“It was just a great connection, and it was symbiotic,” Brigette Romanek said of first meeting Gwyneth Paltrow.
“Your house is so sick,” she was suddenly interrupted, by a friend.
Romanek — the Los Angeles interior designer and founder of Romanek Design Studio — recently moved from Laurel Canyon to Hancock Park with her husband, filmmaker Mark Romanek. She unveiled her new home along with her first book, “Livable Luxe” (Chronicle), at a cocktail party on Tuesday night.
Guests wandered her art-filled rooms like they were a museum, with the occasion bringing out nearly 200 friends, including Lupita Nyong’o, Kelly Rowland, Law Roach, Jessica Alba, Ferrari Sheppard, Gia Coppola, Santigold, Elaine Welteroth, Rachel Zoe and Kelly Sawyer Patricof. The event was held in partnership with Swiss watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet, following the opening of the brand’s L.A. AP House, which Brigette designed.
“Will you sign my book?” another walked over to ask.
“What a beautiful book,” yet another told her. “You’re such an inspiration to us. Can I get a photo? I can’t miss this opportunity.”
Romanek obliged, blushing. She was in a whirlwind of hellos, hugs, congratulations and praises all night.
![The scene at the launch of Brigette Romanek's book 'Liveable Luxe'](https://wwd.com/wp-content/themes/vip/pmc-wwd-2021/assets/public/lazyload-fallback.gif)
Romanek has made a name for herself as a tastemaker, getting the spotlight initially for designing Paltrow’s homes. Naturally, it’s who she turned to to pen the book’s foreword.
“Oh my god, it sucked, because I was nervous,” Romanek said of the ask. “You know, because I don’t really like to ask anything of my friends. And they’ll tell you, I’m more of a shy person. And so, it was a minute for me to muster the courage, but she didn’t bat an eye. She was a yes in 30 seconds. And I think her support of me and our friendship, I couldn’t ask for anything more. She was all in. And I didn’t read it or anything. I just wanted it to be whatever she wanted to say, you know. And she’s a truth teller that one, so I was like, ‘OK, just do you.’”
Paltrow wrote about meeting Romanek in the late winter of 2000 when the designer visited the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums” in New York City’s Hamilton Heights.
“I was drawn to her: her beauty, her warmth, her authenticity,” Paltrow writes. “Sometimes in life you meet someone and think, ‘We are going to be friends.’ And that’s exactly what transpired….In the three projects we have now done together, she pushed my design boundaries and excited me with a new way of seeing things. All while making our spaces feel like they are places to love and be loved in.”
Romanek, who’s self-taught, begins the volume with an introduction to her life; she shares her story of growing up on south side of Chicago with her single mom, Paulette McWilliams, a singer who traveled the world with the likes of Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and David Bowie.
“We moved around so much,” Romanek said. “And sometimes we had money. And sometimes we didn’t have money. And so, I didn’t always have super high-end things, and other times I did. But it was putting all of that together that really informed my style. And I knew that I still needed things to function. Not only be beautiful, but really function.”
“Livable Luxe,” showcasing photographs of her work, was just eight months in the making.
“We just had this energy behind us,” she said. “And once I was focused on what the point of the book was, it just started coming and it made sense. And there it went.”
The aim, she said, was to open up about her journey.
“The thing that really spoke to me was that people kept asking me questions, in the politest way, ‘How did you get here? What’s your story?’ People sort of seem to think that I kind of just showed up on the scene,” she went on. “And so, I wanted to speak to that. And I wanted to speak to designers just starting out and say that you could do it too. And here was my story. And it wasn’t necessarily an easy story growing up as a kid. But all of that fueled me to what I am now and influences my work. So even if you have hard times, you push through, and use that. Use that and make it something good. And so that’s what it’s really about. And yes, there are lovely images in it. But it’s really my story and my connections to clients and how they happened.”