Four seasons in London: what to do in the city come rain, chill or shine
HOW: If the quirky Tate Modern doesn't tickle your fancy, how about the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square? Masterpieces by Michelangelo, van Gogh, Monet and other legends are displayed here, while next door's National Portrait Gallery reopened in June 2023 after a facelift. As well as kings and queens, you'll see pioneering women (Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Quant, Malala Yousafzai) and inspiring Davids (Bowie, Beckham, Hockney). Head to nearby Chinatown for dim sum or have afternoon tea, with dainty sandwiches, scones and cakes, at Fortnum & Mason, London's oldest department store. Shop a bit here - or on Bond Street and Oxford Street, both lined with big brands - then enjoy a pint and people-watching at a storied Soho pub like The Dog and Duck (a former hangout of George Orwell). Catch a play at one of the West End's myriad theatres - perhaps Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running show - or pamper yourself at The Londoner. This 350-room "super-boutique" hotel has a swish spa, an upscale Japanese izakaya and a chic-casual French restaurant overlooking Leicester Square, the always vibrant heart of London's West End.
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The Age
39 minutes ago
- The Age
‘Tactful disharmony': An interior designer's offbeat path to success
This story is part of the June 7 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories. Tamsin Johnson is perched on a white sofa, sipping ginger and lemongrass tea beneath a 19th-century French crystal chandelier in her Darling Point home in Sydney's east. Before her, roses nestle in a vase on a marble coffee table next to a pair of oak armchairs by Frank Lloyd Wright. Looming behind, a large religious icon, painted by the Indigenous-Australian artist Dan Boyd, is half obscured by an antique console laden with coffee-table books with titles like Equestrian Life in the Hamptons and Haute Bohemians: Greece. Every detail in the room is a quiet signifier of cultural erudition and taste. Indeed, there's so much to admire, the harbour view feels like a distraction. At 40, Johnson has become one of Australia's most sought-after interior designers. Locally, her work ranges from the Byron Bay hotel, Raes on Wategos, to the Bondi store of jewellery designer Lucy Folk, while international jobs include a Dubai members club and Frank Sinatra's former Hollywood office. In 2021, publisher Rizzoli New York released her first book, Tamsin Johnson: Spaces for Living, while a second is now in the works. 'Tamsin is a true artist,' says Nick Smart, the fragrance entrepreneur behind the Libertine Parfumerie boutiques. He enlisted her to design his Paddington flagship store, which includes parquetry flooring and antique marble basins from France. The cost of decorating the 200-square-metre space exceeded $1 million, but Smart is keen to use Johnson again. 'People emulate Tamsin's style, but they don't make it look good,' he says. 'She puts together pieces from different eras in a breathtaking way.' 'Tactful disharmony' is how Johnson describes her mix-and-match approach. 'It's about finding the balance of elements that might not have necessarily worked together – the old and the new, the pristine and the slightly messy, the weird and the super polished.' She points above her fireplace to a contemporary mirror whose jagged edges counter the curves of an antique bronze nude. Similarly, offbeat notes pepper Johnson's own look. Tall and slender in a floaty, pinstripe shirt and cream slacks, she sports a jumble of accessories, including a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch in burgundy, a diamond tennis bracelet, and a mishmash of rings that includes vintage sapphires and a dark-green bloodstone. Her husband, Patrick Johnson, is also a tastemaker. In 2009, the 44-year-old launched his P. Johnson tailoring brand that today also encompasses womenswear, and has expanded to 10 shops as far afield as London and New York. The couple have two children, Arthur, 8, and Bunny, 7, but parenthood hasn't curbed their panache. Damien Woolnough, fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, believes the pair's aspirational image – the holidays in Tuscany, the artworks, the clothes – feeds into P. Johnson's appeal. 'You so want to be them, and that lifestyle justifies the price as much as the cut and fabrics.' In one showroom, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of André the Giant. Johnson decorates her husband's showrooms to evoke a refined but playful mood of relaxed hospitality. In the Windsor location in Melbourne, for example, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of the late pro wrestler, André the Giant. 'I never wanted spaces that were all old wood and leather, like a traditional English tailoring shop,' Patrick says. 'I wanted the interiors to be an extension of our lives and the things we found beautiful. I wanted people to feel like they're coming into our home.' Johnson's eye for an art-deco sideboard also started at home. Her parents, Edward and Peta Clark, were successful antique dealers, and she grew up in Melbourne playing beneath Louis XV sofas and Venetian gilt mirrors. Her father's big break had come in 1974, when he negotiated a huge sale from the Maharajah of Mysore that included a lavish collection of royal carriages. 'I made a few bob and I've lived on that ever since, really,' Clark admits. The proceeds bought the family's former home, the converted Golden Crust bakery in Armadale, that Domain describes as one of 'Melbourne's truly great homes'. From a young age, Johnson and her sister Tess accompanied their parents on buying trips to Paris markets and Rome galleries. 'Subconsciously, I was learning, not just about furniture and antiques, but about selling as well,' Johnson reflects. She instinctively mastered the latter. When she was eight, her father recalls taking her to Camberwell market, where Johnson bought a gold bracelet for $5. 'An hour later, she resold it from my stall to a lady for $15.' Lauren Kozica, a high-school friend from Wesley College, remembers Johnson constantly hurling herself into extracurricular projects. 'Tamsin's always had the energy and stamina most people search for in a tablet.' As a teen, Johnson took sewing classes and began tie-dying petticoats and making her own clothes. By 18, she'd sold a line of beaded necklaces to Scanlan Theodore. That early win encouraged her to study fashion at RMIT; she then clinched an internship in London at Stella McCartney. After-wards, Johnson got a job with a London PR firm and during that period, she met her future husband in a pub. 'She just radiated this energy, this brightness,' Patrick says of his first impression. Raised on a 4000-hectare farm north of Adelaide, Patrick had already been in London for six years and was working for Robert Emmett, a high-end shirtmaker on Jermyn Street. Tamsin, meanwhile, was turning away from fashion. Recognising her sartorial taste would never be sufficiently edgy to stand out, she enrolled in a course at Inchbald School of Design in Chelsea: 'The minute I walked in, I was like: 'This is absolutely my field.' ' In 2009, the pair returned to Australia. While Patrick set up his tailoring business, Johnson got an interior design job at Sydney practice, Meacham Nockles McQualter. 'When Tam arrived she was well-travelled, with a broad knowledge of the history of art, design and architecture, which enabled her to develop designs with a distinctive language,' says her former boss, Don McQualter. Johnson credits her four-year stint with teaching her the fundamentals of her profession. But in 2013, she resigned to go out on her own. 'It wasn't a surprise,' says McQualter. Loading Her first job as a sole practitioner was with one of Patrick's tailoring clients, and in a business where social cachet matters, it proved to be heaven-sent. The Bondi home belonged to James Packer. Johnson turned the opportunity into a springboard. Her three-women team currently has 20 jobs on the go that range from overhauling a seven-bedroom home in Vaucluse to fitting new wardrobes in a child's bedroom. Johnson also runs a Paddington antiques shop that she opened in 2015. Each year she trawls the antique fairs in France, Italy and Spain for stock, shipping back five 12-metre-long containers laden with new (old) treasures. Sitting with her, I get the same pang of unease you get from too much Instagram, when you inadvertently compare your own reality to glimpses of the unattainable. It's not just her jet-set lifestyle. My kids are the same age as Johnson's, and we've twice had to get our sofa reupholstered due to peanut-butter stains and worse. How is her white sofa so pristine? 'We've always made sure the covers can be slipped off and cleaned,' she shrugs. What about the juggle of raising two children while running an internationally successful business? The family has help on Mondays and Tuesdays, when a nanny collects the kids from school, but Johnson admits to being pathologically efficient: 'If I've got something on my to-do list, I need to get it done. On holidays, I'll write an itinerary that Patch [Patrick] jokes is down to the minute.' As if to validate her working-mum credentials, Johnson's phone rings. It's her daughter's school: Bunny has a tummy-ache and needs collecting. Apologising, Johnson dashes out, urging me to finish my tea and try a piece of shortbread. Cut into heart shapes, even her biscuits are charmingly photogenic. Loading A week later, we chat on the phone. Johnson is driving to Melbourne Airport after seeing clients in the Otways who want an American ranch-style interior. I'm curious to know what her next chapter holds. She's already living the dream: where does she go from here? 'I've got a small, personal business and that's the way I like it,' she insists. 'I'm not trying to set up an office in London or New York. I like that we can still deliver amazing outcomes for clients that are super personal. Also, I want to raise my own kids.' She mentions how her signet ring, a gift from Patrick, is engraved with a turtle. 'I think it was to remind me to slow down.' Suddenly, I'm reminded of a recurring detail from her house. Beside the Bill Henson in the hallway, on the antique Spanish dining table, by the custom-made sofa, there were vases of mixed roses everywhere. Are they a visual cue, like that ring – a literal reminder to stop and smell the roses? 'Well, they are my favourites,' Johnson laughs. 'But maybe subconsciously, yeah.'
Sydney Morning Herald
42 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Tactful disharmony': An interior designer's offbeat path to success
This story is part of the June 7 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories. Tamsin Johnson is perched on a white sofa, sipping ginger and lemongrass tea beneath a 19th-century French crystal chandelier in her Darling Point home in Sydney's east. Before her, roses nestle in a vase on a marble coffee table next to a pair of oak armchairs by Frank Lloyd Wright. Looming behind, a large religious icon, painted by the Indigenous-Australian artist Dan Boyd, is half obscured by an antique console laden with coffee-table books with titles like Equestrian Life in the Hamptons and Haute Bohemians: Greece. Every detail in the room is a quiet signifier of cultural erudition and taste. Indeed, there's so much to admire, the harbour view feels like a distraction. At 40, Johnson has become one of Australia's most sought-after interior designers. Locally, her work ranges from the Byron Bay hotel, Raes on Wategos, to the Bondi store of jewellery designer Lucy Folk, while international jobs include a Dubai members club and Frank Sinatra's former Hollywood office. In 2021, publisher Rizzoli New York released her first book, Tamsin Johnson: Spaces for Living, while a second is now in the works. 'Tamsin is a true artist,' says Nick Smart, the fragrance entrepreneur behind the Libertine Parfumerie boutiques. He enlisted her to design his Paddington flagship store, which includes parquetry flooring and antique marble basins from France. The cost of decorating the 200-square-metre space exceeded $1 million, but Smart is keen to use Johnson again. 'People emulate Tamsin's style, but they don't make it look good,' he says. 'She puts together pieces from different eras in a breathtaking way.' 'Tactful disharmony' is how Johnson describes her mix-and-match approach. 'It's about finding the balance of elements that might not have necessarily worked together – the old and the new, the pristine and the slightly messy, the weird and the super polished.' She points above her fireplace to a contemporary mirror whose jagged edges counter the curves of an antique bronze nude. Similarly, offbeat notes pepper Johnson's own look. Tall and slender in a floaty, pinstripe shirt and cream slacks, she sports a jumble of accessories, including a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch in burgundy, a diamond tennis bracelet, and a mishmash of rings that includes vintage sapphires and a dark-green bloodstone. Her husband, Patrick Johnson, is also a tastemaker. In 2009, the 44-year-old launched his P. Johnson tailoring brand that today also encompasses womenswear, and has expanded to 10 shops as far afield as London and New York. The couple have two children, Arthur, 8, and Bunny, 7, but parenthood hasn't curbed their panache. Damien Woolnough, fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, believes the pair's aspirational image – the holidays in Tuscany, the artworks, the clothes – feeds into P. Johnson's appeal. 'You so want to be them, and that lifestyle justifies the price as much as the cut and fabrics.' In one showroom, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of André the Giant. Johnson decorates her husband's showrooms to evoke a refined but playful mood of relaxed hospitality. In the Windsor location in Melbourne, for example, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of the late pro wrestler, André the Giant. 'I never wanted spaces that were all old wood and leather, like a traditional English tailoring shop,' Patrick says. 'I wanted the interiors to be an extension of our lives and the things we found beautiful. I wanted people to feel like they're coming into our home.' Johnson's eye for an art-deco sideboard also started at home. Her parents, Edward and Peta Clark, were successful antique dealers, and she grew up in Melbourne playing beneath Louis XV sofas and Venetian gilt mirrors. Her father's big break had come in 1974, when he negotiated a huge sale from the Maharajah of Mysore that included a lavish collection of royal carriages. 'I made a few bob and I've lived on that ever since, really,' Clark admits. The proceeds bought the family's former home, the converted Golden Crust bakery in Armadale, that Domain describes as one of 'Melbourne's truly great homes'. From a young age, Johnson and her sister Tess accompanied their parents on buying trips to Paris markets and Rome galleries. 'Subconsciously, I was learning, not just about furniture and antiques, but about selling as well,' Johnson reflects. She instinctively mastered the latter. When she was eight, her father recalls taking her to Camberwell market, where Johnson bought a gold bracelet for $5. 'An hour later, she resold it from my stall to a lady for $15.' Lauren Kozica, a high-school friend from Wesley College, remembers Johnson constantly hurling herself into extracurricular projects. 'Tamsin's always had the energy and stamina most people search for in a tablet.' As a teen, Johnson took sewing classes and began tie-dying petticoats and making her own clothes. By 18, she'd sold a line of beaded necklaces to Scanlan Theodore. That early win encouraged her to study fashion at RMIT; she then clinched an internship in London at Stella McCartney. After-wards, Johnson got a job with a London PR firm and during that period, she met her future husband in a pub. 'She just radiated this energy, this brightness,' Patrick says of his first impression. Raised on a 4000-hectare farm north of Adelaide, Patrick had already been in London for six years and was working for Robert Emmett, a high-end shirtmaker on Jermyn Street. Tamsin, meanwhile, was turning away from fashion. Recognising her sartorial taste would never be sufficiently edgy to stand out, she enrolled in a course at Inchbald School of Design in Chelsea: 'The minute I walked in, I was like: 'This is absolutely my field.' ' In 2009, the pair returned to Australia. While Patrick set up his tailoring business, Johnson got an interior design job at Sydney practice, Meacham Nockles McQualter. 'When Tam arrived she was well-travelled, with a broad knowledge of the history of art, design and architecture, which enabled her to develop designs with a distinctive language,' says her former boss, Don McQualter. Johnson credits her four-year stint with teaching her the fundamentals of her profession. But in 2013, she resigned to go out on her own. 'It wasn't a surprise,' says McQualter. Loading Her first job as a sole practitioner was with one of Patrick's tailoring clients, and in a business where social cachet matters, it proved to be heaven-sent. The Bondi home belonged to James Packer. Johnson turned the opportunity into a springboard. Her three-women team currently has 20 jobs on the go that range from overhauling a seven-bedroom home in Vaucluse to fitting new wardrobes in a child's bedroom. Johnson also runs a Paddington antiques shop that she opened in 2015. Each year she trawls the antique fairs in France, Italy and Spain for stock, shipping back five 12-metre-long containers laden with new (old) treasures. Sitting with her, I get the same pang of unease you get from too much Instagram, when you inadvertently compare your own reality to glimpses of the unattainable. It's not just her jet-set lifestyle. My kids are the same age as Johnson's, and we've twice had to get our sofa reupholstered due to peanut-butter stains and worse. How is her white sofa so pristine? 'We've always made sure the covers can be slipped off and cleaned,' she shrugs. What about the juggle of raising two children while running an internationally successful business? The family has help on Mondays and Tuesdays, when a nanny collects the kids from school, but Johnson admits to being pathologically efficient: 'If I've got something on my to-do list, I need to get it done. On holidays, I'll write an itinerary that Patch [Patrick] jokes is down to the minute.' As if to validate her working-mum credentials, Johnson's phone rings. It's her daughter's school: Bunny has a tummy-ache and needs collecting. Apologising, Johnson dashes out, urging me to finish my tea and try a piece of shortbread. Cut into heart shapes, even her biscuits are charmingly photogenic. Loading A week later, we chat on the phone. Johnson is driving to Melbourne Airport after seeing clients in the Otways who want an American ranch-style interior. I'm curious to know what her next chapter holds. She's already living the dream: where does she go from here? 'I've got a small, personal business and that's the way I like it,' she insists. 'I'm not trying to set up an office in London or New York. I like that we can still deliver amazing outcomes for clients that are super personal. Also, I want to raise my own kids.' She mentions how her signet ring, a gift from Patrick, is engraved with a turtle. 'I think it was to remind me to slow down.' Suddenly, I'm reminded of a recurring detail from her house. Beside the Bill Henson in the hallway, on the antique Spanish dining table, by the custom-made sofa, there were vases of mixed roses everywhere. Are they a visual cue, like that ring – a literal reminder to stop and smell the roses? 'Well, they are my favourites,' Johnson laughs. 'But maybe subconsciously, yeah.'
Man of Many
9 hours ago
- Man of Many
Original Birkin Bag Crafted For Jane Birkin Heads to Auction
By Ben McKimm - News Published: 6 June 2025 Share Copy Link Readtime: 4 min Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here. Jane Birkin's original 1985 Birkin is going to auction July 10. Expected to break the Birkin price record of over USD$450,000. Custom prototype: unique size, hardware, and non-removable shoulder strap. Includes original charity auction certificate signed by Jane Birkin. Exhibited at MoMA and V&A museums before entering private collection. Likely to become the most expensive Birkin bag ever sold, Sotheby's is auctioning off the Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin in 1985 at an auction on July 10th, 2025. While auction estimates are withheld, the bag will likely eclipse the USD$450,000 plus sales price of the Diamond Himalaya Birkin 30, which sold at Sotheby's in 2022. It's not often that handbags carry provenance, but this Birkin is different. The story goes that the actress was sitting alongside Jean-Louis Dumas, the French billionaire businessman who was the chairman of the Hermès group from 1978 to 2006, on an Air France flight. She complained that she couldn't find a bag big enough for daily life, so the brand designed one and asked if they could name it after her. The rest is history, as they say. Now, her original bag is headed to auction, and it carries serious provenance not just from Jane Birkin, but from those who have held onto the bag since she donated it at Millon, Paris, Les enchéres de I'espoir, Association Solidarité Sida on Wednesday, October 5, 1994, Théâtre de l'Empire. It was sold in Poulain Le Fur, Paris, on Friday, May 12 2000 (lot 70) and has sat in a private collection (and museums) ever since. The Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin, 1985 | Image: Sotheby's What's interesting about this Birkin is that it's a prototype. There are key differences between this and the bag that would eventually hit the production run in 1985, including: It has the width and height of a Birkin 35, but the depth of a Birkin 40 Size : 36 x 27 x 21 cm: W It features closed pontet rings, whereas rings remained open at the bottom until the early 1990s There's gilded brass hardware, replaced by gold-plated hardware (with a check mark) at launch 'Eclair' branded inner zip, which was replaced by Riri Company in the 1990s Smaller bottom studs, or 'feet' It has a non-removable shoulder strap, the only one of its kind Not only is this bag made in a one-off custom size, but it comes in the same condition in which it was auctioned for charity by Jane Birkin. That means that you're getting a bag that was crafted for the namesake and lovingly used by the namesake until it was passed on, and it comes in the same condition as it hasn't been used since. Heck, it's even branded with her initials, J.B., and inside is the nail clipper that she kept hanging from the bag's strap. The Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin, 1985 | Image: Sotheby's The Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin, 1985 | Image: Sotheby's The Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin, 1985 | Image: Sotheby's The Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin, 1985 | Image: Sotheby's The lucky buyer will also recieve the original certificate of the charity auction 'Les Enchères de l'Espoir,' which was signed by Jane Birkin, 5 October 1994 alongside the original Hotel des Ventes du Palais auction catalogue, Poulain Le Fur, 12 Mai 2000, and exhibition catalog 'Bags Inside Out', V&A, 2020. Given the provenance of this bag, it was exhibited at the MoMA in New York for the ' Items: Is Fashion Modern?,' exhibition in 2018 before it was sent to London's Victoria and Albert Museum for the 'Bags Inside Out' exhibition in 2020. Now, it's hitting the auction block at Sotheby's on July 10th, 2025, where it will likely make history as the most expensive Birkin ever sold.
