1. Water

I was born a few steps away from the Atlantic on Portugal’s coastline, so water remains a big source of inspiration for me: walking over a bridge, watching my husband swim, gazing at the open ocean, along with anything water related—the shape of shells, coral and more.

 

2. White Poppies

Flowers are so fleeting: they offer you something very short term. I love the fragility of them, but also the colouration, their sculptural shape‚ that you see how they unfold.

 

3. Charlotte Perriand

As an architect and designer, she had the idea of modern living down to an art. She was one of the pioneers for how to live in spaces that provide all of the essentials, but done in a very pared-down way. She understood how objects become more important when there are fewer of them.

4. Donald Judd

I like how he distills elements: everything is taken to the essence of what it is. He was one of the first people to be in Soho in New York, when he bought a cast-iron building in the 1960s to become his home and studio. They didn’t have permission to have homes there—it was just warehousing. He studies things in the minutiae: he would study every floor in the building, for example, and each has a different sequence to how the baseboards are done.

 

5. Tableware

It’s sort of a hobby of mine, collecting tablecloths, napkins and dinnerware—it occupies a lot of my non-work time. When you live in a static home, you’re not changing things every day. But the table is one part of the home where you can always create something. One of my favourites is to collect is Patrician stemware from Hoffmann, designed in the late 1920s. There’s no ornamentation, just sculptural beauty.

6. Paris

The city is endless; it’s overstimulation in the best way. There’s the galleries and the food, and the architecture is very soothing. And the shopping is unlike anywhere else: the amount of vintage and collectible furniture shops—you can’t find that anywhere else. I haven’t been to the Louvre in years—Paris is the place where you roam, and stumble upon beautiful things everywhere.

This story was originally published in the November/December 2023 print issue of Western Living magazine.