Inside the maximalist apartment of a Silver Lake…
“More is more and less is a bore.” ― Iris Apfel
After spending a long time accumulating clean-lined Midcentury Modern furnishings and equipment, stylist Wendi Weger felt it was time to give her Silver Lake apartment a playful update.
“Everything was brown,” Weger says as she sits on a plush couch coated in pink and chartreuse striped Christian Lacroix cloth. “It looked like a UPS truck in here. I mean, look at me,” she provides, fluffing the ruffles of her Accidente Con Flores costume, her intricately manicured fingers embellished with colourful Zuni Toons rings. “That is not me.”
Indeed.
Weger, who grew up in Madison, Wis., studied cinema during graduate college at NYU and later moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood as a producer and stylist, is no minimalist. Always expressive, she describes her type as more akin to a “Victorian parlor meets hunting lodge.”
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So it’s no shock that her one-bedroom apartment, in a Storybook-style fourplex constructed in 1922, is just as dramatic as she is.
Wendi Weger views her Silver Lake apartment as her artistic studio. “I don’t mind a lot of frenetic activity,” she says.
A wall coated in hollyhock wallpaper from House of Hackney stands out in Weger’s bed room, along with a handmade quilt signed by Grace Verburg that contains crochet, beadwork and a whole lot of ribbon rosettes.
Weger thrives on “kinetic energy,” be it shade, texture or a pair of bedazzled Italian loafers. In her bed room, she mixes floral textiles and trendy artwork with a quirky stepstool formed like an ear of corn. In the eating room, classic Doyle Lane ceramic beads dangle from a Mission-style wood clock while designer purses are draped over chairs and hat racks.
On her fire, an ornate gilded mirror from the Forties she discovered at Sunbeam Vintage is flanked by porcelain collectible figurines. A porcelain Capodimonte lamp nestled under classic Japanese prints is described as “Rococo on acid.” Nearby, a handmade chandelier by artist Helen Stickler, embellished with classic Swarovski crystals and beads, provides to what Weger describes as her “Candyland vibe.”
Weger twirls in a pink taffeta Batsheva costume. “My apartment is basically how I dress — like an Edwardian ghost in a prairie dress who wandered into a circus and decided to keep everything,” she says.
“That’s where I am right now,” she says about the apartment she has called home for 17 years. “I feel like I can finally play. I’m trying to bring in a candy theme without making it too grandma. At this point in my life, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.”
Her buddy, artistic director Dana Sidell, says self-expression is central to how Weger lives her life. “Wendi has the unique ability to bring nostalgia, whimsy and individuality all together into maximalist style,” she says in an e mail.
In 2020, as the movie industry slowed down because of COVID-19, Weger took a probability and opened the Curatorial Dept., a classic and designer resale store in Atwater Village. Popular with celebrities including Lake Bell, Nick Thune and politicians Nithya Raman and Laura Friedman, the store is thought for Weger’s signature “clothing sculptures,” where she layers mannequins with dozens of items of clothes and equipment.
“Styling is my art,” she says. “To me, clothing is sculpture.”
A silk Gucci skirt hangs alongside artworks in Weger’s bed room. “Whether it’s producing a film, building a boutique, styling a room or a mannequin, it’s about assemblage and synergy,” she says.
To display, Weger begins layering a model in her bed room, selecting from racks of garments, purses, color-coordinated sneakers and jewellery close by. She layers an “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt over a costume shirt and Yohji Yamamoto linen pants, then retains including more. “It needs a ruffle,” she says, caught up in the course of, before including a frilly collar and glittering classic brooch.
A shiny blue first-place ribbon materializes and turns into the good accent. “It’s not maximalist enough,” she says with a sigh.
Weger says her apartment displays the method she clothes, with layers of artwork, classic garments and equipment, each with its own story. She jokes that it seems to be like one of her clothes sculptures has “exploded across a room.”
When requested if there’s such a factor as an excessive amount of, she shakes her head with conviction.
1. Weger holds a pair of glowing JVB X Nomasei ‘Nono’ loafers. 2. The hollyhock sample from House of Hackney seems throughout Weger’s apartment, even on this cloth lampshade.
1. A Gucci cashmere bunny cape hangs like an paintings in the bed room. 2. Doyle Lane ceramic beads dangle on a wood clock above a assortment of $2 payments.
“I’ll wear a baby cup as jewelry,” she says, selecting up a small silver cup from a cupboard to show her level. What’s one more allure on one of a number of necklaces already heavy with lockets and hearts?
Weger’s home decor follows the same concept. Some items, like a pink silk pleated Gucci skirt by Alessandro Michele, dangle on her bed room wall next to classic artworks, including a framed cross sew by a buddy that reads “Live. Laugh. Toaster Bath.” Others are neatly organized in her butler’s pantry. Clothing racks fill the hallway, lounge and even her bed room. “Clothing and handbags are art to me,” she says.
Then there’s the cashmere embroidered rabbit cape by Gucci, which she bought secondhand.
“People chase me down on the street whenever I wear it and ask me where I got it,” she says. “To me, it’s art.”
Humor is important to her too. In the lounge, a blue resin espresso desk formed like a sweet wrapper provides to the playful really feel, along with classic sweet dishes.
“There’s a lot of absurdity and comedy here,” she says, stating the Spanish angels with weapons, a collection of artworks from the 1600s.
“There’s something about these Spanish archangels with weapons,” she says. “They look tough and unisex to me, with mild expressions, beautiful clothes, tights, ruffles and sleeves, plus a firearm. It’s a great symbol for being a warrior, especially as a small business owner.”
Nearly the whole lot in her apartment is secondhand, from the classic Audubon prints organized salon-style in the lounge to the Navajo rugs and David Shrigley print she discovered at a storage sale. Mixing previous and new is important, she says, referring to the House of Hackney hollyhock sample she not too long ago added to the partitions of the lounge and bedrooms, as effectively as the eating room lampshade.
Handbags are draped over eating chairs.
Her place settings are also layered, including Weger’s grandmother’s Wedgwood china.
Her apartment is actually her atelier, or as she calls it, “the creative engine behind” the Curatorial Dept. She often does consumption for her store at her kitchen desk, surrounded by needlepoint pillows made by her Great-Uncle Elliott, who was also an entrepreneur. “This is not cluttered to me,” she says. “This is just where everything gets sorted.”
“Wendi’s style has a touch of the harlequin to it — playful, theatrical and always ready for an occasion,” author and former NYU classmate Josh Rothenberger says in an e mail. “Her world is a warm pastiche of vintage and bespoke, histories inherited and histories invented on the fly. Her furniture invites the kind of existential frolic that pairs best with Cuvée — only to remind us, hours later, that true beauty should never be too precious to dance on.”
Although Weger says she isn’t a “woo-woo person,” she believes her apartment and store got here from asking the universe for what she wished. “Tell people what you want,” she says. “Especially in L.A. People support you and help you reach your dreams. I said I wanted this apartment, and because of that, my friend thought of me when she was moving. The same thing happened with my shop. I was in a different industry when I told a shop owner friend I’d always wanted a shop, that I intended to have a shop, and she thought of me when hers became available.”
She’s already pondering about what she needs next: “I’ll be sure to tell everyone I know.”
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