Architect Sophie Hicks on being an 80s cover girl, and why every object should have a purpose

Summary

Homing – Architect Sophie Hicks: On Being an 80s Cover Girl and Why Every Object Should Have a Purpose

Podcast: Homing
Host: Matt Gibberd
Guest: Sophie Hicks, Architect
Date: July 2, 2026

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Overview

In this episode of Homing, Matt Gibberd sits down with celebrated architect Sophie Hicks in the modernist West London house she designed and built for herself. The conversation traverses Sophie’s journey from being an influential fashion insider and 1980s cover girl to a respected, purpose-driven architect. With candor and humor, Sophie reflects on her unconventional path, the philosophy behind her pared-back design, and the significance of home as a grounding, purposeful environment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life: Between London and Sussex Countryside

• Sophie grew up splitting time between a conventional London household and a remote cottage in Sussex (03:00).
• She appreciates diverse landscapes and cultures, which feeds her curiosity and fondness for moving homes:
  “I like to be in culturally different places, and I like different landscapes around me.” (04:46)

2. Childhood Creativity and Innate Visual Thinking

• Sophie’s creative instincts emerged through making things, inspired by the TV show Blue Peter:
  “You take some materials and you see how you can glue them together… you go from there to making buildings.” (06:24)
• She describes an inherent tendency to think and create in three dimensions (07:32).

3. Rebellion Against Conventions and Embrace of Fashion

• Despite her conventional upbringing, Sophie felt “somewhat trapped” and was eager to explore beyond:
  “The world was more interesting outside the doors.” (09:15)
• She entered the fashion world young, working at top magazines (Vogue, Tatler, Harper’s & Queen) and collaborating with iconic photographers and designers.

4. Influence Through Fashion: Collaboration and Authenticity

• Sophie recounts the creative freedom and two-way influence between stylists and designers in 1980s fashion:
  "Designers were influenced by things that we did in our pictures or things that we did in ourselves." (10:55)
• Memorable moment: Sophie’s accidental influence on Azzedine Alaia’s collection after improvising her outfit (13:11).

5. The Iconic i-D Cover with David Bailey (14:00)

• Story behind the famous wink: She couldn’t wink, so Bailey taped her eye, Jack Nicholson was in the studio messing about.
• “I'm grinning, because they're ridiculous, the pair. And I've got this stupid tape stuck over my eye. Cause I can't wink. And the whole thing's a fiasco. It turned out like a nice picture.” (15:03)
• Discussion of her signature androgynous style and transition from girly to tailored clothes after driving a friend to Princess Diana’s wedding in a borrowed chauffeur suit. Recognition of this look led to a lifelong personal style (15:33–17:11).

6. Transition to Architecture

• Sought greater creative control and fulfillment than fashion could give (13:50–14:10).
• Brief detour: considered filmmaking, auditioned with Fellini at Cinecittà, but architectural ambitions won out (24:02–25:07).
• Gained entry to the Architectural Association with only fashion-show sketchbooks as her portfolio (25:38–27:00).
• Early clients and projects rolled in during her studies, leveraging her connections and organizational skills.

7. Philosophy of Practice: Women’s Strengths and Purposeful Design

• Sophie highlights women’s practical, multi-tasking strengths, especially relevant to the complexities of architecture:
  “It's crazy that the developers don't employ more women architects because we famously can feel what it's going to be like for the human being in or outside the building.” (00:01, 22:53)
• Emphasizes functionality fused with empathy, organization, and aesthetics (22:53–23:45).

8. Working with Fashion Brands as an Architect

• Her background allows her to intuitively grasp brand visions and translate them architecturally:
  “The architecture has to embody the message of the brand, the character, the ethos… And that's because I've worked in fashion for nearly a decade, so I think I probably have an advantage.” (30:22–31:24)
• Projects range widely, from futuristic blue aluminium stores (Mugler, Shanghai) to the camel-colored, enamel Max Mara facade.

9. Family and Balance

• Sophie candidly discusses raising three children while launching her practice and finishing architecture school:
  “Pretty chaotic because I was finishing, I was doing my finals at the AA, I was running a practice and running a house and having babies…” (33:55)
• Her children are now uniquely accomplished in tech, science, and modeling/equestrian worlds (36:05–37:06).

10. The Meaning of Home & Philosophy of Living

• Home is a grounded, root place; everything must have a purpose and add to one’s story.
• She dislikes clutter and “decoration” for its own sake:
  “I don't really know what decoration is. I mean, if you need a chair, it's got to be comfy. If you need a shower, it's got to work. I don't know what is decoration? You tell me.” (00:01, 46:22–46:55)
• Objects should have meaning and relate to lived experiences, not just be things to look at (52:31).

11. Designing Her Own House (38:34 Onward)

• Found a plot with dilapidated garages, bought it at auction, undertook a long planning fight with change-averse neighbors (38:39).
• The house is underground and at street level, with a concrete structure and glazed walls cleverly arranged for privacy, light, and a sense of openness (41:05, 41:49).
• Hidden cabling and thoughtful positioning of sockets, switches—everything is planned and nothing is superfluous (42:49–43:13, 53:17).
• On being accused (gently) of minimalism:
  “Would you call yourself a minimalist?” — “No, because I'm happy to be expressive if there's a good reason.” (51:20–51:24)

12. Materials, Honesty, and Acoustics

• Prefers materials for their intrinsic quality, not tarted up as “decoration”—e.g., dyed-in-the-mass render, exposed concrete, natural timber (47:12–49:02).
• Achieved good acoustics via the pitted, rough concrete:
  “When it was finished, I realized that the surface… is very, very good acoustically. It was a revelation.” (54:21)

13. Relationship to Old and New

• Sophie rejects the stereotype of minimalist architects craving only modern. She’s deeply attached to her centuries-old Northamptonshire cottage and its patina, context, and history:
  “I find the idea that people lived there with their animals… I loved being part of the land and part of the history.” (55:34–58:12)

14. Routine, Wellbeing, and Solitude

• Enjoys a gentle morning routine with flexibility, not an early riser; keeps active with daily Pilates.
• Values both family and solitary evenings:
  “It's really nice to have zero evenings. That I think is important. And a luxury. An incredible luxury.” (61:17, 61:35)

15. Venice and the 'International Village' (62:23)

• Sophie cherishes her apartment in Venice as a counterweight to London’s scale—offering instant access to nature, culture, and a network of friends.

16. What Makes a Home? (64:49)

• Home is fundamentally about being grounded and rooted. It’s integral to a sense of self.
  “Home is very important because it is your root, it's your grounded place.” (64:49)
• Sophie dreams of designing a hotel that truly feels like home—prioritizing light, comfort, texture, and personal ritual rather than generic “decoration”.
  “Is it possible to make a hotel room that makes the majority of people feel like they’ve arrived home? That’s what I’d really like to do.” (65:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote or Description | |------------|----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:01 | Sophie Hicks | "It's crazy that the developers don't employ more women architects..." | | 06:24 | Sophie Hicks | "You take some materials and you see how you can glue them together… you go from there to making buildings." | | 09:15 | Sophie Hicks | "The world was more interesting outside the doors." | | 13:11 | Sophie Hicks | On influencing Alaia’s collection through improvisation at the Fashion Oscars. | | 15:03 | Sophie Hicks | On the i-D cover: "I'm grinning, because they're ridiculous, the pair…" | | 17:11 | Sophie Hicks | On finding her trademark look as a “chauffeur” at Diana’s wedding. | | 22:53 | Sophie Hicks | "We famously can feel what it's going to be like for the human being..." | | 30:24 | Sophie Hicks | "The architecture has to embody the message of the brand, the character, the ethos." | | 33:55 | Sophie Hicks | "Pretty chaotic because I was finishing... running a practice and having babies." | | 46:22 | Sophie Hicks | "I don't really know what decoration is. I mean, if you need a chair, it's got to be comfy…" | | 51:23 | Sophie Hicks | "Would you call yourself a minimalist? — No, because I'm happy to be expressive if there's a good reason." | | 54:21 | Sophie Hicks | "When it was finished, I realized that the surface... is very good acoustically. That was a revelation." | | 55:34 | Sophie Hicks | Reflecting on the deep connection to her ancient cottage and its history. | | 64:49 | Sophie Hicks | "Home is very important because it is your root, it's your grounded place." | | 65:00 | Sophie Hicks | On her dream project: "Is it possible to make a hotel room that makes the majority of people feel like they've arrived home?... That’s what I’d really like to do." |

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Timestamps for Important Topics

• [03:00] — Early life, growing up between city and countryside
• [06:24] — Childhood creativity, making things
• [09:15] — Breaking free from convention, entry into fashion
• [13:11] — Influence on fashion collections, creative collaboration
• [14:00–15:03] — i-D magazine cover story
• [17:11] — Discovery of personal style
• [22:53] — Value of women in architecture, multitasking, empathy
• [25:38] — Admission to architecture school, portfolio story
• [33:55] — Parenting, work-life chaos, children’s careers
• [38:34] — Finding the West London plot, planning struggles
• [41:05] — Design approach in her own house
• [46:22–46:55] — Anti-decoration philosophy
• [51:23] — Not identifying as minimalist
• [54:21] — Acoustics and material honesty
• [55:34–58:12] — Love for old buildings alongside modern design
• [62:23] — Life in Venice, ‘international village’
• [64:49] — What makes a home, dream of hotel-as-home

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Tone & Language

Sophie is warm, witty, and unapologetically candid—mixing dry humor with sharp, grounded observations. Matt’s curiosity and empathy draw out philosophical, practical, and sometimes playful reflections: they banter gently about style, minimalism, gender, and the deep, emotional meanings of home.

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a dynamic portrait of Sophie Hicks: a creative force shaped equally by fashion’s freedom and architecture’s rigor. She advocates living and designing with intent—valuing calm, clarity, history, and personal meaning over trends or clutter. The conversation overflows with anecdotes, wisdom for creators, and practical inspiration for anyone seeking a home that supports who they are.

Transcript

[Sophie Hicks]

It's crazy that the developers don't employ more women architects because we famously can feel what it's going to be like for the human being in or outside the building. We design, we're very practical. We bring up families, we run houses, we have a job, we organize the holiday, we have our heads in lots of different places at the same time. It's what you need to do as an architect. How people see in their space, how people fit in their space, how people fit in their city, how people fit in their landscape. I was always interested in that. Home is very important because it is your root, it's your grounded place. I don't want meaningless stuff around. I mean, I don't like clutter, because how many things can you think about at once? I don't really know what decoration is. I mean, if you need a chair, it's got to be comfy. If you need a shower, it's got to work. I don't know what is decoration? You tell me.

[Matt Gibbard]

Hello. Welcome to a new episode of Homing. I'm Matt Gibbard. Today's guest is the architect Sophie Hicks. Sophie has helped fashion brands like Paul Smith, Yoji Yamamoto and Acne Studios to translate their vision into built form. But before becoming one of Britain's most respected architects, she was immersed in the world of fashion. She worked alongside Grace Coddington and Azzedine Alaia, styled shoots for Vogue and Tatler, and became an iconic face of the early 80s after appearing on the COVID of ID Magazine in a portrait by David Bailey. We recorded this conversation in the remarkable house Sophie designed and built for herself on a small plot in West London. It's a home where every material, detail and object has a purpose. We discuss her childhood between London and the Sussex countryside, why she pivoted from fashion to architecture, and the story behind her distinctive personal style. We also explore what makes a house feel calm, her belief that every design decision needs a reason, and why she's fascinated by the challenge of creating a hotel that feels like home. As always, there's a house tour to accompany the episode, which is available to Homing subscribers on Patreon. So here's the podcast and I very much hope you enjoy it.

[Interviewer]

Hi, Sophie.

[Sophie Hicks]

Hi, Matt.

[Interviewer]

Welcome to Homing. Thanks for being on the podcast. It was very nice to have a look around the house earlier, so thank you for that. And as always, we'll make that tour available to people on Patreon. I want to talk about this house, but I also want to talk about your origin story. If I can put it like slightly ominous terms. Where did you grow up?

[Sophie Hicks]

I grew up mainly in London, but also in the country, in Sussex, in a quite a remote place with no other houses around, with woods and trees and mud and streams.

[Interviewer]

So you divided your time between the two?

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So was that a kind of country house for the holidays kind of thing?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, and my father farmed there a bit, so, yeah.

[Interviewer]

And whereabouts in London were you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Just off Kensington High Street.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you haven't come far?

[Sophie Hicks]

No.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel connected to West London in general?

[Sophie Hicks]

I've always lived. When I've lived in London, I've always lived in West London. I mean, when I left home as a teenager, I moved just north of Notting Hill Gate, and then I moved around in that area for a while, and then I only came to Earl's Court, which is where we are now, by chance. It's not an area I would particularly choose, but it was. I managed to find a piece of land, or at least a bit of land with some rough garages on it, where I built this house. So it was really because of the land that I've moved here.

[Interviewer]

Okay, but if I asked you to say where you belong in the world, where is home from a geographical standpoint, what would you say?

[Sophie Hicks]

I've always moved around a bit.

[Interviewer]

Have you?

[Sophie Hicks]

So I move my home, but I have a place in Northamptonshire that I've rented, a little ancient cottage that I've rented for 40 years, which I'm about to have to give up, which is a pity, because there's so much of my life invested in it. But apart from that, I've lived in London. I've lived in Paris for a couple of years. I've lived in the French Alps for a bit over a year with the children when they were still at school. And now I divide my time between London and Venice, where I've got an apartment.

[Interviewer]

Okay, why do you think you've moved around like that, then? Do you like the excitement?

[Sophie Hicks]

I'm curious about places and I like to be in culturally different places, and I like different landscapes around me. And, you know, the landscape in Venice is very unusual. You know, Venice, the city, is what most people think of, but Venice, the city is in a. It's is in Venice, the lagoon. And there's a big lagoon, and it has islands on it, and it has huge expanses of amazing flat water. The horizon is very, very flat. And I have a boat, very ordinary little boat, which I love to go around on. And you experience the water, the sky, the fog, the sun. The birds. It's. It's very special.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So thinking about your childhood, how would you describe the kind of character that you were?

[Sophie Hicks]

People don't change, really. I realize they're always kind of the same. I think we're born how we are, and we change a little. We hopefully become a little more wise. But otherwise, how would I describe myself? Curious, sort of outgoing, but also a little bit shy. Happy to take some risks if I think that those risks will be interesting, exciting, or open my horizons. Yeah, that sort of thing.

[Matt Gibbard]

So how.

[Interviewer]

How did that play out when you were a kid, then? What were you into? What were you doing?

[Sophie Hicks]

Okay, there was a very good television program when I was growing up called Blue Peter. And every week they made something, and they taught you how to make something as a child. So that was very important. It was all scissors and glue and bits of cardboard and how to make a whole world out of a cereal packet and a squeegee bottle or whatever. Anyway, that's what I did. I made stuff. And, you know, you go from there to making buildings. It's. It's just an extension of the same. You take some materials and you see how you can glue them together.

[Interviewer]

Do you think that's an innate thing, then, or were you shown how to do that?

[Sophie Hicks]

Oh, it's an innate thing. You have to want to do it. You have to think, oh, I'm thrilled by the idea of this pot of glue or this thing of paint or, you know. Yeah, that's what thrilled me. I have a grandson now, and he's thrilled about numbers, and he's always adding up and, you know, doing multiplications and things. That's his thing. My thing was putting stuff together and sticking it together and placing it together and seeing how one thing faced off against another thing.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you think that you thought in a three dimensional way? In a funny sense, visual way, perhaps? Visual way, yeah. Yeah. So tell me about the household in London. So who were you living with in terms of parents, siblings, et cetera?

[Sophie Hicks]

I have a brother and I had a mother and a father who both. Both died now.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

And we lived a very, very conventional life, but we were a stone's throw from Bus Stop and Bieber and all the gorgeous and incredible and exciting stores that were on Kensington High Street. So when I was going to school, you know, you'd come back on the bus age 13, hop off at Bieber, go and sit at those dressing tables which they had all laid out where you could try all the makeup samples, do a ridiculous and ghastly makeup effect and then wipe it off before you got home. That was life.

[Interviewer]

So. And you said it was. It was quite a sort of conventional life.

[Sophie Hicks]

Very conventional.

[Interviewer]

Did you feel a bit less conventional than that?

[Sophie Hicks]

I felt somewhat trapped.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

So when I was 17, I. When I was 16, I got my provisional driving license. As soon as you can fill out the form at 17, I registered for my driving test and passed at sort of 17 and a half. And then I got my grandmother to give me a little car and I was off.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

Boom. I mean, exploring the world. Not deserting my parents, but exploring the world. Driving to Italy, looking and seeing and meeting people. That's what I liked to do when I was very young.

[Interviewer]

Why do you think you felt that sense of being trapped?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, it's, you know, not as interesting. The world was more interesting outside the doors.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

There was a lot more. London was very interesting in the late 70s. Incredibly interesting. I mean, I was just too young to be. To properly experience punk, unfortunately. Cause that was an incredible moment. I mean, literally by a year or two. But after that, New Romantics and all the music and the clubs. The clubs were so good in London, you know, you. And then I got into magazines. And by 18, I was working for a magazine that was then. Then called Harpers and Queen. I'm not sure if it exists anymore. And the editor gave me four pages to do aged 18. Every month I'd have these pages that I could fill with anything I liked, basically. I mean, the freedom was amazing. And London was really happening. And then I moved to Vogue, and then I moved, did a stage at French Vogue, and then I moved to Tatler when Tatler was a really great magazine under Marc Boxer. Very good team there. Fantastic team. Very interesting. I could work with all the fashion photographers, best in the world if I wanted to, which I did. So, you know, it was a jolly exciting moment to be in fashion. And fashion was not controlled by advertisers then, which people don't realize who work now. When I was working at Vogue, if, you know, we did not have to put in our shoots clothing from advertisers if we didn't want to. I mean, now you couldn't even move without putting in advertisers clothes. But what it allowed us to do was to influence fashion, actually.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

You know, there were, you know, designers were influenced by things that we did in our pictures or things that we did in ourselves, actually.

[Interviewer]

Go on, tell me about that.

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, if you were devising a photo shoot on a theme, we did quite A lot of themed shoots. You might call up a designer and say, you know, I'm doing a shoot about Andrew Wy. I'm thinking of one of Grace Coddington's shoots when I was her assistant, Andrew Wyeth, the American painter in Maine. And soft light and gentleness and pastel colors. Can you make me this? I need a skirt or a twin set like that, or a. And the designers would do it, and then that would influence their connection. When I was working for Azzedine, which I did when I left British Vogue, I worked for Azzedine to put together photos of his collections up until that point. And I remember once being in his place and him saying, we're going to the Fashion Oscars. What are the fashion Oscars? I don't know. Anyway, you've got to wear something. So what can I lend you to wear? I'm going to give you this. And it was like a chiffon coat, very floaty, and there was a skinny dress that went underneath it. I cannot wear a skinny dress. I'm too embarrassed. So I got back to my hotel and I looked at it and I thought, I can't wear the skinny dress. But the black floaty thing is nice. And it had a big, strong belt that went with it. I thought, I can wear that, but what can I do? I said, well, all I've got with me is black trousers and a white shirt, which is kind of a uniform and still remains a uniform. I'll put it on over that. And so I just did. And it was like a coat, it was fine, was black muslin with seams on it. And when he saw me, he said, huh? I thought, he's going to be furious. I'm not wearing the right outfit, but I can't wear this dress. And he said, oh, oh, that's interesting. And he turned me around and he started looking. And what it ended up being is I inadvertently had shown up all the seams by putting a white shirt behind it. And so then he realized, ah, I could make this coat even more seamed and put a white shirt under. Then that turned into a section of his next show, which was white taffeta shirts that were very wasted and sort of with peplums and these black Mussolini like coats that went over. And of course, all the seams on the mussolin all were backlit with this white. So anyway, so you could do things in those days where you were creatively influencing, you were being influenced. It was a very nice back and forth and, you know, it was wonderful. And that doesn't. I don't know if it happened so much. I left after. Soon after that, I left fashion and started to study architecture because I realized I really wanted to create myself rather than demonstrate other people's creations. Obviously, you create images when you're styling, but. But I suddenly thought, I want to make the clothes. Well, I don't want to make the clothes. I want to make buildings. So then I changed to architecture.

[Interviewer]

So in this period, you were on the COVID of ID magazine, weren't you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

How did that come about?

[Sophie Hicks]

I think they wanted me on the COVID And I was shooting something with David Bailey.

[Interviewer]

When you say shooting something with him, in what capacity?

[Sophie Hicks]

Oh, I was the stylist or something. I was styling something. I'm working with Bailey. And I said, look, will you. Id want a pict of me? And I've got to wink. Will you do it, Bailey? So he said, okay, sit there. So you sit on the stool. And he said, wink, and I can't wink. He said, well, you're bloody useless. I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't do it. So he then got this tape and stuck it over my eye. And then for some reason, they had. Jack Nicholson was in the studio. I don't know why. So they were, you know, two old devils behind the camera going, you know, making monkey noises. I mean, you know, just being silly. So that's why I'm grinning, because they're ridiculous, the pair. And I've got this stupid tape stuck over my eye. Cause I can't wink. And the whole thing's a fiasco. It turned out like a nice picture.

[Interviewer]

It's a great picture.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, it was funny. The idiot who can't wink. I really can't.

[Interviewer]

That's really funny. But there's also. It was influential, I think. Cause there's a kind of androgyny to it as well. Is that so to say?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

There's a boyishness to the way that you look in that image. Yeah, tell me about that. You know, I know that, for example, you don't like to wear makeup and so on. Just tell me about that kind of androgyny and why that is representative of you in some way.

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, I think it was all just happened very naturally. I mean, when I was a young teenager, I used to wear girly clothes and have jewelry and play around with makeup and stuff like that. And then one day I had a friend who was going to Princess Diana's wedding as a journalist. And when I heard he was going. I said, how are you going to get there? He said, well, I suppose I'll take a taxi. And we have to get there really early because journalists have to be in and sitting in their seats hours before the proper guests arrive. Okay. I said, well, don't take a taxi, I'll drive you. So then I thought, well, if you're driving somebody, you have to be a chauffeur. I'll borrow a suit. So I borrowed a Piero de Monzi gray flannel suit and then I borrowed a chauffeur's cap from. Who did I borrow anyway, I borrowed a chauffeur's cap and I drove down the mall, which is so exciting because we were one of the first cars to drive down the mall because the press had to get there so early and he was quite junior. And so all those people that had been sleeping all night, they were yay. So it was a real laugh. I had a yellow Jeep with a soft top. I mean, it was nuts. And we drove down and then after I dropped him off, I drove around back to this part of London where, you know, friends were giving parties on royal wedding day. Prince Charles marrying Lady Diana Spencer. Yoo hoo. Day off, day off, work, everybody partying. And it was a laugh. And I came to some couple of parties along the Kings Road or something. People said, oh, that's a good suit. Oh, I like that suit. So I thought, oh, okay, maybe this is a good look. Hadn't quite found my look before then. So then I had success. So I thought, okay, well we'll run that one then. So I did.

[Interviewer]

And you're still going for the same look now, right? Is that fair to say?

[Sophie Hicks]

What happened is that when I was working for magazines, the women in the magazines dress and they dress in the latest and they do all the looks. And I've always liked to be a little bit apart. So I thought I don't want to compete and I don't really want to be in a female uniform. I don't really want to be in a female fashion uniform. So I used to wear, literally a uniform. I used to wear Mao suits or simple overalls or something. And also I couldn't afford. There might have been some expensive, wonderful fashion I wanted to wear, but I wouldn't have been able to afford it. So I was quite into sort of workwear and then it sort of stuck really. And when I moved to architecture, you know, it's quite difficult being in the construction industry as a woman. Most of the construction industry is Run by men. And until quite recently, you still went into site offices and there were those ridiculous calendars of sort of topless 17 year olds over the filthy kettle and mugs, you know, and you think, oh, come on, guys. You know, it's a bit of a backward world, although it's obviously getting better. And it's much better outside the uk. We're particularly sort of backward in that respect, I think, because I don't see that in Europe ever. Or in the Far east, actually. No way. I mean, they don't even have those page three girls. I don't know, perhaps we don't have page three girls anymore. Probably not.

[Interviewer]

But luckily page three doesn't exist anymore. But yeah, you're right, that's still an undercurrent on the show.

[Sophie Hicks]

There's a bit of an undercurrent. So it's just much easier to be in a suit or something simple, some classic clothes. I'm not drawing attention to the fact I could be anything. I'm an it. I quite a spider. Prefer it.

[Interviewer]

I love that. That's really interesting. So you feel like it helps you sort of find the right level with the people you're communicating with somehow.

[Sophie Hicks]

It wrong foots them. I'm obviously quite feminine, actually, in the way that I speak, in the way that I communicate. It's quite nice to be a little bit austere in the way I dress. I'm more difficult to pigeonhole, I think, which I think makes people keep an open mind. So I think maybe that's part of it.

[Interviewer]

That's really brilliant.

[Sophie Hicks]

But, you know, when I was young, it's like a game. If you walk into a boardroom of Japanese businessmen who are all wearing gray suits, and you know they're gonna be wearing suits, gray suits. What do you wear? Obviously a gray suit, because then they don't know what's come in and it makes them stop and think. And, you know.

[Interviewer]

And am I right in saying you don't wear makeup and you never really have much?

[Sophie Hicks]

I don't wear makeup. And occasionally I think, God, I really should try and put a bit of makeup to sort of improve things a bit. And my daughter Edie says, mama, no, you can't start now. And I know I can't. I mean, about once every five years I succumb and allow someone to put a bit of makeup on me because I think, well, I'm sure they can, you know, improve things. And very often it's not an improvement at all. And I just look pasty and. Or I Look like a drag queen or something. It's just. No, it's not good. It's much better just to be me.

[Interviewer]

And have you ever had long hair?

[Sophie Hicks]

No. Well, I did until I was about nine. You know, terrible sort of cur. You know, a fringe and curtains, then off.

[Interviewer]

Did you, at the age of nine?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, my mother foolishly left me in the hairdresser's when she went shopping and just said, cut her hair. And he said, what do you want? And so I said, take it off. He said, do. Your mother won't mind? Of course she won't mind.

[Interviewer]

That's amazing, though, isn't it? To be that sure of yourself at that age? Because that's quite unusual.

[Sophie Hicks]

It's like being a spectacle.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

And I felt I was. Didn't fit having, you know, these great long things didn't psychologically didn't work for me.

[Interviewer]

Is that a shyness, then?

[Sophie Hicks]

No, I just felt like a dodo. I don't know, like a wig. Like I was wearing a wig or something. I don't know. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

Tell me about working with Grace Coddington, because that's pretty amazing.

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, I was a very good assistant.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

I am a very good organized person.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah. So her life was made much simpler by me being the person that was organizing the stuff she needed. Organized.

[Interviewer]

Is that one of your superpowers, then? Yeah, yeah. Because as an architect, I suppose it's just spinning plates all the time, right?

[Sophie Hicks]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to be able to do so many things as an architect. And this is one reason why I think it's crazy that the developers don't employ more women architects, because we famously can feel what it's going to be like for the human being in or outside the building we design. We're very practical. We bring up families, we run houses, we have a job, we organize the holiday. We have our heads in lots of different places at the same time. It's what you need to do as an architect. You need to be able to technically understand something, but you can't just do. You have to have around in the back of your mind all these other facets which are important. And one of them is aesthetic. One of them's lighting, one of them's functionality, which is incredibly important. And there are multiple functionalities in a building, and then there's all the technical stuff to make the thing breathe. Right. Warm, right. Cool. Right. All those things and fit into the environment and have a feel for your surroundings. And who are the people who are going to look at your building, you want them to go by and think, oh, that's nice, or a smile to come on their face or think, oh, that's improved that corner of our city, or whatever. So there are many, many things you have to hold in your head at the same time. And budgets and timing. Women are very good at doing multiple things at all. Sort of staggered at the same time, I think.

[Interviewer]

Definitely, yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

I mean, I'm extremely good at prioritizing. I can have 50 things I need to do, but I. Can we do that first? Because I know it's important, because I can see instinctively that until we've done that, these other five things can't happen. I think it's a woman's skill, and I think that hopefully more and more women architects will be brought in to design architecture. Because it's crazy. Not. Anyway, yeah, agreed.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you've been working with Grace Coddington and Azzedine Alaia, and you've been on the COVID of ID working with David Bailey. This is a pretty amazing world you're immersed in, and then suddenly, architecture. So explain that, by the way.

[Sophie Hicks]

Before I did architecture, I thought maybe I wanted to be a film director.

[Interviewer]

Ah.

[Sophie Hicks]

And so I went to see Fellini and in Cinecitta, which is amazing place to go, and he cast me in a film.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

And so.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you've been in the Fellini film as well?

[Sophie Hicks]

I have. I mean, the film kind of morphed into something else. Even Fellini couldn't make the film he wanted to make. He wanted to make a film which was Kafka's America, and he wanted me to play Carl, but even he couldn't raise the money and get the thing going. So he had to turn it into a completely different film called Linda, which is kind of sampling history of his films and bringing back the stars. Marcello Mascroiani and Anita Ekberg as older people talking and having a conversation with nothing to do with America. So if Fellini can't make the film he wants to make, what hope did I have? So I realized, okay, that's a fiasco. It's hopeless. I mean, so then I thought, okay. So I did a bit more fashion, and then I thought, okay, architecture. I'll get back to architecture.

[Interviewer]

Why?

[Sophie Hicks]

Because as a child, I'd sort of thought I might want to do architecture. So I'd sort of struggled through a maths A level to make sure I had at least one maths or science A level in case I needed to apply. And because I like environment I like how people sit in their space, how people fit in their space, how people fit in their city, how people fit in their landscape. I was always interested in that.

[Interviewer]

So you got a place at the aa, the Architectural Association.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Am I right in saying you didn't have anything to show them in terms of work?

[Sophie Hicks]

I had my fashion show sketchbooks.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you took those.

[Sophie Hicks]

They said bring your sketches, bring your portfolio. I want portfolio. I don't have a portfolio. Well, haven't you got anything? I said, well I got my fashion show sketchbooks. Oh, bring those. They said, okay. So I turn up to this little room in the AA where there was a panel of sort of tutors and I think one student rep in top to toe Azedine, you know, one of those really great waisted, great coats and some kind of. He did beautiful suits. I used to wear these incredible suits and with a little stack of leather bound notebooks put on the table and who are you? And I said who I was and I said I'm terribly sorry, I don't have a portfolio. But I got my fashion show sketchbooks if you want to see those. So you spin them around, you know, this is Versace and that's Iman wearing this one. And the reason we sketch and we have to sketch them very fast. Cause they come quite fast, the girls past us. So ding, ding, ding. And this is Romeo Gigli and this is Azzedine and this is this. And that's all I've got. And they looked at me and thought what? What is this? I'm sure they did, I don't know. Anyway, to give them their credit, they thought okay, well we'll take a punt on this one. And half of them said she's never gonna stick it more than three weeks. And other people, apparently I got a bit of feedback afterwards said no, I think she might.

[Interviewer]

How old were you then?

[Sophie Hicks]

26.

[Interviewer]

I think that's exactly the age when I decided I wanted to be an architect and went to architecture school as well. So I went to the Bartlett age 26, having had a career in magazines and so on.

[Sophie Hicks]

Okay, so same as that.

[Interviewer]

So I can totally identify with it. But I got as far as a term in and then we'd set up the modern house at the same time. So I had a quick decision to make and I pivoted over to that. But you know, they're the sliding doors things, aren't they? But it does take quite a lot of conviction to go through the architectural educational process at that time in your life actually so how did you start in terms of actual work then?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, because I was a bit older once I got into my third year, you know, I was like knocking 30, and I had friends who had started businesses, wanted some arch, wanted an architect. And so I was rung up by these friends who ran a magazine publishing company. We've just got new offices, we need an architect. I said, but I'm not qualified. My friend Neil Mendoza said, well, look, if you don't do it, Sophie, I'm doing it and I'm certainly not qualified. So would you please come over and look at it and just tell us what you think we should do? Oh, okay. So it started in my third year. I also had a friend, Norman Rosenthal, who was at the Royal Academy and he was having problem with the Pop art exhibition. He didn't like the design that the designers had proposed. He said, what would you do? And I said, well, I'd make everything white in your galleries. You can't put pop art against these brown floors. Brown, you know, dados and everything. You've got to just make everything white, I think.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

And so I did that as well. We put white linoleum across all the gallery floors, you know, just to make a white background and to make a sort of industrial background, not a Victoria. I just. Anyway, so I did that. So I was quite working in my third year and then by my year out I had a really big busy. I mean, I'd opened my office and had someone working for me and we were doing a couple of houses and stuff. So by the time I went back to the AA for my fourth and fifth year, I had a functioning architectural practice. So I was sort of juggling things. That was fine.

[Interviewer]

And wasn't Paul Smith one of your first clients?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, Paul Smith was one of my first clients. That was after I'd finished, after I'd qualified.

[Interviewer]

How did that come about?

[Sophie Hicks]

He used to come over and say, shall we have breakfast? Yeah, yeah, okay. So he'd come to the office, he'd bring the croissants, I'll make the coffee, and we'd chat. And after a few visits I said, you know, it's lovely having breakfast with you, Paul, really nice. We chat about all kinds of things. Is there anything you want? Well, I thought, I've just bought this property and maybe blah, blah, blah, whatever. And so it went from there. And I did Westbourne House, which was the big house on the corner in Notting Hill, which is like a Paul Smith department store with all the collections in it. Women's the men's. The objects, the accessories, all the stuff.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, just fantastic. Yeah, Fantastic shop.

[Sophie Hicks]

But I'd known him from years back because I'd known him when I was working in fashion, so I knew him anyway.

[Interviewer]

So you've worked with, you know, Acne Studios, Yoji Yamamoto, Chloe, so on and so forth. How do you explain why you connect with fashion brands, or rather why they want to work with you specifically on their stores?

[Sophie Hicks]

I understand their fashion.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

So if the creative director says, this is what I'm doing, this is where I'm going, this is what I'm feeling at the moment, I understand what I'm saying, I understand them, I understand what they mean, you know, and quite often they talk in shorthand. You know, it's like sort of fashiony shorthand. I get it. So I can, you know, I know what they're up to, and also, if they don't tell me much, but I see what they're doing, I can understand where it's coming from. They don't have to. It's helpful if they can speak a bit, because you can misinterpret sometimes. But I can generally understand what it's all about and understand the feel behind the inspiration that's producing these clothes and what they mean and what they mean in terms of the. The atmosphere and the kind of character of the brand. So. And that's because I've worked in fashion for nearly a decade, so I think I probably have an advantage in a way.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

And when I do the first meeting and they ask me questions, you know, I. I can. I can surprise them with my answers and drag things out of them, and then they feel it's been a. It's been a conversation that was rewarding for them, too, because I'm interested in them. You know, all these fashion brands are doing different things. They're all. And they've all got their message, and some are more defined and some are less defined, but the architecture has to embody the message of the brand, the character, the ethos, the kind of. The values, but also the integrity of who they are. And I think this is what a lot of branding agencies don't really get, you know, And I get these branding documents which say, you know, a lot of buzzwords, and it doesn't actually help you at all. And I want to psychologically understand the brand. I need to in order to be able to make a proposal for them that would make sense for them. And that's why I can do so many. So such different brands, you know, I've done Mugler, which is all, you know, completely zhuzhy and amazing with perfume bottles, with shooting stars and this and that, you know, but you have to get into it and understand what they're about. And then, you know, we did a completely blue aluminium, brushed aluminium, louvered shop in Shanghai for them because it was who they were. It's modernistic, futuristic. It's this blue color that is them. You have to get in the mood of it to the point where you can say, don't let's put just blue accents. Don't let's be apologized, apologetic about this. It should be a blue store. Oh, we can't do blue. You can do blue. I'll find a way where you can do everything blue so that it really is you. So all these jobs are not about my taste, they're about who are you? Brand, who are you? What does it mean? Where do you come from? Where are you going? Yeah, it's not about me.

[Interviewer]

So somewhere in the middle of you working with all these brands, getting your architecture practice up and running, you got married and started a family.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

How old were you when you started your family then?

[Sophie Hicks]

I think I was 28 when I had Arthur and I have three children.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Yeah, by modern standards, that's actually quite young.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, by modern standards it is, isn't it?

[Interviewer]

Isn't it? Yeah. So what was that like for you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Pretty chaotic because I was finishing, I was doing my finals at the aa, I was running a practice and running a house and having babies is quite exhausted too. So. Yeah, I was crazily busy, actually.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

But, you know, it's very good having children when you're studying because you've got long summer holidays like kids do, so that's all very good. So I can't quite remember how it worked out, but I think certainly when Arthur and Edie were little and going to nursery school, I had the same summer holidays as they did. So that was nice. So I thought, oh, this is great. It would have been. I mean, I was also running, building, you know, anyway, building at the same time. But, you know, at least I wasn't. At least it wasn't a full year of study. And because I was experienced, I knew how to get work done. You know, work that takes students five days, took me two days because I'd. I work much more quick, I make decisions much more quickly.

[Interviewer]

If we were to ask your children to describe you as a mum, what do you think they would say?

[Sophie Hicks]

You'll have to ask them. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

Do you think the same things would apply in terms of your creativity and practicality combining somehow?

[Sophie Hicks]

I really don't. You really have to ask them. But I value family very highly, so I did concentrate a lot on nurturing them and so. And I think they've all three turned out quite well. You know, it really concerns me that they're moving through life in a way that they're happy with, that they're succeeding in the things they want to succeed in, you know, and all of that just needs encouragement and attention and, you know, and it really concerns me if ever, you know, one of my children is more distant or something like that, I think, oh, what's going on? You know, what's happening there? Come back.

[Interviewer]

And what do they all do now?

[Sophie Hicks]

My oldest is a software engineer and he has a little boy who's three years old who he's teaching maths to and who can do his nine times table, age three. I love it. Amazing amounts of mental arithmetic they do together. So they're the boys. And then I have a daughter, Edie, who is an obsessive horse rider. She has something like crazy like six horses and she does three day eventing and then to fund it, she does modeling. And then my youngest one is Olympia and she is a scientist and she is a doctor and she's just finished some postdoctoral research in Toulouse and she's just won a British Academy fellowship and she'll be working from Cambridge in the autumn and so that's very wonderful. And she's the first sort of scientist in our side of the family. So.

[Interviewer]

What a great mix.

[Sophie Hicks]

I know, it's good, isn't it?

[Interviewer]

Isn't it exciting when children do something that you can't do or that you haven't thought of doing?

[Sophie Hicks]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer]

It's the best.

[Sophie Hicks]

I mean, you know, I can't do any of the things they're doing and they're mind boggling.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Wasn't talking about the modeling. Wasn't your mum a model as well?

[Sophie Hicks]

She was, but it was a much more low key thing in those days. Yeah, she was a model in the 50s.

[Interviewer]

What kind of modeling did she do?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, a little bit of photos and quite a lot of sort of house modeling where you'd model for a house and you know, fashion shows were not like fashion shows are now. They were a few invited people. No music, you'd walk up and down, you know, and sometimes with a number so they knew which number you were, you know. Yeah, but yeah, she was A glamorous thing.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very glamorous family. What did your dad do for work, then?

[Sophie Hicks]

He did farming and he did distribution of fruit and vegetables.

[Interviewer]

All right, yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

In London with, you know, a couple of vans and people driving stuff to restaurants and whatever.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Is there any history of design or architecture in the family, then?

[Sophie Hicks]

I don't think so. I don't think so, no.

[Interviewer]

That's interesting.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, I know. I kind of sprang out of nowhere.

[Interviewer]

Well, talking of design and architecture, let's talk about this house.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Tell me about how you found it and what was here when you got here.

[Sophie Hicks]

So I used to search the auction catalogues to see what was up, and this plot of land here came up for sale. It had three very dilapidated 1950s garages on it and a little forecourt covered in other people's rubbish. And I thought, oh, I'll buy that and get planning permission for something. See, you know what I can get. So, eventually, I got planning permission for this house after some struggles.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Tell me about what the neighbours thought.

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, I don't want to be impolite, but Kensington and Chelsea have a lot of people living that don't like change and anything new and different is alarming for them. And they're very good at mobilizing into, you know, community groups suddenly appear. We're the Something Something Community association, really. When did you incorporate? Ooh, last week.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

And 25 of us say no. You think? Oh, God. Anyway, eventually we got planning permission.

[Interviewer]

How long did that take?

[Sophie Hicks]

Oh, about a year and a half or something.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

And then, yeah, I just wanted to build a little house where I could live. My children had all flown the nest and I wanted a place with a spare room just for me of my architecture that I could enjoy living in. And that felt comfortable for me.

[Matt Gibbard]

Excuse the quick interruption. Firstly, I wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast. The response to Homing has been far beyond anything I've expected. I've really, really appreciated all the messages of support I've had and the mental people who've taken the time to tell me how much they connect with the show. A special thank you, of course, to everyone who signed up on Patreon. Those memberships genuinely do help keep the lights on and make it possible for me to continue creating the podcasts and

[Interviewer]

filming the house tours.

[Matt Gibbard]

Secondly, as the audience continues to grow, I'm beginning to look for a small number of partners for the show. If you're involved with a brand that shares Homing's interests in design, nature, well being and the way we live. I would really love to hear from you. You'll find my contact details in the show notes. Thank you very much. And back to the conversation.

[Interviewer]

So what was the starting point for the design itself and the kind of form of the building?

[Sophie Hicks]

By definition, we had to be on street level and one level below. So to get light into the house, to get light into the basement, to have a place which was really good for entertaining. So to have one room where we could, which is where we're sitting now, which is big enough that you can have a lot of people in. The windows open behind us, the windows open over there. So you've got trees all around. So you want to feel. I wanted to feel the gardens all around us and designed something which felt very grounded, you know. And because we were digging down, we had to have concrete foundations and basically a concrete box in the ground. We built right up to the perimeters and then thought, well, let's build up in concrete. And so we built up in concrete columns, slabs, rather articulated the concrete behind and then interspersed glass to contain it to wrap over. So it's a concrete structure within a glass box, really. And it's a play on the different areas of glass, the areas of concrete structure, and then within that structure. Quite complicated to achieve, but simple. Now, electrics and lighting in these recessed panels so that the rest of the structure is clean without switches on it. Everything is contained in these panels which are around the room.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, tell us about those panels because, yeah, if someone's watching, they can see the panel here behind you.

[Sophie Hicks]

Other ones have light switches, heating thermostats, plug sockets, lighting circuits. This upper part is illuminated. That gives the light to the room. And they're all integrated in the structural columns which were designed at the same time as these electrical boxes so that the structural engineers and we were working at the same time to make sure we had the depth.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I really love them. So they're sort of quite slender, vertical elements, stainless steel elements.

[Sophie Hicks]

I mean, they're in maximum contrast to the brutal concrete, which is, you know, heavy and meant to be. The thing about this concrete is that I don't think that this house will be demolished. Therefore, the amount of energy you are obliged to use to produce concrete over a lifespan of 100 years or so, or potentially more, then, you know, a concrete building can last. Yeah, it's not going to melt away.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So we're in this urban context with buildings around us, but actually, you know, it's very clear that you've spent a lot of time thinking about both privacy views and balancing that with light. So how do you go about that process?

[Sophie Hicks]

We build a 3D computer model and we see where the light is gonna fall every month of the year, any time of the day. So we can plan the light, we can see the light path so we know how the light's going to be. And so it was very, very important with this house because we've got a basement there with a light well going down like an internal patio. And it was very important to me that light actually came down into the patio in the basement and it comes through the glass over the front of the house there. It passes through the glass there and it comes into the. Into the basement. And we could see that on our 3D model. And it is in fact exactly how the 3D model showed it. So it's pretty accurate. And that's very important. You know, I have an internal bathroom downstairs. I wanted to get some natural light into it. I realized on the 3D model that if we cut a glass window and a whitened glass window into the side of the shower, we could get light from the entrance hall area, natural light going in. So. And it's a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle of structure, glazing and circulation, really, to get in and around and turn and see what you want to see and still be able to get downstairs down a staircase that's very tight without hitting your head. Generates the curve of the stair, you know.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I really like what you were telling me earlier about how you enter the house through a small gate from the road.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

You step down into a narrow external courtyard area. Then you come into the entrance hall. And then from the entrance hall, you very clearly thought about the angle of approach from the hallway into the space. So that you feel quite unleashed in some way.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yes. I think it's important. You know, you're coming from the street, you've maybe come from the tube. Psychologically, you've had the battering of the city. You know, all those sounds and smells and stress and worry and I just, just like to go gently into a house. So it gives you various sort of stages before you're in. There's a bit of a buffer.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

So I like to do that.

[Interviewer]

You also told me that you don't like decoration.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yes. I don't really know what decoration is. I mean, if you need a chair, it's got to be comfy.

[Interviewer]

Yep.

[Sophie Hicks]

If you need a shower, it's got to work. I don't know if you want your books around you. Great. I mean, I don't have bookcases here. I have all my books in Venice, where I have an apartment. But they're not decoration, they're my books. You know, they're on shelves. I look at them, I consult them, I arrange them vaguely. I don't know what is decoration? You tell me.

[Interviewer]

Well, I think this is so fascinating because in the same way that the way that you present yourself to the world, you know, we talked about you don't wear makeup and it's quite pared back in some ways you have a similar sensibility in your architecture. So I don't think. Is there even a painted surface in here?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, yes, that wall's painted and that wall's painted, but you know, it's blank paper. I mean, if you've got a bit of wall in, you end up inevitably with some walls in a house. If I feel that a wall needs some expression. For instance, in Edie's house that I built for her in Northamptonshire, there are two long curved walls, one which sort of kind of cradles the kitchen and the other that sort of curves around the bedrooms. I felt they needed to have more presence than the outside walls, which are either glass or there's some various panels that are just painted white or are oak boards. So I thought they should have, because they're doing something. They're holding the kitchen and they're holding the bedro. So what we did is we rendered them and we put dye in the render. I don't like paint, but if we thought, okay, well we've got these long walls, we need to finish them with an amorphous something, they're going to be plastered. Well, maybe we'll do a rough plaster. Well, that's render. Because we're in the country, we're in somewhere more gritty than London. And so if it's render, what can we do? Well, render's kind of a grayish colour, but maybe it'd be nice to. And then we just put some dye in it and made it a bit pinky. That was it. So it's not decoration because it's not on the surface. It's within the body of the material itself. So concrete isn't decoration, it's the body of the material itself. So on the whole, if I'm doing something, I like the actual material to be the thing that's making the so called decoration. But actually it's necessary and it's got its own intrinsic character and color and texture, whatever.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, Would it be fair to say that's the principle of truth to materials? It's not that modernist principle, isn't it?

[Sophie Hicks]

Maybe, yeah, something like that.

[Interviewer]

Why is that honesty important to you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Oh, I don't know, I just sense it. If I can see a reason for doing something, then fine. And that's why it's quite nice working for fashion brands because they often have things that you can. They're often reasons why you have to do things that are more expressive. And that's fun. But I have to have the reason why because they, you know, Paul Smith wanted to do a shop in a house. So what is a shop in a house? Took us a while for the penny to drop with both of us. So if you've got this house and you've got various rooms and you're selling menswear, womenswear accessories, da, da, da. You need one room for each. How do you do the rooms? Well, the woman's room is a boudoir and the man's, the tailoring is a tailor shop. And the thing. Okay, you know, it took us a while to get there. Then you can have the fun of. What do you have in a tailor shop? You have an incredible mirror that opens out like this so you can see in the round. And what do you, you know, you also need, you know, something, some sort of surface to lay the suit on when it's made. Well, you've got the work tables, but what do you do? Well, let you know, it gives you the fun of thinking, let's go to the salvage yard and see what surfaces they've got. Oh, they've got 3 inch, 4 inch thick green slabs of marble that came out of a bank. Well, that would be nice to lay a grey flannel suit on. You start having reasons why you can bring things in. So if you're working for fashion people, you have reasons why you can bring things in. Like, you know, for Max Mara, vitreous enamel for the shop front colored camel. You know, because they're all, in my opinion, all about camel coats that, you know, they make these very nice coats and they're quintessential coat is a camel raglan sleeved overcoat. And so what should the shop front be? Camel colored. But what is camel color? Well, the nicest way you can make a color that's clean and not a sort of dull color like a stone color or something is by using the vitreous enamel that they use on bathtubs because it's absolutely fabulous quality and it's baked into the metal backing, and it can be camel or any color you like, so, you know, you can find fun then. I love to do it. It's fun.

[Interviewer]

Would you call yourself a minimalist?

[Sophie Hicks]

No.

[Interviewer]

Why wouldn't you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Because I'm happy to be expressive if there's a good reason.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. How does that expression come through in here, would you say?

[Sophie Hicks]

Probably the curved door and these panels and things. I don't think this is a minimalist house, actually. Actually. And because of. But a house is slightly different because it's where you as a person need to be very comfortable and rested and able to rest. But I put a lot of art in my houses. I like to see things that give me pleasure and they have. You know, I'm not a. I'm not into tasteful art.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

I'm into. What is this piece of art? What does it mean? What angst has passed through this artist to produce this thing, you know, so there's a lot of story in the depth of the. Of the art that I choose to put on the walls.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

Or, you know, around the place.

[Interviewer]

Would you find it quite stressful to live with quite a bit more stuff in here?

[Sophie Hicks]

I like to have a calm head, and I could put more things in, but they need to add to the story of my life in some way. You know, so things around me either connect to my earlier life, or they're things I've had in previous houses, or they're pieces of art that are from places where I visited. Or, you know, particularly the tribal art. That's all from places where I visited. Vanuatu, Sepit River, Trobriand Islands. You know, I like to have things that remind me of experiences in my life. I don't want meaningless stuff around. I mean, I don't like clutter, because how many things can you think about at once?

[Interviewer]

That's a great way of putting it. Everything here has a reason, doesn't it?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

From the materials you've used to the objects you live with.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

You could explain to me exactly why that plug socket is there and also why, you know, you live with that piece of tribal art on there.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah, I could.

[Interviewer]

That's great. I love it. Acoustics, Sophie.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Which I think is such a key part of a place you live in. How do you describe the acoustics in here?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, the acoustics are good in here. When we were sort of 3/4 built, I suddenly thought, oh, my God, every surface is hard. Help. What are we going to do about the acoustics? You know, And I have, in a previous House put acoustic foam on the ceiling above the dining table. You can get very nice white sort of acoustic foam that's kind of ridged or corrugated or whatever. It looks very good just as a kind of element. White ceiling, white foam. And it just absorbs the sound of the clatter of a dinner conversation or whatever.

[Interviewer]

Does that come as a panel or do you have to apply it?

[Sophie Hicks]

You buy it as a panel and you spray mount it and stick it up.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

It's very light, but in here I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I did have it in the back of my mind we might have to do something. When it was finished, I realized that the surface of this concrete, which has little pits all over it because it was cast against very rough wood boards, is very, very good acoustically. And that was a revelation. And that was a big advantage. We don't need to do anything. It. The acoustics are great, really good for living. You can have a party in here of 40 people and it doesn't feel reverberative. The acoustics are good.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So I interviewed Alain de Botton not long ago. He was very interesting because he lives in quite a pared back way and he really loves modern architecture. And he grew up in Switzerland in modernist surrounds. And he's very convinced that that's how he likes to live. And to the extent that actually he wouldn't like to live in an old building, he said he's relatively extreme, I would say. But his thesis is that modernists like himself, possibly like you, he put himself in the camp that it's something to do with psychological insecurity.

[Sophie Hicks]

But he's a psychologist.

[Interviewer]

I know.

[Sophie Hicks]

I've lived for 40 years in Northamptonshire, down a gated road in one of the most beautiful parts of England, in a cottage which when I took it on in 1985, hadn't been modernized for. Hadn't had any work done to it for like 10, 15 years. It had a basic bathroom and it didn't really have proper hot water and it had some storage heaters. Part of the cottage is late 15th century and the rest of it is probably 16th century. It's of the earth, it's of its place. Its floors are brick, its upper floors are timber. And my bedroom had such old wood. It clearly had been. The planks had been cut with a long saw, like, you know, before they had mechanized saws. I love that place. It's got so much history and age in it. I find the idea that people lived there with their animals in the Downstairs and a dovecot above and that at some point, that upper area was covered over and the dovecot became inside the room. And there was a room above the animals that. The back cottage bit is very. It's raised up a bit. So you go up onto these bricks, which, when it's a very wet winter, they get darker because they're getting damper. Because if you take a sword, which I used to use as a poker for my fire, and you dig it down between the bricks, you can go right down to the hilt. It's just earth underneath. I loved being part of the land and part of the history. It's a part of England where they still have ridge and furrow fields. There's the remains of a medieval monastery. You can still see the earthworks where the monastery would have been. There are remains of fish ponds in the woods where the monks would have raised fish. You can see the rectangular shapes of the ponds. I like very much the history of a place and I like very much living. It was still quite austere. But the surfaces, the walls, the floors, the fire. I like fire hearth as a center of a house. So, no, I feel very happy in somewhere ancient.

[Interviewer]

So what you're saying is it's kind of. It's very contextual, isn't it?

[Sophie Hicks]

No, it's the history. You know, there's been hundreds of years of people living there.

[Interviewer]

No, but what I mean is it sounds like that's absolutely the right building for there. But I think this. What you're saying really is this house, it's not everything of you, but it's what it needs to be in this context.

[Sophie Hicks]

I think probably the common thread is that the place I live needs to have an integrity to it. And I think that cottage in the country, I didn't do any decoration, didn't paint the walls. For 40 years I took them as they were. I didn't ever paint the walls.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[Sophie Hicks]

They'd been lime washed in various colors by the previous tenant and. And I left it. But I cleaned things up a bit. I have still. I'm having to give it up, unfortunately. But I have things in it that relate to my life and things I've found things I brought on my travels. Some quite nice art and things in there. A stove as well as the open fire. It's about life.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I think that within our homes, we're quite grounded by the sort of everyday routines and rituals that we have going on. Are you quite routine based in the way that you live?

[Sophie Hicks]

Somewhat. I mean, I have a Sort of procedure for getting up and getting out into the world in the day, but I'm pretty flexible.

[Interviewer]

Are you an early riser?

[Sophie Hicks]

Not really.

[Interviewer]

Not a morning person.

[Sophie Hicks]

I get up slowly.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

You know, I like to do some exercise, have some breakfast. I'm not in a hurry, listen to the radio. I don't like taking early flights. That's. I hate taking early flights.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

Because I hate that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. That's great.

[Sophie Hicks]

All those early Eurostars to get to Paris in time to get to work before lunchtime is, you know, that 8:00am Eurostar is pretty horrible.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

But earlier than that. No way.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So you exercise. Is there anything else that you do just in terms of your, you know, just trying to keep yourself on an even keel? Cause we're all very busy, you know, you've got a huge amount going on, work wise.

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Do you think about your well being in a deliberate way like that?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

What do you do?

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, I do Pilates every day and I make sure I see friends, I like to see friends. I make lots of arrangements to see people. I love to see my family.

[Interviewer]

So you see your family. Do you live here on your own, though?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Do you like being. Do you like your own company in that way?

[Sophie Hicks]

If you've had a family every day and every evening is. There are people around and you're doing things and then. So it's. It was really only five, four, five years ago that I had evenings with only me.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sophie Hicks]

I mean, it is quite a luxury.

[Interviewer]

Do you like that?

[Sophie Hicks]

I like it a couple of times a week. Yeah. And it's very important. They're evenings when there's absolutely nothing I have to do. I mean, there always are things you have, like chores around the house, but it's really nice to have zero evenings. That I think is important.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sophie Hicks]

And a luxury. An incredible luxury.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. What's your place in Venice like then? Presumably? That's old, is it?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yep. It's an apartment with high ceilings and terrazzo floors off a very lovely 15th century courtyard bang in the center of Venice. And it contains all the things that were put into storage when I left my family house and moved to this little house. They all came out, they were all shipped to Venice. And there were all kinds of things I'd completely forgotten I had. It was wonderful. And all the books are there and quite a lot of art and bits of furniture and it's, you know, it feels very nice. I feel very comfortable there.

[Interviewer]

Do you?

[Sophie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Why Venice, do you think?

[Sophie Hicks]

It's an international village so London has now become so big that I. And I guess a lot of my friends have moved away. I don't know. I don't go out into the street and bump into friends in London. I always used to when I was living here until I was about 40, always, always couldn't move without bumping into a friend. Now I don't bump into friends in London. I think it's. Cause it's so big and people have moved further out in Venice. Venice, it's small, It's a small city. I always bump into friends when I go out in Venice. And it's extremely international. A lot of interesting people have moved there. So it's having a bit of a renaissance, I think. It's full of action. There's a lot of culture of all kinds. And it's got this thing that I'm so pleased I've found, which is within 10 minutes of me walking out of my house, which is right in the middle of the. Of old Venice, within 10 minutes I can be on my boat and going out to the lagoon. And so within 15 minutes, I'm in the equivalent, the watery equivalent of going on a big country walk. You know, it's big expanses, it's water, birds, sky. You can travel somewhere and have a jolly nice lunch at the end of it, which is also nice. But it's that decompressing thing that I used to get from driving to Northamptonshire, which was much harder work. Load the car. Have you remembered everything you need to remember? You drive for an hour and 45 minutes on a Friday night in the traffic. Get there, it's cold, freezing, you gotta light the fires. It's heavy, hard work. And then on Saturday morning, you feel decompressed, you can go for a lovely walk. Da, da, da. I can do that in Venice in 15 minutes and I don't have to drive anywhere and I'd have to load the car and, you know, that's quite nice. So now, unfortunately, I'm having to give back my cottage to the estate I rented it from. I've already found my alternative lovely outdoor experience thing. So, yeah, very calm there.

[Interviewer]

I love the idea of an international village. Yeah, it's a nice way to put it.

[Sophie Hicks]

It really is.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So my final question is generally the same, but in your view, Sophie, I mean, given everything we talked about, how do you summarize the role that the home plays in your life and its importance in your life or otherwise?

[Sophie Hicks]

Home is very important because it is your root, it's your grounded place. So it's extremely important. And I've been thinking recently, one thing that I would really love to design as an architect, I'd love to build a hotel, because I would like to try and encapsulate in a hotel room the feeling of home. So when you go to the other side of the world and you're feeling a bit dislocated and you enter your hotel room, is it possible to make a hotel room that makes the majority of people feel like they've arrived home? And that's a challenge I'd really like to do. And it's not about decoration. It's about the experience. What you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you hear. So I've been asking around friends, what does it mean for you? And very interesting answers you get from all kinds of different people. And so that's what I'm thinking about at the moment. How do you encapsulate the comfort of home when you're taken away from your real home and placed into, you know, the microcosm of home? It's gonna be your home for two, three nights. How do you make that happen, exactly?

[Interviewer]

A fascinating challenge. So what can you think of? Any elements that might have.

[Sophie Hicks]

Well, I think the things that are very important are light, sound, comfort, obviously, and a decoration that makes you feel like you're really at a place where you can do all the little things that you do when you're at home. The little basic. It's very personal, a hotel room. What do you put your feet on? What do you, you know, how's your bathroom in relation to the bed? How is, you know, and they can be really quite small hotel rooms. Do you want to be in a small hotel room? My personal opinion is you want to be in a not too big hotel room. You don't want to rattle around in. You don't want too many choices. You want it simple. So you get in there and very quickly you understand how it works. Lighting is incredibly important. Artificial lighting, the natural light, if you're lucky enough to be able to get some natural light in, that's important. But the artificial lighting is extremely important. How you read, whether you read, where you read, you know, what do you look at when you're in your bed? Ideally, not a tv. You know, you can put a TV in a hotel room, but it doesn't have to be the horrible black plastic square facing the bed. It's so depressing. So I just think all those things just to make people restfully settle quickly so they can then have a good night's sleep.

[Interviewer]

Exactly.

[Sophie Hicks]

I think I'd like to try that.

[Interviewer]

Let me know, because I couldn't agree more. And in fact, I always ask for the smallest hotel room because I quite like that feeling of being contained. I mean, not tiny, but I agree. A big hotel room, not a great thing.

[Sophie Hicks]

It's unnecessary. Yeah, I think it can be good, but then it needs to lead to something. Everything needs to have a place and a reason and you need to know where you are immediately. You don't need to learn your room.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, your approach has come through so clearly. It's fascinating. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

[Sophie Hicks]

Oh, it's been fun talking to you.

[Matt Gibbard]

Thank you so much for listening along today. It's really amazing to me how quickly this podcast is growing and I really do appreciate every single one of you for being here. If you're not yet following the show, please tap on the follow button and new episodes will magically appear in your feed as soon as we release them. As always, you can follow along on Instagram or YouTube and subscribe. Subscribe to our house tours over on Patreon. Just search for Homing with Matt. This episode was produced by Podshop with

[Interviewer]

music by Simeon Walker.

[Matt Gibbard]

Look forward to talking to you all again next week. Bye for.