It is the kind of November day where the sun never seems to rise, but fashion designer Coco Fennell’s maximalist Leyton home is bright with light and colour.
There are, apparently, 46 different lamps in her house, including the giant, light-up crucifix on the wall; a hamburger lamp, glowing softly; and a plastic Jesus who stands, one finger pointing to the heavens, with a lightbulb on his head.
We are in Fennell’s living room, which is part carnival, part American diner, part treasure trove. It is simultaneously cosy, kitsch, chic, expressive — even funny. The combination, it seems, is Fennell herself.
The walls — white on this side, sultry dark green in the TV room — are covered in pictures and artwork. There is a jukebox in the corner, emitting a gentle, neon blue light.
The fireplace has been hand-painted in delicate pastels by Fennell’s friend, the illustrator and designer Bell Hutley. The footstool in front of us is made from a thick, rose-printed orange rug that Fennell bought in Romania. The sofa is soft and deep, and the Christmas candle has been lit.
“There’s no rhyme or reason to it, really. If a child would like it, probably I would like it,” says Fennell, who is wearing one of her own designs. But there are recurring themes here. “I love kitsch stuff. I love Vegas, Elvis, neon… I love Americana. Obviously, I love religious statues, circus, fairground. And I love signs.” She gestures to the retro Player’s Please cigarette advertisement above the sofa. On the other side of the room, there is a red popcorn sign, part of a theatre set, bought from a vintage shop in Brighton.
Fennell launched her eponymous womenswear brand in 2011, with her dresses now worn by stars including Rihanna, Paloma Faith and Kylie Minogue — as well as her sister, the film-maker Emerald Fennell. While her dresses have flattering, vintage-inspired silhouettes — 1950s to 1970s — her love of kitsch has fed heavily into her first unisex knitwear collection, which is launching next year. “It’s all horseshoes and convertible cars,” she says. “You would see them, and then you’d see this house, and it would make sense. I feel like it’s all just an extension of me.”
Thirty-seven-year-old Fennell, who lives here alone, bought this Victorian terrace in 2019. The house had a swirly Wetherspoons-style carpet, bobbly wallpaper and a kitchen that desperately needed replacing. “I walked in and instantly knew it was perfect,” she says. “The bones of the house were stunning, but it hadn’t been touched for a really long time.”
Fennell’s aim, she says, was to create a space where she could host friends: welcoming, warm, fun — the kind of place where “you can spill something and it’s not the end of the world”. Pictures were hung on the walls the day she moved in. “I love a renovation,” she says. “I’m very decisive. In other avenues in my life, I’m not like that.”
Fennell is, by her own admission, the opposite of Marie Kondo. “I’m like: more, more, more.” Her lovingly curated collection of trinkets and homewares is the fruit of trips to vintage shops, early-morning visits to Kempton Antiques Market, and hours spent trawling eBay, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. Fennell searched for a decade for the red, adult-height Tintin rocket which now stands in her living room displaying interiors magazines. It was eventually located on an auction site for circus and fairground equipment. “There’s an auction site for everything. I found one the other day for automobile signs. I thought: uh oh, we’re in trouble now.”
Opposite the rocket are two long-lusted-after ceramic tigers, the size of large dogs, crouched by her fireplace. “I had an eBay alert for giant ceramic tigers. I don’t know how to turn them off. I got them 10 years ago, and every day, large ceramic tigers flash up on my phone.” Fennell’s dinner table stands beneath a billowing length of red-and-white striped fabric, as if under a circus tent. There are red stripes on the carpets, on the curtains in the guest room upstairs, on the bathroom walls. “I will always have a red stripe. There’s no getting past it.”
On the stairs, there is a portrait of Fennell herself, painted by the artist Tessa Maudlin. She sits reclined on her sofa, blue-haired, wide-eyed. In the guest bedroom, a red velvet banner reads: “UNTIL TOMORROW THEN”. Above the bathroom door is a protruding shark’s head, and further along, a pair of Gatsby-esque spectacles are hung above a dresser with the same vintage motif. “Someone else had bought me this as a present,” she says, touching the dresser.
“They hadn’t seen that I’d bought those. Isn’t that mental?” Every item, says Fennell, has a story behind it. “I know where I got it, I know when I got it, I know where I was living. It holds a lot of memory for me,” she says. “That’s why I find it hard to get rid of stuff. It’s a kind of hoarder’s paradise.”
But Fennell’s house is on the cusp of change. She is getting married in December and moving to a higgledy-piggledy coach house in Bow with her fiancé in the new year. The new house, like all her treasures, was another fortuitous find. Charmed by its exterior, she and her partner put a note through the door offering to buy it. The phone rang a couple of days later: the owners were downsizing — and had actually done the same thing when they bought it themselves.
“I love this house so much. I would never have left,” says Fennell. “But I think it’s nice for us to start fresh together. This, as you can see, is very me. There’s not much room for anyone else’s stuff.” As we walk around her house, she points out pieces that must go: the neon “Coco” sign in her kitchen, the gramophone from India embossed with flowers. Even, possibly, the ceramic tigers.
Some compromise will be necessary. Fennell’s partner is not a fan of stripes (“it’s quite the bone of contention”) and has vetoed wallpaper in the bedroom (Fennell currently has a hot air balloon print in hers). “He is much more measured. It’s not like me, throwing it all together. I feel like it’s going to be a bit more grown-up… a little bit more chic.”
But old habits die hard. Out in the hallway, there is a new delivery, fresh from Facebook Marketplace: a small, coral-coloured velvet sofa. And on the landing are three large painted panels, imported from Italy, which will go on the ceiling. “They will fit at the new house, so I’m very excited,” says Fennell.
“But I’m not looking forward to packing everything up. Tiny little trinkets, little breakable trinkets, everywhere.”
