To say vibrant shades are woven through every fibre of Berni Yates’ being might be a poetic cliché, but it’s not far from the truth. ‘My dad worked for a French spinning company that collaborated with Oscar de la Renta,’ she says. ‘Our house was full of brightly coloured yarns and garments. Colour, colour, colour – that’s what I remember.’
Despite being Yorkshire-born and Cheshire-raised, the knitwear designer and ELLE UK contributing editor admits she wasn’t made for the countryside. ‘You looked out of the windows and saw nothing but fields. I couldn’t wait to get away,’ she says of her childhood. ‘I was arty, a little bit weird. I used to make little dens and doll houses.’ It was this creative flair that later saw her study fashion and knitwear at Nottingham Trent University, and then launch the world-famous Berni Yates Knitwear, which was stocked at Harrods and Harvey Nichols.
Nowadays, you’ll find Yates, her four grown-up children and her Virgo French bulldog, Ottoman, living across a two-storey flat in Clerkenwell, central London, its staircase lined with lemon-coloured tiles. While it might lack a lift (‘It’s a nightmare if you want to bring up furniture’), the apartment’s perks include an ‘unofficial’ balcony (‘It requires you to climb out of a window to get to a flat roof’) and an attic that Yates’ son converted into a menswear studio during lockdown. ‘You’ve got Tube stops all around you, [the club] Fabric is down the road, as is our go-to BYOB Indian restaurant, Cafe Tiffin. It’s the best place to live.’
And when she’s not serving guests Jamaican dishes, such as curried goat and jerk chicken, from her Ridley Road Market-sourced Dutch pot (‘We’ve always got loads of people eating with us: we have a big family’), Yates can be found inspiring the next generation of Central Saint Martins artists in her work as a lecturer. ‘I love working with young people, having conversations about what they want to create and helping get them there,’ she says. ‘I never want to retire. I’ll be there forever.’
She might describe it as matchbox-sized, but Yates’ home is a limitless riot of rainbow palettes and creativity. ‘I started off with a blank canvas,’ she says of her rental, which, over many years, she’s injected with personality via second-hand furniture from Kempton Market. ‘I often make my own curtains to cover cupboards. The accent wall in my bedroom is comprised of free wallpaper samples that I cut up. There are ways you can make your house look homely for very little,’ she says, nodding to the low-hanging Ikea lampshades in the dining room that she ‘Bernified’ by adding multicoloured fringing.
Original artwork is abundant throughout the designer’s ‘quirky, quite ordinary and inexpensive’ home. There’s the portrait of Yates and Ottoman – a 60th birthday present from her children – by Conor Murgatroyd; gold paintings by former CSM student Favour Jonathan that pay homage to Black hair; and two canvases by the contemporary artist Jo Self, which depict flora from the Dalai Lama’s garden. ‘A lot of the paintings are probably worth quite a bit, but most artists have let me pay for them monthly,’ she says. Elsewhere, you might find her collection of Ecuadorian skirts or a floral Richard Quinn coat displayed in the lounge. ‘For me, fashion is art,’ she says of the unexpected placement. ‘I want to see beautifully made textiles, so I’ll hang clothes around the flat.’
Yates’ space is anything but impersonal. Instead, it works like a 3 D photo album of travels and gifts. In her bedroom there’s a Yinka Ilori basketball from her daughter (‘I don’t know what I am going to do with it, but it’s beautiful’), a War Pig sculpture by her former CSM student Ed Mendoza, a paper Alexander McQueen doll sent to the brand’s special clients and a ‘Knit Your Own Boyfriend’ kit. ‘I still haven’t made him because there’s no space in my life for him anyway – knitted or not,’ she laughs.
Her office, dubbed the ‘Flower Room’, is decorated with maracas from her daughter’s trip to Mexico, Venetian clown figurines, her ‘selfie mirror’ from Graham & Green and a paper light spray-painted by her son. There are also stacks of books written by former students, whether it’s Off-White’s Ibrahim Kamara, or the photographer Campbell Addy. ‘I can’t fit them all in my bookcase, so they’re piled up by colour instead of genre.’
Yates’ enthusiasm for vivid shades means her home is a million miles away from the neutral interiors that regularly fill Instagram feeds. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. ‘Every day, I look in the mirror, see my bright pink hair and think, “Lovely! Bring on the day!” And then I put more colours on,’ she says, dressed today in a T-shirt designed by Mendoza, a neon orange Adidas tracksuit and a pair of sherbet yellow Nike trainers. ‘You should never be afraid of colour,’ she adds, sharing her advice to students. ‘Don’t try too hard. Sometimes you can make mistakes, and they’re happy mistakes.’
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
