Patrick Cox has earned his place in the firmament of stellar footwear
designers with his disarming combination of the traditional and avant-garde.
Who else would come up with a purple patent-leather loafer, python-skin
flip-flops or a gold lizard-skin platform? Arguably the most successful shoe
designer in Britain, Cox, 44, provides both his famous customers (who
include Madonna) and the masses with singular, sexy and, crucially,
comfortable little numbers. It’s a philosophy he has brought to his home in
the chichi enclave of Little Venice, northwest London.
The Victorian villa he bought in 2002 for £1.15m has been transformed into a
bijou pad. “When I moved in, it was a well-maintained four-bedroom family
house,” Cox recalls. The walls of which he proceeded to knock down? “Yes,
that’s right,” he laughs riotously.
With the help of an architect friend, Jono Wolf, Cox created a large
ground-floor living space out of two rooms, a basement area and kitchen out
of “at least three”, a large bedroom with ensuite bath-room on the first
floor and a dedicated dressing room out of a two-bedroom, second-floor attic
space. The work took a year and a half.
“It’s pretty specific as a one-bedroom house,” says Cox, whose last reported
serious relationship was with Tyler Brûlé, the founder of Wallpaper
magazine. “After all, it is for a single guy, in fashion, with lots of
clothes and shoes.”
A shoe obsessive from an early age, Cox was brought up in Edmonton, in
Alberta, Canada – “There was nothing there” – and arrived in London in 1983
to study footwear design at Cordwainers’ Technical College. After graduating
in 1985, he collaborated with designers such as John Galliano and Vivienne
Westwood before launching his own label in 1987. He opened his first shop,
in Chelsea, in 1991. The classic loafer from his 1993 diffusion line,
Wannabe, sold more than 3m pairs worldwide, at about £120 a pop. Later, with
a flagship store on Sloane Street and three other shops, in London and
Paris, all it took to cement his reputation was a stint as creative director
of Charles Jourdan in 2003 and the obligatory accessories line and
his’n’hers fragrance launch.
Cox admits that he also partied hard. “I’d been living in an apartment in
Notting Hill for 18 years, in a lateral conversion, and I used to make quite
a bit of noise. I decided I wanted my own front door, and no neighbours.”
His previous property may have been party central, but this one feels
restful. “A lot of my friends haven’t even seen this place. I mellowed out
almost the day I moved in.” That said, Cox’s favourite room is the basement,
“because of its nightclub/cinema-room feel”. He didn’t bother to employ an
interior designer – he knew exactly what he wanted. A state-of-the-art
Kaleidescape DVD and CD system is hidden behind floor-to-ceiling
chocolate-brown gloss cupboards, along with an extensive music and film
collection. (A peek reveals a weakness for dance music, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer and Pedro Almo-dovar.) The huge black leather sofa is understatedly
masculine, offset with biker chic that nods to a recent collection:
chain-fringed leather cushions embossed with angel wings and skulls, all
beautifully worked in silver studs.
“Basements are always too dark,” Cox complains. So, a wall behind billowing
cream curtains contains a huge piece of glass that lets the light flood in.
This opens onto a small decked and paved garden, where ivy is the staple
plant. “The house really appealed, because I don’t have a green thumb,” he
says. “I’ll kill anything within a minute.”
At the other end of the room, the 9ft x 6ft kitchen is also finished in
chocolate brown. “I don’t even boil water,” Cox says, adding that he
couldn’t survive without Raoul’s Cafe, on nearby Clifton Road, and “lots of
takeaways”.
A cook Cox may not be, but the basement, with its marron emperador (brown
limestone) floor, hints at two abiding passions: European art and history.
“When I moved over here, I just immersed myself in it,” Cox says. He started
collecting. Large plaster medallions of Julius Caesar and the emperor
Constantine gaze imperiously from the walls, lit by an ultramodern – and
terribly pretty – strip-light of chandelier droplets hanging over a slim
table. It is the perfect synthesis of classic and contemporary.
“I had a lot of pent-up desires in what I wanted to do. My last apartment was
completely Empire,” he says, referring to his collection of ornate
Napoleonic furniture. “People felt they were coming back to a museum, so I
wanted to keep my Empire – and Greco-Roman and French – bits, but make it
more contemporary. It’s good to mix up antiques with a huge TV and comfy
chairs. I really don’t want people feeling stiff on the sofas.”
At the top of the delicate marble and chrome stairway, which leads to the
ground-floor living room, 10 sunburst mirrors and clocks, dating from the
18th century to the 1940s, line the main wall. It’s a hint of Versailles,
and the Sun King’s decadent streak is something Cox clearly relates to.
“I’ve always been obsessed with Louis XIV,” he says. Such is his fascination
with the Bourbon monarch that at least one sunburst mirror features in each
of his shops, and he has appropriated the fleur de lys for his own
iconography, with the emblem often appearing on his shoes. “I love the
grandeur,” he explains. “I find minimalist places really boring.”
Throughout the room, which is largely decorated in American walnut, icons of
popular culture vie for attention with Empire pomp and Byzantine reliefs.
A Damien Hirst spot painting adorns one wall; on another, above an Empire
sideboard, a work by Sam Taylor-Wood is coupled with a portrait of Napoleon.
The sideboard is covered with photographs of Cox with close friends such as
Elizabeth Hurley, Elton John, David Furnish and the Beck-hams. Inside is a
taster of the other treasure this house contains: a stockpile of new and
vintage shoes, collected over the years for research.
In fact, this place is packed with shoes. In the attic dressing room (where,
inside walnut cupboards, rows of trousers hang on special presses, in order
from light to dark), about 50 pairs of Cox’s designs are ranged along one
wall. “I’m the sample size,” he says, “so I have 20 years’ worth of shoes in
the flat – though I only wear the men’s.” Trade-mark python-skin boots,
silver leather brogues and studded biker boots are immaculately ordered.
In the ground-floor entrance hall, six mirrored cupboards are packed with even
more shoes (he wears only his own designs) – as well as rows of jackets in
everything from leopardskin to leather to evening wear. Fashion-conscious
gents, take note: Cox clears out his wardrobe at the end of every season and
gives the discards to charity shops.
It’s all stunning – but this is no mere show home. Everywhere are personal
mementos of a childhood in Africa, where Cox’s father worked as a linguist.
In the huge black-and-white marble master bath-room, amid classical busts,
is a snap of a young Cox with his mother, who leans protectively over him as
he proudly holds a dead snake on a stick. Comfort is also crucial. Outsized
furry white cushions on the silk-covered bed invite you to sink into them;
Diptyque candles on every available surface are evidence of cosy nights in.
Cox won’t say how much he has spent creating this perfect one-man pad – “Let’s
just say that I didn’t mind about budget” – but he has decided to sell up
and downsize, in the same area or in Chelsea. “I don’t really need so much
space,” he says. “And I want to be on one floor.” He’s happy to take on
another renovation project. “Now that I’ve done it once, I can say, ‘Next
time, I’ll do that. Or that.’ ” There may even be a bigger kitchen. But he’s
adamant that there’ll be no space for cookery books – just shoes.
35 Lanark Road is for sale for £2.25m with Behr & Butchoff (020
7722 7222, www.behrandbutchoff.com)
and Goldshmidt & Howland (020 7289 6666, www.g-h.co.uk); www.patrickcox.com
