The fact that Stephanie Barba Mendoza has a powder room says it all. Not for her the ordinary old downstairs loo; no, Stephanie, who was born in Mexico and now lives in north-west London, is far too fond of fun and drama for that.
The Mexican interior designer is nothing if not a little bit extra. Having cut her teeth under the grandmaster of glamour, Martin Brudnizki, working on such wonderscapes as the flower-bomb fantasy that is Annabel’s in Mayfair until branching out on her own in 2019, she’s au fait with a bit of flamboyance; in fact, she embraces it, as we learned when we interviewed her about her beautiful blue sitting room with its tortoiseshell fire surround and opulent velvet sofa. On her wilder, more experimental side, she told us, “My own house is where I can really push it; it’s like my own little laboratory.”
Life in the “lab” – a Victorian terraced house near Queen’s Park, which she shares with husband Bernhard and sons Leonardo and Santiago – is currently a little higgledy-piggledy, Stepahnie says, as the family are revamping their kitchen. But when it’s ready, freshly bestowed with her maximalist magic, we’ll be begging for an invitation for some Mendoza margs. That bottle of Cascahuin is crying out for it.
