This week's New Yorker proclaims Kelly Wearstler the “presiding grande dame of West Coast interior design." In the Letter from Los Angeles, Dana Goodyear says that "Wearstler represents the uninhibited side of Los Angeles, the part that celebrates how far the city is from strict East Coast notions of good taste." Excerpt:
She is forty-two, petite and beautiful, with lynxlike green eyes and long chestnut-colored hair, and an outré fashion sense that accommodates the wearing of crinolines, beehive hairdos, and fingerless gloves. To a party that Wearstler (pronounced “Worst-ler”) co-hosted at Chateau Marmont in June, she wore a vintage dress with sea-green polka dots, backward. Her movements are chronicled exhaustively on real-estate and fashion blogs, where she is known as the “hair crimping queen,” “kooky Los Angeles interior designer extraordinaire,” or, simply, “the Wearst.” In 2007 and 2008, she served as a judge on “Top Design,” a reality show on Bravo (tagline: “See ya later, decorator”); most people, including her fellow-judge Jonathan Adler, say they watched just for Wearstler’s getups.
Wearstler is married to real-estate developer Brad Korzen, with whom she has collaborated on the Avalon, the Viceroy and Maison 140, among others.