In a reveal we’ve long been waiting for, Zoë Foster Blake opened up the Sydney home she shares with husband Hamish Blake and their kids Rudy and Sonny to Vogue Living this week. The re-imagining of the four-bedroom space in Vaucluse, Blake says, took nine months to pull together.
Foster Blake — who sold a controlling stake of 50.1% of Go-To Skincare to the ASX-listed natural skincare business in August 2021 for a cool $89 million — and her media personality husband bought the Vaucluse home in 2020, and moved from Sydney to Melbourne on New Year’s Day 2021.
After collaborating with designer Yasmine Ghoniem of YSG on a Go-To office re-design, Foster Blake decided to tap her again for their home design, saying she was the only choice. The result? Interiors with an explosion of colours, patterns and textures, drawing inspiration heavily from the ‘60s and ‘70s, that all somehow work together.
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While the project should’ve taken about 18 months to two years to complete, they managed to complete it in just nine months, a testament to both Foster Blake’s and Ghoniem’s passion for it.
Ahead are all the design lessons we’ve learnt from Foster Blake’s home tour.
Think About a Room’s Uses from the Start
The couple filled out a questionnaire at the start, and didn’t share their answers. Along with ‘How do you want guests to feel when they visit your house?’, questions also included how they like to spend their weekends and events and what their favourite music and movie was.
“It was a clever way of figuring out how and where we really live in the house, which parts were going to get hammered,” Foster Blake says.
If you aren’t working with an interior designer, it’s still worth thinking about these questions with your partner or anyone else you’ll be sharing the space with before you start. It’ll help you be on the same page with your partner and work towards better styling your space.
Embrace the Mismatch, But Do It Carefully
Foster Blake’s home is a sensory delight of velvet chairs and cushions, mosaic tiles lining an archway and multi-coloured, tufted carpets. But make no mistake — every element was curated.
“Nothing matches and I love that,” says Foster Blake. “Collectively, so many competing elements probably shouldn’t work. But with the right eye and the right designer, it has all come together so perfectly. It’s playful yet cosy and there is so much surprise and delight.”
Some tips for bringing together a room that’s mismatched in your own is to create a cohesive colour strategy, bringing in pillows that all match or adding pieces with the same texture.
Consider Using Wallpaper
One common element in almost all the rooms is the use of wallpaper. In fact, Foster Blake even says the inclusion of Pierre Frey Sur Le Nil Naturel wallpaper from Milgate in the kitchen is a “case study in the effectiveness of wallpaper”.
Spend Time on the Guest Bathroom
Finally, the last design cue we’re taking from Foster Blake’s home tour is to put some effort into the guest bathroom or, as she calls it, the powder room.
“The powder room is one of my favourites because it’s so unexpected to have such a pretty guest bathroom,” she says.
Foster Blake’s guest bathroom features tumbled marble cobblestones, a vintage circular mirror and a rust-coloured freestanding concrete basin from Concrete Nation.
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