At home with Anthropologie's creative head Luella Lane

The couple found the Victorian property in 2011, having previously lived in a loft in EC1. ‘I loved the buzz of east London but suddenly living in Shoreditch didn’t make sense any more as we didn’t have any green space or schools.’

The four-storey home was perfect for Luella and Will’s family which includes their two young daughters, Mila, eight, and Stella, five. It also served as a fabulous blank canvas for Lane’s creativity to run wild.

Like most fashion types, Lane has a passion for archiving — from obscure toy collections to family heirlooms. I spy a denim pilot’s jumpsuit, styled on a mannequin, another piece that was handed down by Dojean: ‘She had a pilot’s licence,’ says Lane. ‘She was a lady of leisure.’

Luggage is a recurring theme. Large vintage Louis Vuitton cases that belonged to Dojean are used as stands and sidetables around her living room. ‘She once got thrown out of the Louis Vuitton store by Louis Vuitton himself’, laughs Lane.

‘She needed to get a repair done and they had a row, so she called him a bastard and was thrown out — but she was a really good client.’

There’s also an extensive collection of soaps, salves and potions — not on display in the bathroom, curiously, but organised on shelves in the family’s main living space — produced in a Missouri factory owned by her great-grandfather, Dr Thomas Sayman.

His story has become family folklore: ‘He ran away from home, joined the circus and eventually started his own business as a travelling salesman — old-school style with a horse and cart.’ The business became a runaway success. ‘We never established if he was actually a real doctor,’ Lane admits, laughing.

One thing is certain — creativity and hard work run in her blood. Her mother’s family were tangerine farmers from Pulin, China, and ‘came from nothing’. Her father, Denny Lane (a retired US army colonel) meanwhile, was of aristocratic stock: Lane’s grandfather, Sir Peter Smithers, was a Conservative MP in Winston Churchill’s cabinet and a close friend of Ian Fleming (according to Lane, he was the inspiration behind James Bond’s character). Dojean, meanwhile, was ‘in that Mexican art scene — she was really good friends with [acclaimed painter] Juan Soriano who did a lot of pictures for her.’

‘I would say that I ended up somewhere in the middle,’ she says. The house, like her high-street creations, are testament to this: global, creative and completely cool.

anthropologie.com