Inspired

Last summer I found myself in Los Angeles working on a new retail store in Rodeo Drive. At that time my husband, Julian Vogel, was involved in the production of a movie about the legendary Vidal Sassoon.

Imagine my delight to be invited to dine with Vidal and his wife Ronnie at their iconic Richard Neutra-designed house in the hills of Bel Air, which they recently restored. It was like stepping into an original Julius Shulman photograph.

The house is an achingly beautiful exercise in proportion and rigorous detailing – solid and void, plane and cantilever combine in seemingly effortless harmony.

Thresholds dissolve as you glide from one space to another, all the while framing the mesmerising view of the oh-so-blue pool, the lawn with its carefully placed original Isamu Noguchi boulders and the canyon and ocean in the distance.

Surveying the scene with a martini from my Charlotte Perriand lounger by a giant steel Anish Kapoor sphere, I realise I am in Modernist heaven.