Our Helios home: inside the former BBC Television Centre
Our Helios home: inside the former BBC Television Centre
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Charlie Casely-Hayford and Sophie Ashby in the living room of their apartment at the former BBC Television Centre Hair: Tyler Johnston Make-up: Helen Walsh Fashion editor: Gianluca Longo
Dylan Thomas
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Contemporary African sculptures and a print by Cape Town-based artist Lungiswa Gqunta bring a sense of the dramatic to the apartment’s bookshelves.
Dylan Thomas
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A printed hyena cushion by Miroco Machiko on the bed
Dylan Thomas
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The couple have placed a bench alongside their dining table to allow them to fit in more guests
Dylan Thomas
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Plants from Hackney’s Conservatory Archives and prints from Studio Voltaire add warmth and colour.
Dylan Thomas
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See the full feature in the January issue of Vogue, available on digital download and from newsstands now.
It's a cold, bright morning in White City, and Charlie Casely-Hayford and Sophie Ashby are arranging knick knacks on the windowsill of their flat in the Grade II listed Helios building, part of the Television Centre complex that formerly housed the BBC.
"Our home is like a jigsaw puzzle," laughs Ashby. "Every object has its place. You just have to find it."
Consider the newlyweds the millennial answer to the traditional power couple — with design pedigree to boot.
The son of fashion designers Joe Casely-Hayford and Maria Stevens, 32-year-old Charlie has joined forces with his parents to launch his wildly successful eponymous menswear brand.
Thirty-year-old Ashby studied interior design at Parsons in Manhattan, opening her own studio in Ladbroke Grove when she was just 25.
"It's been non-stop for both of us over the last couple of years," explains Casely-Hayford, whose work takes him back and forth to Tokyo, while Ashby travels frequently for her projects - which include everything from a country pile in Somerset to a Cape Dutch-style farmhouse in Stellenbosch.
Hardly surprising, then, that the White City bolthole functions largely as a crash pad for the couple to retreat to in-between building their respective empires.
"Our apartment is compact, but White City is an extension of our home," Casely-Hayford explains.
The two moved into the apartment in a single day. "The furniture had all been planned down to the last detail," Ashby says. "It took us eight hours to get everything in place."
Most pieces were custom-made to make the most of the available space. Yet the mood is in no way utilitarian.
An art deco bar cart that the couple found at The Old Cinema in Chiswick is filled with vintage glasses, while shelves are filled with books and magazines, and an edit of tchotchkes and paintings, from a jade calligraphy brush to a self-portrait that Casely-Hayford did at school and Ashby had framed.
"In the end, both of us believe that a home should tell the story of the people who live in it," says Ashby.
See the full feature in the January issue of Vogue, available on digital download and from newsstands now.
Photographer Dylan Thomas
