A Home with a History: Carmen Haid on finding the things that matter, at home in north-west London

We meet the designer, collector and curator Carmen Haid in her north-west London home on a bright, quiet morning. The house is calm and well put together, but buzzes with life. Memories of long days in the garden with her children, smoky evenings in the fumoir and incredible parties in the tented, dark and disco-ball-adorned living room seem to echo here.

History is etched into Haid’s design choices too, from the custom monochrome wallpaper printed with iconic images of rockstars that lines the teenagers’ corridor, to the antique furniture by legendary designers including Carlo Bugatti and Josef Hoffmann.

At both home and work ­(she is the founder of the vintage furniture and bespoke design studio Atelier Mayer, and previously handled Yves Saint Laurent’s PR), Carmen enjoys reimagining old pieces in new and innovative ways. She credits her admiration for the irreverent to her late grandmother, who was part of the subversive and pioneering Wiener Werkstätte, a group that grew out of the Viennese Secession.

“You can see a kind of Austrian DNA imprint throughout my home,” Carmen says – it’s in the geometrically patterned panelled doors, the Gustav Klimt-inspired kitchen and the Koloman Moser chandelier, for instance. But this house is not only a nod to her heritage, it’s also a homage to the many lives she’s lived across the world – and the people and objects she’s collected along the way, as she explains.

“Many of the rooms in this house are defined by my antique pieces. I found some doors that came from the Savoy Hotel at an auction, for example, which I realised were just perfect for the office. Another great piece is the vintage shirt cabinet I unearthed. I changed the colour, put fabric behind the drawers and made it into a toy cupboard – storage, but in a chic way. That now lives in a space that’s a playroom by day and a kind of grown-up smoking room, or fumoir, in the evenings, transformed by the sumptuous velvet curtains with brass hooks, which I now produce for Atelier Mayer, and the two Jean-Michel Frank chairs.

“We chose to separate the living room into two distinct parts, which have different atmospheres, aesthetics and uses. One section is light and bright, an open space that showcases the Bugatti pieces and the painting by Olivier Mourão, titled Carmen and the Vase, which hangs above the fireplace.

“I also collaborated with Olivier on the creation of the tented ceiling in the other half of the room. The tent, which is actually a Turkish suzani, is very clever – it makes a large area still feel cosy and rather special. It’s perfect for entertaining. The cushions are made from vintage Peruvian carpets and the fringed lamps were made by hand, inspired by something I saw at Hotel Albergo in Beirut. This Persian rug, meanwhile, is a family heirloom.

“I like experimenting with textiles, using them in ways that might be different from their intended purposes. Having a tent inside a room is unusual, but it’s fun. We make it work for family life too; we’ve put a projector and a screen you can pull down in here – it makes an amazing cinema.

“The things you have can inform the entirety of room, just as the location can change the way you look at your collections. I like that dialogue, between objects and their landscape. I have certain pieces at home that are very important to me – or that I’ve had for a long time – and I make rooms work around them. For instance, when I moved to Marrakech in 2019 I brought some Wiener Werkstätte pieces with me. They might not have been the natural choice for a house in Morocco, but it’s what I had at the time and I loved them, so I made it make sense. It can take a lot of time and effort to make things work, but you get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“Beyond objects, I am inspired by so many people. Firstly, my grandmother: an haute couture seamstress and member of the Wiener Werkstätte, alongside Josef Hoffmann, who made our kitchen chairs here. They could be in a museum, but I prefer to live with art. Hoffmann was a pioneer; people think Damien Hirst was revolutionary, but Hoffmann was doing polka dots as early as early as the 1900s. The movement was so radical.

“Much of my fascination with design was informed by my time working with Yves Saint Laurent. He and his partner, Pierre Bergé, collected so much and filled so many houses – but not necessarily with expensive things; they were just the things they loved. Both men had the most incredible eye for design – though it helped that a lot of their friends went on to become renowned artists…

“The Saint Laurent office also had a big influence on me; I remember when it was in the hôtel particulier at 5 Avenue Marceau, which had been Yves’ couture atelier for 30 years and is now home to the YSL museum. You could just feel the walls talking; there was a real sense of history and extraordinary creativity in the air.

“Morocco has informed so much of my design life too, something I think you can feel in this house. I first visited in the 1990s; it felt like a fairytale. Marrakech has an air of possibility about it; things may not be easy, but they’re possible. Perhaps it’s because you’re close to the desert, mountains, sea and city.

“Over the last 20 years, Marrakech has seen a huge resurgence of young Moroccan designers combining traditional craftsmanship with new ideas, which I find so exciting. It’s why I’ve based Atelier Mayer in Morocco, a place full of interesting people and artisans, who use traditional handmaking skills to create beautiful things inspired by the the country’s zeitgeist. It makes me think of the Wiener Werkstätte. In many ways, they were like the prototype of the modern lifestyle brand – a band of brilliant people coming together to create an extraordinary world.”

Atelier Mayer

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