Colour Me Inspired
I like to be early for house shoots. They are invasive. They are fraught. Already-busy people are trying to get their house shoot-ready, having only been awake for an hour or two beforehand. Knowing the bed is still warm and the shower-floor wet is often awkward.
There is a weird initial exchange of whose responsibility it was to bring the hot drinks followed by a little tour and an unspoken agreement between myself and the homeowner that I won’t open THAT cupboard, the one with the pool noodles, Christmas tree or faux flower stash that has been put away for the shoot.
Today I get to Sarah Jane Adams’ house really early due to sheer anticipation. I clocked her sass when she appeared on Advanced Style and I am already in a semi fangirl trance. I get the perfect park opposite her house and decide that today would be the ideal day to meditate in the car pre-shoot, to avoid coming across like a Lab puppy, literally trying to lick this wonderful woman’s face, all before our 8am call time.
Then I look up. On the top-floor balcony of her true-to-its-period terrace I see Sarah, with her glorious long hair, folding her sun-dried towel. The sun runs through the balcony’s fret work, sending fireworks to my eyeballs and making me feel a bit punch drunk. Her meticulous towel fold, her natural beauty and her quietness are obvious, even with the glaring sun and a filthy windshield between us.
I have brought some small gifts from our beloved India and use them as a conversation starter when I finally enter. She opens them with such care and begins to get wet-eyed at the gesture. It’s not even 9am and I am crying at her appreciation for these small things. There’s my thank you note, which I’ve written on an old English butcher’s receipt (she was born and educated in England); there are precious Indian oils (she’s travelled there so often she has been gifted an Indian name from her adopted family – Saramai – the name of her jewellery brand); and some reading material she recites back to me because she’s read it before and has a wonderful memory for verse.
We are here to talk about the house, but there are so many other things I want to ask her about, including her fabulous skin (she is a Priceline ambassador and believes in the yoga, water, vegetarian trifecta) and her perfect red lipstick. For those wanting specifics, she uses any of the following, with no real preference and sometimes a mixture of all: Maybelline’s SuperStay Ink Crayons, Make it Happen No. 55; Treat Yourself No. 35; Speak Your Mind No. 75 and Laugh Louder No. 40.
I want to know what her daughters are like, having grown up in all corners of the world. I want to listen to her re-enact the day Ari from Advanced Style discovered her at the tender age of 60. The nosey parker in me wants to know where Mr Saramai is. I want to know if she has a daggy dressing gown hiding somewhere or if she always looks so considered.
We are in her bedroom and the curtains are pulled back to reveal her closet. It’s gobsmackingly immaculate, not in a Kondo folded way, but in a truly considered way. Everything is packed so neatly. So precisely. With such care. I realise this is Sarah’s MO and her best lesson for us all. Everything she does is done with care, from her choice of outfits, well-worn vintage items that have served her for many years, through to her immaculately restored house.
While most people strip their homes in order to renovate, Sarah has kept the house’s spirit firmly intact. This terrace is one of many she has owned in the area. In terms of the decorative and applied arts, there is not much that she doesn’t have knowledge of and there is no surface that has not been restored, painted, sealed and polished. There is colour everywhere. In fact, the only white thing I see in the entire day is the piece of foam core board she used as a surface to shoot her own collections for her book, Life in a Box. It is neatly stored under the stairs, but it stands out among the room’s sage, orange, teal, brown, blue, raspberry, saffron, lemon and lilac tones.
Sarah is a committed recycler – everything is sourced vintage or free – but it is obvious that every single piece has been brought in very deliberately. She signs a copy of her truly charming book for me, sitting at a desk that can only be described as musk-stick pink, with an inscription that orders, Wake Up And Do Something Now. She tells me the story of how she found it by the roadside and gave it to her daughter. Twenty years later, her daughter gave it back, and she knew exactly where to put it.
Sarah’s ability to say no is what makes her such a success in so many areas of her life. A natural model, she chooses to work with Priceline because she believes health and beauty are for all. She only wears vintage, and her packing hacks are the stuff of legend. She hates the superfluous. She is a jeweller of international repute, with an incredible knowledge of stones and settings. She’s had a lifetime of collecting yet has everything catalogued and packed in her own Dewey system-like order. You get the sense that her recent success comes as no surprise to her.
“I love inspiring people … in my work, in my home, in the way I carry myself and make my life part of my art.”
“I love inspiring people,” she says. “In my work, in my home, in the way I carry myself and make my life part of my art.”
A tiny broken brick in her garden exposes a makeshift shrine for her deity offerings. The kitchen is so spotless that every mug and pot has a true hue match-up with the colours in her antique rug. Her office signals big energy with its teal and orange combinations, the same colours as some of her favourite stones. She can tell you the name and maker of every single wallpaper in her living room.
Having moved here from a very grand house, she says scaling down was easy. “It is the time to really live small, take only what we need from the planet,” she says. She is right, homes with huge footprints just don't make any sense at all.
“The real luxury is in knowing what you love and need, and not much more.”
Before I leave, I vow to myself to sun-dry my own towel each day, pick rosemary tea from my garden, take better care of my wardrobe, catalogue my humble accessory stash and say no to more things than I say yes to.
Words & Images_ Megan Morton
Photo Home Page_ Supplied