, cushions, small things can introduce colour into a space,” says Hall. But, really, homes are small fry. “What I really want to do is design an entire hotel,” he says. “From all the interiors to the menus and everything. Create an entire experience.” Hall seems to have an ideal in his mind of the perfect hotel — a small, quiet, family-run retreat, most likely in the Italian countryside. In fact, Hall’s latest work is something of a mood board for what may follow.
What is he doing now?
Shelves can come in all shapes and sizes
Hotel Majestic was unveiled in June at Alex Eagle Studio in Soho. It’s a neat distillation of everything that has made Hall so popular — a semi-fictional take on the 1920s that imagines the adventure of a particularly smart set across various Riviera retreats, dotted with the Hellenic profiles and handsome characters for which Hall has become famous. It is, in the words of the wunderkind, “an ode to the romance of travel and the magical joy of discovering new places with someone you love”.
The need to know (or just mildly interesting)
- Hall opened his first studio in 2015, only leaving university a couple of years prior
- His work has appeared in Burberry, Christie’s and the Royal Academy of Arts
- He has always wanted to design a hotel from start to finish (and we hope he one day does)
This article originally appeared in the July/August issue of Gentleman’s Journal. Subscribe now to get the next issue sent straight to your door…
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