Meet the New York-based Irish designer known only as Clodagh

Eve Kelliher talks to the world-leading interior designer who is grounded in nature but who also thrives on 'the energy of cities'

Thu, 05 May, 2022 - 22:17

“I’ve always felt in my head that I’m going somewhere, I still feel the same way. I’ve never felt I’ve arrived — ever. I’ve always felt there’s a lot to do.”

So says the interior designer known in the business simply by her first name, Clodagh.

Originally from the west of Ireland, Clodagh began her career in fashion in 1960s Dublin.

Clodagh Phipps at her first fashion show in 1956. Picture: Irish Photo Archive.

She segued to interiors in the 1970s, in Spain and New York, and has designed spaces across a range of disciplines, from private homes to hotels, spas, shops, bars and restaurants across the globe, as well as from yachts and private jets to multi-family buildings and landscapes.

Clodagh will be the subject of a documentary airing on RTÉ this Thursday, May 5.

Her story started in Moytura House, once the summer home of Oscar Wilde, in Cong, Co Mayo.

But how did the chapters unfold afterwards to see Clodagh become one of the world’s most sought-after interior design gurus?

A horse-riding accident as a teenager forced the then Clodagh Phipps to take time out from her Dublin boarding school to recover at the family home.

“So I lay on my back for months,” she says.

During her convalescence, she spotted an ad in The Irish Times. “It said, ‘Why not be a dress designer?’ I thought, ‘Why not?’ So as soon as I could walk I confided in my mother and she said she would help me.

Clodagh Phipps, 18, at her first fashion show. Picture: Irish Photo Archive

"I didn’t dare tell my father and when the time came to tell my father he kicked me out of the house; he said, 'Nobody in my family was ever in trade'.”

Armed with £400 from her mother, Clodagh started her first fashion design business on Dublin’s South Anne Street.

“I went for six weeks to the Grafton Academy of Dress Design, there was a little opening show featured in The Irish Times. Somehow I was up and running,” she adds.

Clodagh Phipps in her studio. Picture: Robert Wright

“All sorts of people were my clients."

These would include singer Marianne Faithfull and later on, when she moved to interiors, movie stars like Robert Redford, for whom she designed a penthouse in New York.

But it was one client that got away that instilled in Clodagh a lifelong aversion to discussing the subject of age.

“A woman walked up the stairs [to Clodagh’s Dublin atelier] and asked, ‘How old are you?'. I told her I was 17. She said 'I think I’ll come back when you have more experience'. She disappeared.

I stamped my foot — I said will never tell anybody my age again because I will be either too old or too young."

Clodagh and her first husband, Desmond O’Kennedy, had three sons, Tim, born in 1960, Stephen, born in 1963, and Peter, born in 1964.

During the 1960s, her designs, including crochet and tweed, were being exported to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

But Clodagh was unhappy in her relationship. “I asked for a separation. I was 27,” she says.

Clodagh with her second husband Daniel Aubry in the 1970s.

Later, the couple divorced and Clodagh met her second husband, Daniel Aubry, who worked in the film and property industries, in Spain.

“I got the children in the holidays and they would live in Ireland with my ex-husband and his new wife,” she says.

Her first interior design project was renovating a farmhouse and townhouse in Spain for Daniel and herself.

She was working with an architect when she says she “had an epiphany” and knew she wanted to become an interior designer.

The multi-family Jackson Park building. Picture: Eric Laignel

She describes seeing the sunlight filter through the dust as demolition began on her first project — her own home in Spain — as the moment she found her true vocation.

“I changed husbands, countries, and careers in 1971,” she says.

They exchanged their house in Spain for a brownstone in New York, and it was in New York that Clodagh’s interior-design empire began in earnest. “I like the energy of cities,” she says.

Treatment room at Sasanqua spa designed by Clodagh. Picture: Daniel Aubry

Clodagh was a devotee of biophilia, green credentials, wellness, and sustainability ahead of her time.

“Wellness is always at the top of my mind,” she says, adding she hates the word "trend".

“We got great publicity because we were doing something that other designers weren’t necessarily doing, we were working with wellbeing and fengshui and bio geometry and healing arts and chromotherapy [colour therapy].

“The word biophilia came in later, but I never thought of having green things around me and a garden as biophilia it was just having the garden around me.

I believe in bringing the outside in and the inside out as much as possible."

Seeing people happy in the spaces she has created is key, she adds.

“I try to design the frustrations out of people’s lives,” she says. “My clients will call me saying their lives have changed because of what we have done. I love when they tell me they feel happy in a space we have designed.

Kitchen/dining space designed by Clodagh. Picture: Keith Scott Morton

“My design philosophy is to make people comfortable and happy in their environment.

“I like sturdy and strong, sexy and tactile and lasting, and also not dancing up and down for attention.”

Tragedy and loss have also informed her approach to life and design.

Clodagh lost one of her beloved sons, Steve, when he was only 23.

“You realise we have quite a short time on this earth and we better make the most of it,” she says.

The entrance of the Six Senses Kaplankaya Hotel. Picture: John Athimaritis

“I’ve always wanted to heal people; I’ve always wanted to make people feel good — that’s driven me.”

Referring to a Buddhist belief, she adds: “If you meet someone on the street that you know, that person should feel happier having met you; I’ve always wanted to make people feel good and I think that’s driven me.”

Abington House, interiors designed by Clodagh. Picture: Steve Freihon

Clodagh adores travel and what she calls “sleeping around” — trying out different hotels and bedrooms and figuring out what those using them really need.

“Everyone should be as pampered a guest in their own home as they are in a good hotel,” she says.

Her camera is her accessory of choice when she travels and in 2019 she had her first solo exhibition of fine art photography, Ephemera, at Cheryl Hazan Gallery, Soho, New York.

“I left school at intermediate [level] and started my own business so I don’t know very much at all — so since I don’t know the rules I can break them all the time," she says.

"My logo is earth, water fire. I make sure that all the elements are represented and all the senses are celebrated.