Jenna Lyons, the former creative director of J Crew, uses her refurbished New York apartment to show off her love of objects with a past

Jenna Lyons, style titan and former executive creative director of J Crew, admits to a lifelong appreciation for the timeworn, which underpins her vibrant sense of design. “I love a sense of history in something. I love a patina, I love seeing someone else’s touch, or seeing a stain, or seeing a nick or a chip. Materials get soft and they get round and they change colour,” she says. This passionate embrace of imperfection can be seen throughout her three-bedroom loft in New York’s SoHo neighbourhood, which she spent two years renovating.

When she was looking for a new home, a long stint living in a Brooklyn brownstone informed her list of prerequisites – she wanted it to be all on one floor and large enough to accommodate the “main parts of life”, like cooking, eating and hanging out. “I rent the apartment downstairs as my office, but when I bought the loft above it was all open plan and hadn’t been touched in about 40 years,” recalls Lyons, who is currently working on a top-secret beauty project, designing a hotel in the Bahamas and gearing up to launch a lifestyle television series and e-commerce site in the summer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Taking a chance and trying something is valuable’: Jenna Lyons. Photograph: Danielle Levitt/The Observer

When you walk into the apartment, there is so much to take in visually that your eye doesn’t land on any one thing. This is not accidental, but rather a testament to her skill at layering. A Serge Mouille sconce peeks out from behind a jungle-motif Dimore Studio screen; a leopard-print pouf sits next to a pink Milo Baughman sofa. There is an artful mastery and playfulness in her placement and mix of objects, materials and finishes, yet this particular mix still reads bohemian. The way she famously married sequins and camouflage in fashion mirrors her rule-breaking tendencies at home. She deliberately disrupts the symmetry of the architecture by hanging her artwork off-centre, or leaning it against the wall, and the eccentric placement highlights the work.

After finding the Milo Baughman sofa – the anchor of the main living space – she altered it by removing the tufting and upholstering it in pink cotton velvet.

“In my job, I got used to having to say, ‘This is what we’re gonna do, it’s gonna be OK, we’re gonna try it,’” she says. “Taking a chance and trying something is probably more valuable than just staying within the borders and what the rules are.”

Green and pink – a combination that has a preppy reputation – is a recurring colour pairing in her home. However, it’s made fresh and cool in Lyons’s hands: an Aldo Tura pale malachite-hued goatskin cube is positioned by the pink sofa; avocado-green lacquer covers the powder-room walls; French 18th-century threadbare peridot mohair chairs are dotted throughout the living room; plants add to this surprising colour palette. Lyons credits the Milan-based design duo behind Dimore Studio for influencing her brazen colour choices. “I’m so taken by their unapologetic colour mixing and unusual textures and combinations.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Soft touch: the bedroom with glass doors to the bathroom, which was inspired by Venice’s Gritti Palace. Photograph: Nicole Franzen/The Observer

Working at the nexus of fashion, art, design and travel, Lyons brings all these elements into her home. She commissioned her builder to make floating brass-clad bedside tables in homage to Donald Judd, and a bathroom at the Gritti Palace in Venice inspired her to source veined marble for her own. She channels and filters ideas between the various disciplines in an original way.

She worked with her contractor to finesse the millwork, mouldings and add extra-tall doors and high doorknobs (Lyons is 5ft 11in). In all of the finishes – the unlacquered brass splashbacks in the kitchen, the honed marble countertops, the unfinished oak floors – she wants life to be visible.

“I had long conversations with my contractor about making sure the floors weren’t too perfect,” she says. “I wanted them to wear enough to show spills and reveal the markings of people’s footsteps walking down the hall. Once I left a window open and spatters of rain came in so now that corner of the floor looks dappled and I like it. I’ve never felt comfortable looking perfect or being perfect. My taste is weird and I couldn’t make a perfect room if I tried.”

Changing spaces: Jenna Lyons’s top tips for refreshing a room, by Emma Love

1. When I’m shopping for vintage furniture online I have a trick of typing in a colour instead of a specific piece. It pulls up a whole different search and I’ll find all kinds of crazy stuff. In the living room, I knew I wanted something green so I put in the colour and discovered a cube by designer Aldo Tura which I never knew existed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kitchen confidential: unlacquered brass splashbacks and honed marble countertops create a strong aesthetic. Photograph: Nicole Franzen/The Observer

2. Don’t be afraid of re-upholstering vintage furniture. Mohair velvet or cotton velvet are my favourite materials to use. Also, re-upholstering isn’t always cheap to do, but it is easy to change, so it’s not the end of the world if you decide that you don’t want to live with it forever.

3. Use your walls to represent you. Artwork doesn’t have to be properly framed or perfect; take Polaroids and just pin them up. I have a bathroom that only I use where the wallpaper is covered in push pins holding up notes from people, photographs and pictures.

4. Artsy.net is really good for buying art, but I also find lots of amazing pieces at studio sales, art school shows and on Instagram. Recently, I came across Atelier MVM, the studio of Matthias Vriens-McGrath, who makes shell pieces. I’m obsessed with his work.

5. I have a problem with making the television a focal point of a room; instead, I’ve made a big effort to make the space about people (in the living room, my TV is hidden behind the fireplace).

6. If you aren’t confident with colour, it’s helpful to look at a painting or drawing that you love and work with that. Take those colours that you think are beautiful, then pull them out elsewhere in the room.

Live Beautiful by Athena Calderone is published on 3 March by Abrams at £30. Buy it for £25.20 at guardianbookshop.com

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