A Fashionable Life: Inside Atelier V&A, A Bold And Vintage-Inspired Design Showroom
At Atelier V&A, founders Venetia Gu and Aisha Hillary-Morgan are breaking all the rules when it comes to what interior design should be like.
By Nicole Ng - published
Hidden among the warehouses in the Kaki Bukit neighbourhood lies Atelier V&A, a treasure trove of an interior design showroom founded by local interior designer Venetia Gu, 40, and Dutch-Australian creative director Aisha Hillary-Morgan, 47. Introduced to each other by their supplier in Australia years ago, Gu and Hillary-Morgan became fast friends over their shared passion for making spaces more beautiful, and later worked together to create unique home accessories they couldn’t find locally for styling projects.
Atelier V&A, a 2,500sqft design and custom furniture showroom, is a culmination of the duo’s vision to fill a missing niche in Singapore’s interior design scene—one that breaks away from rigid design styles and instead draws inspiration from personal narratives. “There’s no proper format, style or look that you have to follow, like wabi-sabi or Japandi,” shares Gu, who is carrying on her family’s legacy of design and carpentry with Interics Decor Pte Ltd, now channelled into Atelier V&A. “We believe that personal style is what your home needs.”
Aisha Hillary-Morgan and Venetia Gu standing behind the marble “Dialogue Table”.
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At the heart of their mission to make personality shine through in different spaces is a deep love for storytelling. Each piece, large or small, in the showroom bears intentional approaches to design. For one, the oversized and elevated “Dialogue Table”, crafted with 20cm thick slabs of marble in pale green and rich red hues, was created to be utilised while standing, encouraging movement and hence conversation and connection. And, like many designs scattered across the gallery, a closer look reveals curious details like small marble spheres that punctuate the legs of the table, serving not only as accents but as hooks to store bags. “That’s kind of our hero piece,” says Hillary-Morgan, who has a background in business, styling and brand development, as well as her own fashion and interiors design label Hills & West. “It’s our largest and boldest piece, so we had a long discussion about the angles of the legs and where the spheres should be—beauty takes work.”
Functionality carries equal weight to aesthetic appeal for the duo. The design process for a new piece starts with a sketch and a 3D-prototype, before editing and perfecting its form in their carpentry workshops located directly above and below the showroom on the second floor of the same building, where materials like wood and marble are cut, fitted together, polished and coloured. “We don’t just do sculptural pieces; practicality and timelessness are just as important to us,” adds Hillary-Morgan on the custom furniture, floral vessels and accessories from their collections. “The pieces can be beautiful and functional at the same time.”
The “Punctuation Chair”, “Dialogue Table” and “Prologue Console” from the Atelier One collection facing a feature wall that showcases fibre art by Alicia Chow Kirwan.
The first piece Hillary-Morgan and Gu designed together, the “Prologue Console”, is testament to this philosophy. A large marble sphere at the foot stands in textural contrast to the wood that forms the rest of the table, yet its circular shape is echoed in the details at the top, while the pie-shaped legs evoke motifs seen in Peranakan tiles. These minute details are composed to create a contemporary objet d’art while preserving every aspect of its purpose as a storage tool.
In the backdrop is a statement artwork that occupies each corner of Atelier V&A’s burgundy art wall. A customised bronze ribbon that emulates the V&A logo anchors the left of the wall, while a piece of fibre art that combines a melange of yarn and leather in various shades of green by local artist Alicia Chow Kirwan of Beeyarnd hangs high above.
An area in the showroom with a restored antique opium bed and sofa.
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The eclectic mix of art and furniture at the showroom is influenced by Gu and Hillary-Morgan’s international upbringing—you’d be hard pressed to pinpoint a specific reference for each design. “I grew up as a kid here and my parents were into Balinese furnishing, so everything was in cane, and they had furniture from the Philippines as well,” shares Gu, whose family has collected many antique pieces over the years, including an opium bed restored with putty and paint that now sits in a nook of the showroom.
Riley, Hillary-Morgan’s dog, inside Atelier V&A.
While Hillary-Morgan has lived in places like London, the Netherlands and Singapore, she cites friends and family from around the world as her influence. “There’s a natural curiosity in mixing different things together,” she muses. “I have adopted brothers and sisters from India and Thailand, so it’s a cultural mix, and I have confidence that it can all work together. When you’re not fearful of trying things and doing things differently, you get comfortable with it.”
As bona fide experts with well over a decade of experience in the field, the duo believes in the power a beautiful space has on a person. Hillary-Morgan shares that beyond just aesthetic purposes, “a space has such an impact on your mood, and we want spaces to evoke positive emotions, but it’s not just about being beautiful and joyful, it has to age with you and enhance how you live and work as well”.
Theodore Alexander decorative panels, a ceramic horse brought from China by Gu’s grandmother, and a Bottega Veneta bag.
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Gu adds that designing a space isn’t just about putting beautiful objects together, but about how the synergy from the final arrangement makes you feel. “The space you live in is really important for your mental health. Beauty does not just come from tangible objects, it’s from the intangible that translates from the pieces into your life.”
A table where Hillary-Morgan and Gu usually have their discussions and a vintage-themed lounge area in the background.
In this way, the pair, who call themselves “lifestyle designers”, view interior design to be far more than a purely visual affair, it’s multifactorial. Says Hillary-Morgan: “It’s about how you want to feel and the senses. What about scent? What about light and sound? There’s all those elements that you need to consider when designing or styling a space.”
As Harper’s BAZAAR Singapore’s first foray into non-residential spaces, Atelier V&A proves that the smallest details in any little corner can be curated to tell your story creatively. “We don’t always have the luxury of having a big home, but you can curate these little moments in your own space,” Hillary-Morgan says of making any space your own. “You can create your own fashionable life.”
Art direction: Sheryl Seah
Photographer: Darren Gabriel Leow
Styling: Gracia Phang
Makeup: Rina Sim using Shu Uemura
Hair: Grego using Keune Haircosmetics