When Balenciaga unveiled its closet campaign in January, brand ambassador Kim Kardashian was prominently featured surrounded by Balenciaga handbags in her closet, which I understood was meant to build anticipation for a reissue of the brand's Le City bag. But I ignored the bags and instead pinched my phone screen to zoom in on the closet itself. With light wood floors, accent lighting, and open shelving that wraps around the perimeter, the space resembled a luxury boutique more than any home wardrobe.
This isn't just limited to celebrities: In London's Belsize Park, a finance-industry client who is more discreet than the Kardashians (and has a smaller Instagram following) recently commissioned an interior designer to model a fitting room after one of the private shopping suites at Matches Fashion's 5 Carlos Place townhouse.
While it's nothing new for homeowners to look to their favorite hotel rooms for bedroom decor inspiration, these days wealthy clients are also taking cues from luxury retailers. They (and their designers) are carving out spaces for their clothes, handbags, and pricey collections that could pass for personal styling suites in any Bond Street store.
“People are looking for a high-end boutique-like experience in their fitting rooms,” says Ben Johnson, director at London-based design studio Albion Nord, “and boutiques are looking for a more residential feel, with personal shopping suites and highly customized experiences. The connection between the worlds of retail and residential design is stronger than ever.”
The most coveted closet isn't just a closet anymore: it's a dressing room and a must-have in any new home. “At the upper end of the market, closets are now absolutely crucial,” says Mark Lawson, partner at real estate specialist firm The Buying Solution.
These are all part of the “main suite.” Whereas previously there might have been one bedroom and one bathroom, the concept has evolved to a through-floor configuration that includes a bedroom, two bathrooms, and male and female (or female and female, male and male) dressing rooms, possibly with a meditation room or office. The most coveted of these spaces is the dressing room, Lawson says.
“In the last decade, the amount of time and interest we spend talking about dressing rooms in conversations with clients has increased dramatically,” Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, founder and CEO of real estate development firm Vanda Properties, said by phone from his nearly completed project at Chelsea Barracks. “Dressing rooms have become so important. They're more than just a place to get changed. They're a sanctuary within the home.”
Creating a dressing room that feels personal and luxurious takes more than upgrading your wardrobe hardware. While a wardrobe is a place to store your clothes, a dressing room is much more aspirational. “A dressing room can represent any of a thousand different variations of you,” says Hugo Lindsay Finn, director at boutique architecture firm Palladian. An island might have a glass top and shallow, lockable drawers; perfect for storing, displaying and protecting watches and jewellery. Humidity- and temperature-controlled rooms for handbags are also not uncommon.
There's no preference between open rails and closed cabinets, although custom ceiling-mounted rails and recessed lighting can be a design feature in and of themselves. Conversely, Lindsay Finn likes to remind clients that cabinet doors can keep a boutique-like haven from feeling like a retail warehouse. “Not everyone who has expensive fitting rooms is super organized.”
Sometimes, the doors hide a surprise. Interior designer Holly Bowden created a “walk-in jewelry case” for collector clients who wanted to see their favorite pieces. Bowden decorated the inside of the double doors leading to the jewelry closet with silk moiré and hammered pins into the fabric so clients could hang necklaces.
Making the space multifunctional is key. Incorporating a bar or drinks station with hot taps for tea means you don't have to leave the main suite when you get thirsty. We're also seeing more clients looking to incorporate desks or workstations (Lisa Todd Wexley, Nicole Ari Parker's characters). And just like that… She is editing the documentary at a desk in her spacious, private dressing room.
“We recently created something we really wanted to claim as a copyright in a penthouse on Southbank,” says Albion Nord's Johnson: “A beauty pantry.” The dressing room opens onto the bathroom, with double doors opening into a teak-clad space stocked with beauty products, slippers, bathrobes and everything you need for a home spa experience. Johnson also saw a wardrobe with a mezzanine level (like a library for clothes) and a bespoke clothes catalogue system.
Thanks to social media, these formerly private spaces are now thrust front and center on Instagram: Whenever Rosie Huntington-Whiteley or Jennifer Aniston share a mirror selfie or “get ready with me” content, responses inevitably include comments about the dreamy atmosphere of their dressing rooms.
Lisa Adams is a Los Angeles-based designer who has appeared on numerous online rankings of the best celebrity dressing rooms. When she founded her company, LA Closet Design, in 2007, “dressing rooms had really taken a back seat. I saw the kitchen becoming the focal point of the home and thought, 'What about closets?'” Now she takes on 20 to 25 projects a year, with budgets typically around $225,000. She's currently in the planning stages for Jennifer Lopez's new dressing room.
For Adams' celebrity clientele, any amount of extravagance is acceptable; she recently designed several fitting rooms that incorporate glamorous stations with triple mirrors, tailoring tables, and various access points for the team. Homeowners who can't spend six figures on their closets can take advantage of her talents through her online shop, which offers custom drawer dividers and handbag cushions that she says are “perfect for maintaining the shape and durability of your bags on the shelf.”
Much of the thought and effort that goes into designing a luxury fitting room will go unnoticed by anyone but the specific individuals whose lives it optimizes. Even something as seemingly simple as a mirror can be a hub of cutting-edge technology. A full-length mirror that is actually a screen can be equipped with a high-definition camera with a three-second delay, giving you a better view of the back of your outfit. Or maybe even a selfie.
Adams expects to see more retail inspiration seep into closet design at all levels of the market over the next five to 10 years. “When you walk into a high-end boutique, it's bright, it's not cluttered, there's space for everything, you can see everything at a glance, there's seating, and it just feels comfortable. People want that feeling in their homes, too.”
Incidentally, designers can't escape the allure of their own dressing rooms either. When Boden and her partner moved into their new home in November 2022, one of the first things she decided to do was to turn the bedroom next to theirs into her own dressing room. “It was a big, beautiful room and would have been perfect for the kids or a nice spare room, but I said, 'No way. This is going to be our dressing room.'”
The space is still a work in progress, but Bowden knows that when finished, it will be carpeted and feature a mix of prefabricated and freestanding furniture, including two antique dressers that she plans to paint green and peach. “Having this beautiful dressing room is the ultimate luxury for me. Just having my clothes organized and hung up properly gives me a really good start to every day,” she says. “It's changed my life.”
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