Alicia Taylor
Shooting our cover for marie claire Lifestyle one of the few sunny days in May, we knew we had the pick of the weather. At the time, we didn’t realise we were also blessed with the best possible COVID conditions. It’s a packed house. Darren Borthwick is standing by to smooth stray hairs, Make-up artist Teneille Sorgiovani has her brushes at the ready. There’s two camera’s on the go: Alicia Taylor with her pedestal and Calum Riddell on video and a full crew. Then there’s the talent.
Edward, four, is doing laps of the kitchen in a Baghera mini Bentley ride on. Henry, 2 is dancing on the table and Baby Beatrice, 1, clings to her mum’s hip. Pomeranians George (long hair) and Daphne (shorter hair) meander across a floorplan stacked with designer furniture. Life at Anna Lahey’s home is anything but dull. The Vida Glow founder doesn’t do lacklustre.
As the glowing face and tour de force behind ingestible collagen brand, Vida Glow, Lahey is fast becoming an inner-beauty icon. Since founding the company in 2014, she and husband and co-founder Kieran Lahey have created a cult-following in China and Australia, and are now taking the brand to the USA and Europe. Her impeccable polish extends to her home, where brass polished plaster and marble hold court.
After looking for a year, the couple traded in apartment life for this modern two-level, four-bedroom home in early 2019. “At the time I was pregnant, and we had a one-year-old and a two-year-old, so we were looking for a home that had living space for us all to be together.” They didn’t want too many levels or separate rooms, “so the layout of this house was a big selling point.”
The location in Sydney’s inner-east was a drawcard too, Lahey says, “we wanted to be in walking distance to a school, park and good coffee.” Good but not perfect, they enlisted Poco Design’s Poppy O’Neil to help them make it their own. The renovation took a year to complete. “The idea behind the design was to evoke the feeling of being on holidays with resort-style interiors and flow,” says Lahey. The brass, marble and polished plaster pool cabana hits the brief. So too does the five-star master suite with plush carpet and marble-clad ensuite.
The growing art collection includes custom installations by Oliver Tanner that look like textiles spun from silk and a 55kg compressed resin sculpture fashioned by Fred Allard to look like a Chanel suitcase, which the couple shipped from Paris. With rugs by the likes of Kelly Wearstler and lighting by Articolo and Apparatus Studio, three kids under five and two dogs keeps it interesting.
In any other home the sheer luxury of it all would feel like a disaster waiting to happen but Lahey plays it cool. “We’ve had two broken lamps. One was replaced, then broken again. It’s now sitting half broken,” she points out. “And there’s been toilet training accidents on carpets – both the kids and the dogs.” Planning the renovation, Lahey envisaged a home they could really live in. “We’ve called a carpet cleaner a couple of times, but all-in-all the house has held up.” There’s a lot of grit below this glossy surface.
For the full cover story, pick up the new issue of marie claire Lifestyle, on stands now.
Prop styling by Kerrie-Ann jones. Fashion styling by Jana Pokorny and Rachel Dawson. Hair by Daren Borthwick/Artist Group. Hair by Teneille Sorgiovani/Lion Artist Management.
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