Famed interior designer Kim Lewis shares the stories behind her clothing.
By Lauren Jones, Photos by Monica Grice
It’s 5 p.m. on a Thursday, and a wash of welcoming light floods through the windows of Kim Lewis’ tiny home. At 560 square feet, her Joshua-Tree-inspired home is bright and open, the quintessential artist’s abode, filled with collections from her travels and vintage pieces.
This is the first tiny home she’s lived in, and living small allows her “to have roots, but always have wings. Plus, I’m a real indoor-outdoor girl,” Lewis says of her inspiration for downsizing.
This home is really the best of both worlds.
In addition to sizing down her space, Lewis has made serious changes to her closet.
“Everything in this house has a story,” Lewis says, pointing to the intricate headboard she bought in Bali and her colorful menagerie of scarves from her grandmother, all of which line her handmade bookcase.
Spending her days designing and often on construction sites, Lewis has a go-to outfit that includes a pair overalls, a cropped and striped top (“You have to wear vertical stripes when you are short,” Lewis says with a laugh.) and her trusty pair of paint-speckled boots.
She says she’s gotten used to having paint on everything. She grabs another pair of boots, the shoes she would never get rid of, she insists, as those “boots have gone through the ringer, yet I still love them,” she says, pointing to a fleck a blue paint. “This paint is from when I was in Ghana in West Africa.”
While the designer never leaves home without her nude heels and trace paper, her confidence-boosting outfit always includes something denim.
“I always go toward denim. It’s my power color,” Lewis says. “It feels casual yet still strong and tough. We work in construction, so we don’t wear things that are too fancy. I do a lot of denim on denim.”
While her closet is quite small, it’s packed with memories, weaving stories from throughout the world into each stitch. Never has the less-is-more philosophy seemed so appealing.
For more about Kim Lewis, visit her website, kimlewisdesigns.com.