Lofty ambitions

Kathleen Waite from Skylark with her partner Rob Trathen in their loft apartment. Photo / Babiche Martens

Does it feel like you've seen this house before? It's entirely possible. The loft-style home of fashion designer Kathleen Waite, photographer Rob Trathen and Marley the dog, has been the set for countless local music videos, including Goodshirt's famous Sophie clip.

That's the one where a girl in a towel gets so swept away by the music in her headphones that she is oblivious to the burglars stealing all of her belongings behind her - including Waite's "rainbow pill" painting that still hangs on the wall.

Art is a recurring feature of the home, with several of Trathen's photos proudly hung. Trathen's work is a mixture of fashion, music, advertising and beauty, and has featured in Esquire, Remix and Sunday magazine. He also shoots all of the campaigns and lookbooks for Waite's Skylark label, which launched at the Aotea Markets and morphed into a small boutique space in St Kevin's Arcade in 2003.

The boutique is now based in Canterbury Arcade (it recently moved up the stairs closer to High St), and is home to Waite's cute, but not saccharine designs as well as an eclectic collection of jewellery, accessories and collectibles. The boutique is like a treasure trove of prettiness with gorgeous antique sewing machines, taxidermied lambs, ceramic cat figurines and beautiful retro lamps - Waite says the store is where she indulges her girlish side, as opposed to at home where the aesthetic is far simpler and classic. "I like having the separation; the shop's kind of cluttered and interesting and a little bit eccentric, but I like coming home and having it clear." Trathen explains: "Kathleen's interior design sense is quite masculine in a way. She might have a girly shop, but in terms of interiors, her taste is more classic".

Waite and Trathen bought their split-level Newton apartment four years ago, after their landlord decided to sell. Waite says they were both attracted to the space because of its centrality. "It has real character, being a sort of New York-style loft. It's hard to find now; it's quite rare. It's a lot of people's dream," says Trathen.

After buying, the pair decided to renovate and make it their own, by ripping out walls and turning the living, dining and kitchen area into the massive open-plan space it is today. It wasn't a hard decision to make, and they had plenty of advice. "We've flatted with quite a few architects in this place, and everyone would do their dream renovation on it," says Waite, who is pregnant with their first child. They knocked down all the walls that divided the 210 square metre space, and got rid of the corner bathroom and turned that space into the kitchen. "The layout just wasn't right. All the beautiful sunlight dropped into the bathroom in the evening - you could have had an amazing shower, but it didn't really make sense," says Waite. But it wasn't all plain sailing during the four-month renovations. "We had a really interesting time with the builders; a lot of the stuff that we wanted to do they'd just say no to. We didn't have an architect, and the draft was wrong so I just traced around it - so how we actually did the place was quite different to how most people do it!"

But it was worth it. The spacious area that now greets visitors when they enter is impressive; light pours in from warehouse style windows onto exposed wooden floors and a high stud, and expansive white walls display their amazing range of artwork - including impressive blown-up images of Trathen's photographs of a peacock and evil-looking crow.

Near the front door is also a one-off graffiti work on an old uplifted wall, and two fixie bikes displayed against a wall near the dining area; one of them is a 1950s bike from France with an electric motor.

"I was going to do it up, but it's more an installation piece now. I like it just as it is," says Trathen. "We both love the French culture, I can speak fluent French, I worked in New Caledonia, and we got engaged there; so it's kind of like my little piece of France."

The Stephane Rondel designed steel cabinetry in the kitchen is one of Trathen's favourite features in the house. The clash of the industrial strong lines, steel and concrete against the white walls and vintage touches throughout the house is incredible. "The dark steel is so unusual... We knew that with the materials we wanted really strong, raw and dark," he says. Ceramic birds on the wall keep it from too raw and dark. Vintage collectibles like the birds are another theme throughout the house, from Blue Mountain crockery to Crown Lynn to retro cushions with horses on them to J.H. Lynch framed pictures. Waite's penchant for collecting is in the blood.

"My parents collected stuff, Mum has kept all of Dad's stuff and she really hoards - I want to collect but I don't want to hoard!" she says jokingly. She finds most of her "things" in Nelson, where Trathen's parents live, and from antique fairs and markets. "I actually get rid of a lot of stuff as well as collecting. I don't hang on to things for too long."

Numerous white collectibles on the bathroom windowsill make a bold statement - a Crown Lynn swan, white vases, a white rabbit . Waite says the bathroom is her "pretty area" of the house, with a hand-cut glass champagne-pink chandelier, old-fashioned claw-foot bath and antique dresser painted white. But it's not all girlish charm: the prettiness is counterbalanced with harder design features of a concrete floor, walk in shower with no door or step, and a Rondel tablecloth table. "I just wanted the bathroom to look pretty and white and clean," says Waite.

Up a small flight of stairs is the split-level area of the apartment, with Trathen's office and Waite's studio as well as two bedrooms. The pair say they haven't really "got into them yet", as they've been concentrating on the main living-dining-kitchen area. Waite hopes to eventually put in an ensuite and walk-in wardrobe into their bedroom, in the area behind a Florence Broadhurst printed partition. The current wardrobe features a very sweet wall of vintage pictures from Carlotta Edwards' lakeside ballerinas to J.H. Lynch's famous Tina. The room itself is full of baby stuff that they have slowly collected; it's obvious that this is the project Waite can't wait to start working on. "The nursery is going to be really fun," she says, beaming.

Back in the main living area, and Trathen is pointing out another of his favourite features: a massive bare wall. At night they'll pull out Trathen's projector, a gift from Waite, which projects a 150-inch image - "it's like a theatre at night". Perfect for those NZ's Next Top Model viewing parties - Waite's brother is judge Colin Mathura-Jeffree.