At home for Christmas with the founder of childrenswear brand Caramel
To discover that Eva Karayiannis, the founder of cult childrenswear brand Caramel, started out as a lawyer might be unexpected, but it makes rather a lot of sense. Spend just an hour with her and you quickly see this is a woman with an exacting eye for detail and a resolute commitment to going the extra mile, whether that’s travelling to inner Mongolia to track down the best cashmere, designing the perfect ditsy print for a frilly shirt, or – with the launch of Caramel’s home collection four years ago – creating exquisite embroidered placemats with artisans in Madagascar. ‘It’s a bit obsessive and mad, but I’ve always wanted to push things to the limit to create something a little out of the ordinary,’ explains the designer, who founded Caramel in 1999 when her children were young.
It’s not particularly surprising, then, that she adopts the same mantra when it comes to decking out her stucco-fronted west London townhouse for the festive season. ‘I’m not very orthodox when it comes to Christmas decorating and I like a bit of the unexpected,’ explains Eva, who is particularly thrilled with the lemon yellow nylon ribbon that winds its way around the Christmas tree in the drawing room this year. ‘I collect all these things from vintage markets, and found this pastel ribbon, which works so beautifully because you can see through it,’ she adds. Few would notice such subtleties, but Eva is entirely right and it’s these little details that give her home a freshness and an understated elegance.
For Eva, her home and Caramel are deeply intertwined, not least because she started her business from the dining table 26 years ago. ‘There was wallpaper in the dining room, but I decided to replace it with white linen, so it could become a ginormous pin board for all my ideas,’ recalls Eva. Even though she didn’t have a grand business vision, it was here that she dreamt up what Caramel would end up being all about – the print-focussed designs, the chic blend of traditional and contemporary to create fresh pieces, and an aesthetic that has an ‘informal formality’ about it. ‘I didn’t want it to be pretentious, but cool and comfortable,’ says Eva. ‘Not overly designed, not under designed.’ While the business soon moved to its own office – what started as a one woman band now employs 60 people, including in Paris and Japan – the linen walls still remain.
‘I love how I can dress this room up when it calls for it,’ continues Eva, pointing out that it’s perhaps the biggest link between her brand and her home. ‘There’s a quietness to my style, but I like the idea that you can layer it as much as your personality wants,’ she says. ‘If you want to clash the colour in an outfit, add a bright sock.’ This Christmas, the sock equivalent in the dining room is the pink and orange ribbons that dangle from the chandelier overhead and the pink floral tablecloth, created from a print that she originally designed for childrenswear. ‘This room was all about dreaming and fantasy, and I wanted to create something a bit mad and fun,’ explains Eva, who will be enjoying the room for her Christmas breakfast this year when all of her children will be home. ‘You can do something crazy for one day,’ she says with a laugh.
She and her husband bought this Victorian house 30 years ago. For Eva, a Greek Cypriot who grew up in Athens, it represented an enchanting world. ‘Having lived in a city like Athens where the buildings aren’t particularly charming, I then came to London where there were all these beautiful, traditional houses with high ceilings and grand rooms,’ she recalls. This one particularly appealed, mainly because it hadn’t been mucked about with and still had all of its elegant proportions intact, including the vast drawing room that spans the depth of the house. Extraordinarily, for a woman who is full of ideas, the house has changed very little since Eva and her husband first decorated it three decades ago. ‘It was about getting the foundations and bones right and creating something that felt classic,’ she says. Even the entrance hall is impossibly chic and free from fuss, with the original cornice and hexagonal tiles paired with smart black and white striped curtains. Palettes are restrained and quiet – from the soft grey in the kitchen to the tonal drawing room, which is painted in Papers and Paints’ ‘SC292’ – which allow the Victorian architecture to be the star of the show. ‘It means I can dress the house up and down,’ she explains.
Much of the furniture came from trips to French flea markets. ‘Back then, my husband and I had time on our hands and it was quite good price-wise,’ Eva remembers. Other pieces, including the refectory table that runs the length of the kitchen-dining room in the basement, have been with her since her first flat when she moved to London years ago. ‘I hate wasting things and this worked well there,’ explains Eva, who admits that she is very restrained when it comes to buying new things for her home. ‘I’m very strict with myself,’ she adds. ‘If you really love it, then have it, but if you don’t, you shouldn’t have it. It’s what I ask myself when putting things in my home, or clothes on the rail in the shops.’ Many of the pictures have also been there for years, including the Old Master drawings in the drawing room, which she bought at auction soon after she moved to London to study History of Art at Sotheby’s. ‘I had the opportunity to buy them for very little money and it was an inexpensive way of having beautiful art on my walls,’ she explains. ‘I’m not into covering my walls in strong messages and I love the subtleness of these drawings. They’re not imposing.’
A few later additions that have made the cut include the lamp hanging in the kitchen, which was sourced for her by interior designer Emma Grant and the pair of George Smith armchairs at the end of the dining table, which she has owned for years, but recently had reupholstered in Michael S Smith’s ‘Mali Stripe’ in indigo. ‘I’m often thinking about how I can make things feel fresh,’ she says. Bedrooms have also subtly changed, too, as her children have grown up, left home, and returned back for stints, with an apple-green four-poster fitted with a charming blue blockprinted bed canopy taking centre stage in one. ‘What’s fascinating about this house is how it has carried me through various chapters of my life,’ reflects Eva.
I get the sense that ultimately what this house has given Eva is a reassuring constant amidst a hugely busy life. And no more so than at Christmas. ‘When we’re all back here for Christmas, I try to switch off and become very domesticated,’ she adds, laughing. ‘Sometimes you forget your identity, but when it comes to festivities, I’m all about remembering my Greek heritage, baking Christmas biscuits with honey and white sugar dusting.’ What better place to remember your identity in a home where you have raised not just three children, but also a business. It’s a reminder of just how many stories a home can carry.
Caramel: caramel-shop.co.uk
Christopher Horwood1/12In the kitchen-dining room, Eva masterminded a quieter, elegant Christmas table set-up, in contrast to the more fantastical dining room decorations.
Christopher Horwood2/12Caramel’s embroidered placemats and embroidered napkins make for a charming table set up, alongside plates that Eva bought at auction.
Christopher Horwood4/12A pair of George Smith chairs, sitting at the end of the dining table, which have been reupholstered in Michael S Smith’s ‘Mali Stripe’ in indigo.
Christopher Horwood5/12A sitting area off Eva's kitchen.
Christopher Horwood6/12The drawing room, featuring a chair that Eva picked up from a local vintage fair in west London, which looks onto the hallway.
Christopher Horwood7/12Greek antiquities and artefacts sit on the table in front of the window in the drawing room.
Christopher Horwood8/12A pair of paintings by Eva's friend in Colombia sit on one of the drawing room walls.
Christopher Horwood9/12A green four-poster bed takes centre stage in one of the guest bedrooms, with a canopy made from an embroidered indigo fabric. Caramel’s Christmas stocking hangs on the wardrobe behind.
Christopher Horwood10/12Eva’s en-suite bathroom is painted in a beautiful teal.
Christopher Horwood11/12A spare bedroom.
Christopher Horwood12/12In the spare bedroom, Caramel’s ‘Ptelea’ dress hangs on the wardrobe, while its ‘Judith’ alpaca and wool blanket is draped across the chair that sits beneath the Hugo Guinness print.
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