This fashionable home in England mimics the owner's personal style

It’s a glorious day in Ladbroke Grove when I arrive at Georgiana Huddart’s redbrick townhouse. She opens the door, a vision of laid-back elegance in slim Helmut Lang jeans, loafers by Church’s, and a black cashmere Comme des Garçons jumper. Together, we walk through the hallway into her sun-drenched kitchen, where there’s already a pot of coffee brewing on the stove. 

Here, my eyes are first drawn to Faye Wei Wei’s pencil sketch of Saint Sebastian and large line-drawn nudes by Alba Hodsoll hanging above a sculptural Camaleonda bubble sofa, beside which is a very neat play area for her children: Frank Valentine, who is almost four, and one-year-old Stella Rose. The co-founder of the cult swimwear and apparel label Hunza G bought the house last June with her husband Gabriel Andrews, who works in private equity; they gutted it entirely, then redecorated it in calm neutrals, before taking occupancy in November. The one thing they were happy not to change was the view across the silver-birch-framed garden and the field beyond. “Having nature around feels like home,” says Huddart. “I love being able to watch the trees change.” 

She guides me through to the living room, whose cream palette is offset by pops of colour: a burnt-orange sofa, red and green trays from the Lacquer Company, and a chartreuse velvet ottoman by Katrina Phillips that Huddart has owned since she was 22. “It’s had drinks thrown over it, it’s survived house parties, and people have danced on top of it during Notting Hill Carnival,” she tells me. Smaller pieces reveal a penchant for curios: near the window is a pedestal holding a large quartz crystal and by the fireplace is a petrified-wood bowl, whose source she will only identify as ‘a guy I know’, lest word gets out. “He’s the person to go to before a piece comes into a shop and costs a lot of money.” There are also two sentimental additions to the space: a matching brown-leather sofa and an armchair that used to be in Huddart’s family home.

The eldest of six siblings, Huddart spent much of her childhood in rural Essex after her family moved there from Wandsworth to accommodate the growing brood. “We went to the countryside predominantly because we couldn’t fit into a house in London. There was a child sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs, like Harry Potter,” she says. As children, they had a dressing-up box, inside which was a red crinkle-textured mini-dress with a cut-out waist owned by their mother Bella, like the one Julia Roberts wears in Pretty Woman. When Huddart and her sister Gussie found that the dress could miraculously stretch to fit everyone who wore it, they insisted their brother Joe model it. “We’d say: ‘Put the dress on! Put the dress on!’ And he would come down the stairs in it.”

Huddart rediscovered the material when she was 19, trawling through vintage shops on a trip to Berlin. “I found a little pink skirt, and thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s the fabric from the red dress.’ It was really nostalgic for me,” she says. The pieces were from a label called Hunza, founded in 1984 by Peter Meadows, who saw the sustainable potential of garments that could adapt to different body shapes, seeing women through pregnancy and fluctuating sizes. “It was so versatile and flattering, I thought it was crazy that nobody was doing anything with it. So, I started to buy lots of Hunza pieces off the internet—everything that eBay had.”

In the years that followed, while doing various jobs—working at an art gallery, for an interior-design practice, and assisting the fashion stylist Camilla Nickerson—Huddart attempted to recreate Hunza’s Lycra-and elastane fabric, but couldn’t get the same springy, stretchy result. “It’s very technical and hard to copy because it’s made on a circular loom,” she explains. Eventually, she managed to source rolls of the material to create some dresses—and when she wore one to a party in 2015, she serendipitously met a friend of Meadows’ there. “She put me in touch with Peter, and I went for a coffee with him the next day, bringing a bag of samples with me.” Huddart pitched the idea of reviving the brand as Hunza G (for Georgiana) and he gave her the green light to take the lead, while he stayed a majority shareholder. 

She set about breathing new life into the old styles, adjusting fits, and creating an array of hues designed to be universally appealing. “I wanted to make it quite a different thing because in the eighties there wasn’t a huge amount of inclusivity,” she says. “We did loads of fit-testing, and still do because it’s about suiting most bodies to make people feel their best.” The brand quickly took off, with fans including Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Rihanna, and is now stocked at every major luxury retailer, from Matches to Net-a-Porter.

Among Huddart’s holiday staples are the scoop-neck Pamela swimsuit and the high-waisted Nadine bikini. “I’m 6’3”, so it has always been hard for me to find a swimming costume, but these fit me perfectly,” she says. She opts for demure shades of black or soft pink—an approach she also takes for everyday dressing. “I like to be practical; I don’t wear anything particularly flamboyant.” Her wardrobe features designs by the Row, Khaite, and Raey—clean-cut tops, lots of leather, and denim. “I tried different styles in my twenties: I did the stripy indie sleeves, thigh-high socks with hot-pants vibe, which I looked absolutely awful in. But now, I’m more comfortable in myself—I’ve found my groove.”

Confident and wide-ranging tastes characterise all of Huddart’s personal collections. Upstairs, botanical studies printed by her friend Rosie Saunt look pretty opposite a framed vintage poster from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; on her shelves—records by Tame Impala and Radiohead are mixed in with classic albums by Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys; and in the bathroom, a collage by her son Frank is joined by Christabel MacGreevy’s colourful pastel drawing of her and Gabriel’s wedding last July. “I’m not a trend-driven person at all,” she says. “I like things that I can keep forever.” With a home full of stylish pieces that have stood the test of time and a fashion brand that turns 40 next year, Huddart is an exemplar of buying once and buying well.

This piece originally appeared in the July/August 2023 edition of Harper's Bazaar UK

Feature Image: @georgianahuddart/Instagram

Images: @georgianahuddart/Instagram