A Fashionable Life: Inside Aaron Kok’s Eclectic Travel-Inspired Home
Step into a home shaped by years of collecting references from places, atmospheres and fleeting moments experienced together.
By Larissa Wong - published
In a quiet corner of Serangoon, away from the city’s restless pace, Aaron Kok and Nicolas Guidi have created a home that appears less like a showcase and more like an expression of memories, blended tastes and identities. For Kok, the fashion editor of Harper’s BAZAAR Singapore, and Guidi, chief operating officer of a restaurant group behind several French dining destinations in Singapore, their home was never about following a singular picture-perfect aesthetic. Instead, it became a running exercise in storytelling—weaving together sun-soaked Italian escapes, the sandy daybeds of Bali, and the cinematic rhythm of New York interiors into something thoughtful and lived-in.
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Aaron Kok in his own clothes, leaning against the stainless steel kitchen counter.
The home was bought after about a month of intensive house viewings. This particular unit checked every box. “There was that chemistry. It’s hard to explain, but we just felt it, and we were like, this is going to be it,” Kok shares. Buying the apartment was only the beginning. Armed with a meticulously assembled 100-slide deck filled with references, moods, and spatial ideas, Kok and Guidi entered the renovation process with a clear vision of the home they wanted to build together. The pair met with 25 firms before choosing The Local INN.terior, drawn not by complete agreement but by respectful resistance. “They were the only ones who challenged us,” Guidi shares, valuing a studio that refined their ideas and offered thoughtful perspectives based on Kok and Guidi’s way of life rather than simply executing a brief. “They actually sat down with us and made us walk through our entire day over a whole week of what we do.” What followed was a four-month renovation that transformed the empty space into a fully-realised home.
The kitchen with stainless steel tabletop, blue tiles and warm wood cabinets.
From the outset, the pair described the apartment’s design language as “mid-century with a little bit of eccentricity”—a sensibility that became the foundation for the home’s aesthetic. Drawn to rich woods, tactile fabrics and pops of colour, Kok and Guidi set out to mix textures and materials in a way that felt expressive and meaningful without becoming visually chaotic—but beyond the appearance, the emotional quality of the home mattered just as much. “We wanted it to feel not young, not stuffy either, but alive,” Kok says. That desire for comfort and longevity steered them away from fast-moving design trends and towards something more timeless. Colour in measured doses and carefully considered materials were introduced with intention, creating a home that mirrors the pair perfectly, yet is able to age gracefully alongside them.
A fully functional kitchen where homecooked meals are the order of the day.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the kitchen, one of the home’s most frequented spaces. Anchored by a stainless steel counter reminiscent of New York diners and subway cars, the space subtly references the city without slipping into caricature. For the pair, the references are more so emotional rather than literal. They often have dinner by the kitchen island, where Kok cooks. “I go, ding, and then I will just serve up,” Kok shares—a ritual that transforms the space into their own version of a downtown diner. Even the print on the wall carries its own serendipitous backstory. While sourcing pieces during the renovation process, Kok stumbled upon a print of a small restaurant along the Amalfi Coast, the very same spot the pair had chanced upon six months earlier. “It was really kismet,” Kok recalls. “I saw it and thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s perfect’.”
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A warm wood dining table graces the space along with colourful floral arrangements and Kok’s collection of scented candles
At the heart of the room is the home’s most sentimental object—surrounding the dark wood dining table and complemented by three bulbous hanging lights—the set of rattan chairs that has followed the pair through different chapters of their lives. Handmade by a small family business in Bali and shipped to Singapore, the chairs were the first major furniture purchase Kok and Guidi made together. They have since travelled through two previous homes before arriving in their current spot. Like his approach to fashion, Kok treats the dining area as an exercise in styling, guided more by personality than perfection. A regular host to intimate gatherings and dinner parties, he gravitates towards the unexpected, mixing Tiffany & Co. dinnerware with vintage flea-market finds, mismatched placemats, and different ceramic glasses for each guest. “I love it when things are a little bit unexpected, everything kind of has its own character,” Kok enthuses.
Kok’s books, necklaces, his own Jil Sander bag and Tiffany & Co. wedding band sitting atop his Italian travertine coffee table.
The same sentiment carries on in the living room. Grounded by a plush sofa, the space embraces colours with confidence, without sacrificing cohesion. The blue and white carpet was chosen for the way it reminded the pair of swimming in Bali, while the red-tiled Italian travertine coffee table brought them back to their holiday in Rome and was also one of the first pieces they envisioned for their new home. “The coffee table was the first thing that I bought and the first thing that I set my eyes on even before we found the house,” Kok recalls. Despite the more vibrant palette, the living room never feels overpowered, with the bolder tones softened by warm woods and moodier tones in the adjacent dining area. “I always think colour pays off and it just makes you feel happy,” says Kok.
Kok in his own outfit, sat in the master bedroom featuring Rebel Walls wallpaper.
In the bedroom, the mood shifts into something more introspective, grounded by a brown bed frame and a shelf holding a curated selection of their bags collected over the years. At the centre is the striking wallpaper from Rebel Walls, a Swedish company, depicting a dreamy composition of trees and architectural pillars. Rather than treating it as a simple backdrop, Kok saw it as something to be framed within the room’s architecture, like a large-scale artwork embedded into the space.
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Instead of books, the bookshelf holds their bag collection.
Ultimately, the space feels like an ongoing reflection of its inhabitants, rather than one governed by fixed design rules. It is a pure expression of taste shaped by experience and travel— that comes to life through memory, materiality, and the everyday act of coming home.
Art direction: Sheryl Seah
Photographer: Angela Guo
Styling: Windy Aulia
Makeup: Rina Sim using Hermès Beauty
Hair: Michael Chiew using KMS and Goldwell
Floral arrangements: Out of Stalk