A Fashionable Life: Marjhan Kausar's Colourful Home Blends Traditional Heirlooms With Modern Flair
Content creator Marjhan Kausar’s home is a vibrant homage to her cosmopolitan heritage, where family heirlooms, handmade finds and tweaked high-street items create uniquely captivating spaces.
Perched on her living room sofa in front of a painting by her grandfather, Kausar is dressed in traditional wide-legged gharara trousers paired with a kurta, a sat lara necklace and earrings gifted by her in-laws on her first visit to India, together with SunMoonRain bangles, and embroidered traditional shoes from Pakistan.
Perched on her living room sofa in front of a painting by her grandfather, Kausar is dressed in traditional wide-legged gharara trousers paired with a kurta, a sat lara necklace and earrings gifted by her in-laws on her first visit to India, together with SunMoonRain bangles, and embroidered traditional shoes from Pakistan
"I skipped the neutral beige home decor aesthetic because colourful spaces are my happiness,” says Marjhan Kausar as she welcomes us to her home, a 2,034 sq ft apartment in one of the private residential towers in Orchard Road’s backyard. The 30-year-old content creator and her private banker husband, Siraj Ali, did not make any architectural changes to the apartment or hire an interior designer when they moved in 2019. Yet, as we stepped out of the elevator, we received into a series of soulful spaces clearly put together by someone with a keen eye for design. Here, family heirlooms and iconic design pieces exist harmoniously with handmade finds and creatively modified high-street items; their bright hues and patterns lend a personal touch to the monochromatic material palette. “I just love mixing and matching—that’s my thing,” she quips.
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Kausar in a Sana Safinaz coat worn with denim jeans and Electric Bazaar earrings.
Kausar in a Sana Safinaz coat worn with denim jeans and Electric Bazaar earrings.
Kausar has worn many creative hats in her life and she credits her parents for bringing her up with great design aesthetics. Born in Philadelphia to a Pakistani father and Ecuadorian-American mother, she grew up in Singapore and studied footwear design at the London College of Fashion in the UK. Upon returning here, she taught herself graphic design while hunting for a job and learned about branding when she landed a role as head of marketing for a property developer, where she also got to sit in architectural and interior design crits and meetings. She parlayed these skills into a side hustle: creating content for collaborators and clients across genres. Finding her true calling in art directing, she quit her job to do it full-time.
The aesthetic of Kausar’s home is an extension of her fashion style— eclectic with a distinct edge that comes from that fearless ease of mixing the traditional and the contemporary. “You can find elements of Desi culture woven into our home. It’s important to keep cultures alive, whether in books, pieces we have collected on our trips, or things that have been passed on to us from our families,” she shares. Ali’s side of the family, which has Indian and Iranian heritage, further expanded the interior and decor vocabularies.
Kausar in a Rang Ja vest layered over wardrobe staples of a tank top and denim jeans, accessorised with Farwah Ali earrings, mules from Istanbul, a choker she purchased in a Lahore bazaar, her own wedding band and a Cartier bangle.
Kausar in a Rang Ja vest layered over wardrobe staples of a tank top and denim jeans, accessorised with Farwah Ali earrings, mules from Istanbul, a choker she purchased in a Lahore bazaar, her own wedding band and a Cartier bangle.
Past the entrance, decorated with paintings done on antique Urdu parchments and evil-eye amulets, is an airy living space with a sweeping view of the neighbourhood. Kausar divided the long, rectangular space into two separate areas using the roomy Jasper Sofa system from King Living. The modular system was brought over from the couple’s former home on Nassim Hill, where it presided over the living room in a U-shaped configuration. Today, Kausar has reconfigured it into a three-seater and an L-shaped with a daybed to demarcate the lounge and the TV area—the former is a hangout space for adults, while the latter is dedicated mostly for the couple’s 21-month-old son, Riyan, and the family’s two dogs, golden retriever Bruno and maltese-poodle Peanut.
Kausar built the colour scheme of the lounge around a statement Persian rug gifted by her in-laws. “It’s a rare piece dyed by actual turquoise stones,” she shares. Made of silk, it has a shimmery quality that looks lighter from one side and darker from the other, adding a dimension to the colour. “I’m not a blue person, I usually gravitate towards warm colours. But I think turquoise is a really calming colour to live with,” she adds. She picked cushions with detailing in orange—blue’s complementary hue in the colour wheel—to tie it with the home’s broader interior colour scheme. A clear blue glass coffee table allows the rug’s busy pattern some visibility. In a happy accident, the blue hues also pair well with the blue of the glass fins of the high-rise tower’s facade.
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Kausar in a Taller Marmo dress, Louis Vuitton slippers, and a traditional kundan necklace and earring set.
Kausar in a Taller Marmo dress, Louis Vuitton slippers, and a traditional kundan necklace and earring set.
Around the sitting area are Instagram-ready vignettes. In one corner is the Arco floor lamp from FLOS, a mid-century icon designed by Italian brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. Its famed two-metre arc perfectly frames the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman from Herman Miller, another seminal piece in world design history. Behind the chair, displayed on its easel, is a painting by Kausar’s grandfather, James Edward Huiskamp. A famous architect in the ’70s American Midwest, he is a collector of mid- century modern furniture, which influenced Kausar’s edits for her own home.
The open shelves inside the guest bedroom house Kausar’s shoes and bags collection, organised by height.
The open shelves inside the guest bedroom house Kausar’s shoes and bags collection, organised by height.
Kartell’s Sundial Bookcase displays its content in an angled, rainbow colour-coded order. Not all the furniture pieces that do the visual heavy- lifting are designer items; some have more humble origins, like the shelving system on the opposite wall, which was a black powder-coated Ikea item that Kausar spray-painted gold and decorated with more handsome books, candles, photographs and two more of her grandfather’s colourful paintings.
A drawer containing three layers of handcrafted khussas (traditional embroidered Pakistani shoes) arranged by their colours.
A drawer containing three layers of handcrafted khussas (traditional embroidered Pakistani shoes) arranged by their colours
The living area segues seamlessly into the dining room in an L-shaped configuration. Guests sitting on the living room’s sofa are treated to glimpses of colours from the dining room’s wall, courtesy of its framed Hermès scarves. Kausar credits her husband for the idea. “His grandmother had a massive collection of sarees, and one of his aunts had one framed in her house—a huge statement piece, which inspired him. ‘I don’t want to frame artwork—let’s frame textiles,’ he said when we got married.”
The couple went to Hermès boutiques and selected six of the Spring/Summer 2017 collection as artwork. Four adorned the white wall behind Philippe Starck’s Kartell creations, TomTom dining table and Ghost chairs, while the other two were hung above the blue-painted Ikea cabinet on the other side. These were curated for their colours, but if Kausar had to pick a favourite, hers are the intricate Parures de Samouraï by Aline Honoré and the fun, comic-style Space Shopping au Faubourg by Dimitri Rybaltchenko. A cheerful woven Ikea rug completes the colour scheme while an oversize mirror from Taylor B—“This didn’t fit the cargo lift, and the movers charged us per floor to carry it here,” she shares—doubles the visual perception.
The master bedroom is a monochromatic oasis of calm overlooking the cityscape.
The master bedroom is a monochromatic oasis of calm overlooking the cityscape.
One of the common bedrooms has been repurposed into Kausar’s walk-in wardrobe and home office. A bed was added recently to turn it into a guest room. The far wall was dedicated to shoes and bags, neatly displayed according to size on full-height open shelves. Next to the open shelves is the wardrobe for her occasionwear, which stores many traditional Pakistani and Indian attire so lavishly beaded and embroidered that the hanger rod is permanently bent by their combined weight.
In contrast with the rest of the home’s blue-, pink- and orange-splashed decor, the master suite is an oasis of tranquillity awash in off-white, beige and sumptuously tactile textures. “We used to have a colourful bedroom. But after we had a kid and two pets, we needed a calming space,” she shares. Soft furnishings create a restful ambience here. The white tweed- like pattern of King Living’s Jasper bed frame is beautifully paired with Sunday Beddings’ bamboo bed linen, Castlery’s boucle fabric on the Amber swivel chair, and rustic-look rug. Above the bed, 15 black-and-white photographs taken by Kausar herself showcase the family’s happy moments.
Part of a large collection of traditional Pakistani and Indian jewellery Kausar has collected over the years.
Part of a large collection of traditional Pakistani and Indian jewellery Kausar has collected over the years.
The coloured elements in this room are well hidden inside a custom white Ikea wardrobe, which neatly stores Kausar’s favourite daily wear. These include separates and sets organised by materials, as well as sunglasses, costume jewellery, and khussas (Pakistani embroidered shoes) stored by colours in pull-out trays and baskets. “I think you have to respect all the things you have. Everything deserves to have its own home,” she says.
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Separated by a glazed wall from the bedroom is the master bathroom. A private sanctuary with a freestanding bathtub and an adjacent his-and-hers wardrobe, this was the deciding feature that led the couple to close the deal on the apartment.
The hallway display houses a few family favourites, including paintings by Kausar’s grandfather.
The hallway display houses a few family favourites, including paintings by Kausar’s grandfather
Kausar is constantly making creative tweaks to the interior, spurred by the beautiful things she and her family collect in their travels. So what’s next? She’s planning to build her own brand, the details of which are still in the works, though it will, of course, offer impeccable craftsmanship woven with her unique heritage.
Photographed by Athirah Annissa
Creative Direction by Daphne Tso
Styled by Gracia Phang
Edited by Renée Batchelor
Makeup: Toni Tan Using M.A.C Cosmetics
Hair: Grego Using Keune Hair Cosmetics
Stylist’s assistants: Zoe Tauro