Home Comforts: mementos, Magic FM and the things that matter, with Bay Garnett

Bay Garnett has never been one for bowing to convention. The stylist – who’s worked with almost every important fashion photographer you can think of – and host of This Old Thing? podcast is the self-titled “queen of thrift”, having made it her mission to make shoots more sustainable. Her commitment to more conscious consumption has seen her style Kate Moss in second-hand clothes, putting on Oxfam catwalks for London Fashion Week and producing pre-loved pop-ups at Selfridges. Bay first caught the eye of Vogue’s then editor Alexandra Shulman, however, in the early 2000s, who’d seen the spoof adverts Bay had styled for her own offbeat shoestring zine, Cheap Date, using solely vintage items. Shulman offered Bay a job on the glossy – and she never looked back.

Knowing all this, it comes as no surprise that Bay’s home in Shepherds Bush, west London, is filled with curious one-offs, charity-shop finds and sentimental keepsakes, from old needlework pieces to vintage drawings. It fits, too, that she should favour retro tunes (who doesn’t love a bit of Smooth Radio?). “I love my house,” she says of the three-storey Victorian number she shares with her long-term partner, Tom, her children, Billy and Sylvie, and two “nutty but amazing” dogs – a lurcher called Smudge and a rescue mountain dog from Bosnia called Paddy. Something of a sentimentalist, as we learn, she also loves everything in it; valuable or not, she says, “it all matters to me”. What does life at home with Bay look like then? Busy, messy and magically madcap is our impression. “You can often find us sitting in front of the TV with ice cream, watching reruns of the American Office with Steve Carrell. Hard to beat.”

My most recent home improvement…
Turning my bathroom a strange but wonderful colour – somewhere between pink, red, yellow and orange. It’s very chic! Plus, the endless changing of lightbulbs.

The latest addition to my wardrobe…
A velvet bag from The Vampire’s Wife. My initials are embroidered on it in gold thread and all around are sequins and other beautiful embellishments. It looks almost Medieval or Elizabethan and yet simultaneously seems straight from a more decadent 1960s moment. In other words, it’s rich in its references – and I enjoy that. I love it. It’s not for everyone, but boy, it’s definitely for me.

The most useful item in my kitchen…
Kitchen roll. We are quite a messy family, including my very large dogs. I’m constantly wiping, clearing up water from the dog bowl, you name it. There’s always something to clear up.

What’s always in my fridge…
I always have green salad, milk and pesto.

The prize bottle in my drinks cabinet…
A good bottle of red.

Hanging on my walls…
A real mix. There’s quite a bit of photography from shoots I’ve worked on. Of particular note is a picture of Kate Moss that I did with Venetia Scott that I love. I also have a huge photo by Tom Craig of Stella Tennant standing on the edge of a mountain overlooking Damascus at dawn. We shot it for British Vogue just before the war broke out, 14 or so years ago. I love it. Stella was a close friend of mine.

I also have a 1960s photograph by Joe Tilson of Jean Shrimpton’s mouth that I adore, and a print of a Peter Blake drawing of his favourite (and least favourite) things in life: his best-loved book (The Great Gatsby); his worst animal (a rat) and so on. I’m nosy and I admire this childlike declaration, done in Blake’s singular, brilliant way.

Some of my own favourite things are pictures bought from thrift stores over the years: a little needlepoint that says ‘LOVE’ in striped hippyish colours in a 1970s font that I found in the Rio Grande in New Mexico, for instance, or a picture of a woman (also from the 1970s) in a dress made from pencils smoking a pencil cigarette. It turns out it was an advert for the Parsons School of Design in New York. I also have a few paintings by a brilliant British artist called Frances Borden.

I could go on and on… My walls are pretty crammed.

The knick-knacks on my mantelpiece…
Oh, I love this question! There’s a beautiful leopard covered in gold leaf in the style of a Russian religious icon by a great artist friend, a tiny woollen replica of my dog in a Perspex box, and a glittery shoe with a picture of Elvis that my sister bought me in Memphis 30 years ago. I also have four dolls by Alber Elbez for Lanvin, which I adore. All these different things mean a lot to me but wouldn’t to anyone else.

The books on my shelf right now…
I have collected a lot of reference books on fashion and art over the years – on everything from the Renaissance to Blondie.

My reading shelf is beside my bed. I have Kate Andersen Browers’ new Elizabeth Taylor biography, Lessons by Ian McEwan, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, a biography of Napoleon and lots more.

The music on my stereo…
Classic FM always plays when I’m in my office. In the kitchen, it’s Smooth, Magic or Radio 4. Or one of my playlists, which are full of my faves.

Growing in my garden…
I forgot to plant my tulips, which I’m upset about, but at least my treasured roses are there. They are the gift that keeps on giving, flowering once in June and then again at the end of the summer.

Hidden away in my cupboards…
Tear sheets, photos, books and magazines featuring my work from over the years. They are the “cupboards of shame”, according to my family. I need to go through them and get rid of it all.

On my to-do list…
I can tick off answering these questions! Otherwise, preparing for Oxfam’s London Fashion Week show and making my son’s birthday cake. The tasks change daily, though I admit that stuff does get stuck on there…

Further reading

Bay Garnett 

Bay Garnett on Instagram

Series 3 of Bay’s podcast, This Old Thing?, launches on 1 Feb. It’s sponsored by Lampoo, the fashion resale site