Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 30, 2024) - read the full article
On an October evening, Kimmie and four girlfriends sipped pink champagne in her Bedminster, N.J., home as they prepared for a night out. Chandeliers illuminated silk wallpaper and pink window treatments as pop music blared, while the women swapped clothes and perched on window seats.
The primary setting for all this activity wasn’t Kimmie’s bedroom or bathroom, but the roughly 470-square-foot closet she created during a recent home renovation. “It didn’t feel like this was my house until this was done,” Kimmie, 49, said of the closet. “This is truly the only space that is mine alone.”
Closets in luxury homes are getting bigger and more expensive, as homeowners look to display increasingly extensive, curated fashion collections. Closets are also doubling as entertaining spaces, with seating areas and champagne bars where owners can host friends, said Christina Relyea, president of the Association of Closet and Storage Professionals.
...As part of an extensive renovation, they nearly doubled the size of Kimmie’s closet, commissioning Wendy Scott of Timeless Closets & Cabinetry to create boutique-like displays for clothes, purses and shoes. A display case was custom built for Kimmie’s Chanel roller skates, Kimmie says, while a center island has a brass charging port for a Chanel handbag with an LED screen.
For many clients, closets are private spaces, Quinn said, which frees them up when it comes to design decisions. “Because it isn’t shared, in a closet you can have more fun and show your personality,” he said. “It doesn’t have to match the rest of the house.”
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