London Design Week March 2014 Part 2 - Meeting Martyn Lawrence Bullard

I attended the London Design Week at Chelsea Harbour on Tuesday with the aim of hearing two talks - one which was with 
Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen.

The other person I went to hear was the talk with
one of the Millionaire Decorators Martyn Lawrence Bullard.

That is me cropped out  - we took a pic at the showroom

I love that show so much and everyone in it.

Martyn had a certain charm and a dramatic style that I admired so was interested to hear about his inspirations.  His talk was actually not free unlike the other talks as it was sponsored by House and Garden but it was only £10 plus there were drinks and canapes so it was well worth the price.

My two talks were several hours apart so I had a few hours to kill so I ended up attending a few other talks while I was there to make the most of it.

I attended Neisha Crosland's talk which was held at 
Turnell and Gigon who also happen to be the distributors for Martyn's wallpaper range.

I arrived early for Neisha's talk and was browsing through his collection not paying much mind to anything going on around me.

Then I hear laughing and a bit of commotion and when I looked up it was Martyn talking to the showroom staff.  I just smiled sheepishly and then he came over to introduce himself to me as he saw that I was going through his samples.

Then we actually chatted and he didn't do what I expected him to do which is look around and not pay attention but he actually spoke to me.

 I must say he was genuine and even when I said 
I am only a design enthusiast he didn't drop me like a hotcake like so many others did during the day.  

He told me about all his shows he is doing right now.

Via

I had to tell him I was a huge fan of the MD show and he said that he was going to pull out of Season 3 anyway because Bravo wanted them to fight and he wasn't going to have any of that stuff.

But he was doing lots of promo for this TV shows in the UK because they didn't know who he was here.

Then Neisha arrived for her talk and they chatted and caught up.
But he was so engaging and his charisma is undeniable.
No airs and graces and for someone who is so busy promoting all his ranges and people waiting around to meet him I was just so surprised he bothered to talk to me at all.
He now has a fully signed up fan here!!

The talk was an hour long so I will try and 
convey the talk to the best as I can.

It was interesting to hear that he had no formal training at all in decor.  But everytime I hear a successful person say that I always find there is a but...
He may not have gone to school but he bought and sold antiques since he was about 10 years old and had a weekend stall at Greenwich market where he made money reselling all his finds to tourists.  He found that the better decorated and if you draped a bit of fabric around the goods then it would sell better.
So next time someone says they have no formal training, 
I would dig a bit further!

But the first question was what his influence was and his response was travel, travel, and travel.  He says not only seeing different techniques but also which countries has better craftsmen for certain niches so he tends to get a lot of his woodwork custom made in Bali because of their intricate detailing for instance.

He talked us through some of his past projects.

The first was an Umbrian castle owned by a Russian billionaire.

To see better and the full set of pictures - please click here.

This was one of the many bedrooms.

He said the starting point was the turqouise armoire in the middle of the picture.

It was a local Umbrian antique piece and centered the whole room around it.

The original brief by the owner was to make it look like it was an inherited castle.  It most definitely wasn't as it was a ruins completely reconstructed.

But as there were so many windows in the main bedroom, he had to come up with a solution for the coverings. 

Apparently original antique tapestries to reconstruct curtains would have been half a million dollars.  So they digitally printed an original tapestry from a local museum and recreated a mock tapestry curtain.

 The brief for the kitchen was to be able to cook a lunch for 100 people...So he chose La Cornue to balance classic detail and modern functionality.
My dream cooker is a La Cornue so this custom piece just blew my mind.

The home below is the Malibu home of Cher who is one of his loyal clients.
He says that he has one person in his team that only goes to auctions to source and stock a good variety of pieces for future projects.  One of them was the pillars on the right of the picture.

He says it was one of the objects that didn't make the cut for installation at the famous home of Mr Hearst at San Simeon and they purchased it at auction.

He says the one thing he notices with big Hollywood stars is they take lighting very seriously even at home.

Cher likes diffused light so the glass panel is a light fixture with pitched light bulbs to make sure she is well lit at all times.

A trick for the trade he gave was that the installation should always be complete.
So even if the client asks that there be no superfluous accessories as Cher did to him - Martyn still wants to present the full vision as in his head.  He says if the client doesn't buy the extras then so be it but he won't show it in any other way but perfect.  

  But Cher did buy all these objects show above.  He said that most clients end up buying at least some of the extras so you should always do a full install.

This next story made us all laugh. 

Cher sometimes asked Martyn to come to her at bedtime as she was so tired doing other projects she didn't have any other time so he would have to get into bed with her to show her moodboards.

The arch on the right is her wig room - you know, the room with all her wigs naturellement.

Apparently, some stalker fan snuck into the house one time and lived in her wig room for three days.

Another feature is that there is a mesh tent that drops with remote control and shows the outline of her body as her dream was to be a maharajah's wife....

The next three photos are the home of Sharon Osbourne.

Not quite the look of the Prince of Darkness.

They have no carpets nor rugs as they have more than 20 dogs than are not potty trained!

The next two pics is the home of Kid Rock. Someone had given the services of Martyn as a wedding present to Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson.  When they divorced 6 weeks later,
Pamela kept the ring and Kid Rock took Martyn.

That long dining table serves as an impromptu stage for Kid Rock's dinner parties.

This is the original bathroom as was built by Gloria Swanson in his home in Los Angeles that he bought from Sam Mendes. 
 ( He doesn't mean to name drop, sometime it is what it is.)

Gloria Swanson was 4'11" and she had incredible back pain so she asked that the basin went up to her neck so she wouldn't have to bend down to wash her face and he has kept the bathroom intact.

Sorry for the blur but this his Martyn's garden where he has an outdoor screen to watch TV or a movie.

I don't think he misses the British weather...

I have never heard such a busy schedule by someone other than a few CEO's and politicians.
He is promoting his new wallpaper and fabric range.

But he also has a new range of tiles with Ann Sacks.

He is going to Switzerland to finish off another castle owned by a billionaire, then work on a boutique hotel in Istanbul, then goes to Kips Bay in New York then to look at another Connecticut home of Tommy Hilfiger in the next few days!

There was a party to celebrate Martyn's new tile ranges
 at the Ann Sack showroom.

Like I mentioned before, there was a lot of alcohol flowing.

Don't you just love this verre eglomise in leopard print?
I would have been so tempted to use this in the loo or in a hallway.

He has done zebra print and other designs for his mirrored tiles.
Please click for better pictures!

I bought a book after the talk and got it signed by him - 
I am not normally such a groupie except when it comes to interior designers, writers, and chefs.  Hehe.

 Isn't his writing so dramatic and full of flair?
I have never seen my name written like that!

Gotta love it - and I did.

I will post one more talk next week for those who weren't able to make it.  It was a presentation for Pierre Frey by two generations of the Frey family and also another talk by one of the best upholsterers in the UK. 
( A bit too detailed that I had no idea what he was on about...)