The best inheritance in Mally Skok’s family is an unquenchable thirst for charm. We joined the mother-daughter duo on a tour of Gabriella’s New York City apartment and sought out the best secrets of their style DNA.
Q I feel unbridled jealousy over your apartment. Tell me about it.
GABRIELLA: It’s really a representation of our family. Both of my parents are South African and moved to England, where I was born. We moved to the States when I was little, so I’ve always had a global perspective on design and aesthetics, and traveling back to South Africa to visit my mom’s side of the family has been a huge part of my love of color and maximalism. Through my maternal grandmother, I inherited a deep relationship with antiques. It’s not just an affinity: They’re more than objects to us. They are living things we cohabitate alongside. Even the most cheapo basket that we bought in the market on a trip is an heirloom to us because it’s part of a shared memory from our travels together. It’s much like an eclectic mix of high, low; English, South African, New York cosmopolitan; a little bit old school, a little bit new school.
Q Decorating this together, where did you disagree?
MALLY: My vision lately has been doing a very light color on the walls then piling in the color and the textures with lots of artwork, so when Gabriella said she wanted an earthy red color for her walls, I have to admit I was not convinced. It sort of reminded me of my mom’s dining room in the ’70s in Johannesburg [South Africa]. She thought that dining rooms needed to have a warm color on the walls; otherwise, people would get up and leave her dinner parties! And she was right, actually. She once tried blue walls in her dining room, and all her dinner parties were failures after that [laughs].
Q It really does feel warm—especially with the fireplace.
GABRIELLA: The building was created by a developer called Bing & Bing in 1931, and they had a very humanist approach. It was after the first World War, and they were like, ‘We think everyone should have a proper dining area and a fireplace and lovely big windows.’ They really wanted to get back to making a home—even in the shifting landscape of an urban environment. That is something so timeless and arguably more valuable now as these big, cold, angular buildings keep getting erected that you can’t put enough antiques in to save your life.
“IF YOU PASS UP SOMETHING SPECIAL WHEN YOU’RE SHOPPING, YOU’LL THINK ABOUT IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. BEST PRACTICE IS TO GET OUT YOUR CREDIT CARD AND LOAD THE ITEM IN YOUR CAR.”
—MALLY SKOK, interior designer
Q Making things fit your own definition of cozy is important. Speaking of, I want to take a nap in your reading nook.
MALLY: Gabriella invented the nook. She’s a reader and wanted to be able to see her books, and we discovered there was this hidey-hole behind a horrible entertainment center at the end of the room.
GABRIELLA: It was this super-mid-’90s TV console that looked shallow, but I thought that even if there’s only room for my books, I want to have beautiful built-in bookshelves. We lucked out because the space actually goes quite deep, and it is, as my mom said, the perfect spot.
Q The antiques everywhere are great too. It feels so homey. How do you hone your eye and develop a distinctive style?
MALLY: If you see something you really love, buy it. You can figure out where you’re going to put it later on. If you wait then go back, someone else will have bought it.
GABRIELLA: One of the biggest lessons I learned working with my mom as a designer was to trust myself. She would say, ‘You love it; let’s do it. You’re going to kick yourself if we don’t get it.’ And for so many of those pieces where I said, ‘Well, it’s kind of loud’ or ‘It’s a little crazy,’ she gave me that boost of encouragement—and those are the pieces I love the most. You have to listen to your gut. Too many people have expectations for themselves about what their personal style is going to look like, but if you love things, you won’t get sick of them.
“You can always keep a list of things you are looking for in the back of your mind, but don’t expect to find them. If you’re looking for a bamboo stool, for instance, you might be unlucky on that foray, but just buy the other thing you find that you love—the bowl or the painting. You need to have a lot of patience.” —Mally
“We sort of treat shopping like meditation: You put your mind in neutral, and then suddenly something will jump off the shelves into your brain. It takes a while to learn the tactic of doing junk stores well.” —Mally
“On my mantel, I have this really great piece that has a toucan on it. It must have taken someone hours to create that little ceramic piece. In my years of antiquing, I’ve never seen anything like that: It stopped me in my tracks. I love something where the provenance is totally inscrutable: It’s clear a human made it, but it could have been yesterday or 400 years ago.” —Gabriella
“I never want to feel like I’m getting ripped off. This past summer, Pyrex got very trendy, and all of a sudden, it was $60 for a mixing bowl. I was, like, ‘This is ridiculous.’” —Gabriella
“We’ll never buy new glassware again, because you can get the most amazing set of crystal glasses for $50. But make sure they don’t have chips; glasses really should be intact.” —Mally
● Clockwise from above right: Gabriella and Mally marvel at the pendants at Showplace antiques store. Pieces of vintage art glass will add a special touch to any vignette. Yesterday’s News is the duo’s favorite shop for little trays. Handmade paper flowers by The Green Vase are displayed in a John Derian shop. A selection of textile artifacts have a boho appeal. The End of History is known for its colorful glass.