Ginny Seymour’s Manhattan apartment is the very definition of multitasking. It’s primarily the pied-a-terre of the CEO of the womenswear brand Aligne, who since last summer has split her time 50:50 between New York and London as she grows the business in America. But it also moonlights as a cool address to stage intimate dinners and appointments with press and buyers. And thanks to ample storage — a feature the Americans have long excelled at — it also holds all of Aligne’s samples stateside.
“I lived in New York when I started my career, so it feels very full-circle to be back,” says Seymour, 42, who grew up in Canada and landed her first job at the department store Saks Fifth Avenue before moving to London with her British husband in 2020.
It was Seymour’s idea to channel the energy and spirit of Aligne — a contemporary, accessibly priced label worn by the likes of Sienna Miller and Holly Willoughby, which she relaunched in 2023 — through the decor of her apartment on the polished Upper East Side. Partly a clever way to immerse both new staff and industry insiders in the brand (its head office is on Fashion Street in Spitalfields, once the beating heart of London’s rag trade), the apartment presented an opportunity to champion British brands also enjoying a moment across the Pond.
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Ginny Seymour and her husband, Mark
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In the kitchen, a trio of Snack stools by Eric Trine add colour
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Vinyl LP covers give personality to the dining area
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“That has always been part of my ethos. I’m so proud to be doing what I’m doing and there’s such a unique scene going on right now in London with female-founded, female-led brands that’s so different from the States,” she explains.
Her first port of call was Colours of Arley, a Shoreditch-based textile maker specialising in bespoke stripe combinations. Its founder, Louisa Tratalos, had visions of covering Seymour’s sofa with her split stripe (less saturated than the existing block stripe, it launches this spring) and creating a cocooning tester bed. But to translate those ideas and more from paper into reality, they brought in the Interiors Concierge, a fledgling London interior design studio founded by Joel Donovan. “They definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone,” Seymour says with a laugh when referring to some of the colour palettes proposed by the pair. “But I had to just trust the process. I didn’t want it to reflect just my taste — I wanted it to convey what they wanted to showcase within the space too.”
Drawing from a Rolodex of UK success stories, Donovan brought in a hearty selection of accent pieces from Soho Home, such as the burl console in the hallway and the angular armchairs in the living room. House of Hackney was a no-brainer for statement wallpaper, with a lush scene in the entry echoing Central Park, which is just a stone’s throw away. In the bedroom a toffee-brown paint from a range by Beata Heuman for Mylands, Britain’s oldest family owned and run paint manufacturer, feels irresistibly cosy.
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The sofa had to be cut apart to get it into the apartment
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The bed canopy in the primary bedroom showcases the bespoke stripy fabric by Colours of Arley
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The bathroom is decorated with stars and zodiac signs by the Brooklyn artist Alley Bell
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Of course there’s some American representation too. A peel-and-stick faux grasscloth wallpaper from Society Social provided a more cost-effective way to cover the walls in Seymour’s sons’ bedrooms. In the primary bathroom the Brooklyn-based artist Alley Bell was commissioned to embellish the walls in painterly zodiac signs. And the sofa, a reupholstered find, is memorable for perhaps all the wrong reasons. “In a very New York fashion it did not fit into the apartment. There’s a huge elevator and high ceilings, and no indication that it wouldn’t fit,” Seymour recalls. “There’s a company called the Sofa Doctor who came and cut the sofa apart and I just had to just sit there and pray for my life, all while filming it for Joel, who was back in the UK and having a panic attack,” she says, laughing. (She assures me that you would never know it had been snapped in two and that, reassuringly, the work is guaranteed for 20 years.)
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Owing to her career, Seymour has lived a somewhat nomadic existence and finds that her collections of coffee table books, Christmas decorations and LPs are all she needs to root her to a place. The covers of the latter are displayed around the dining area, and she and her husband, Mark, a solicitor, unwind by listening to records on a Friday night. Although she chuckles at how: “My contribution is not the cool music on the wall — it’s more like Taylor Swift. But I love how the vinyl is like artwork and adds a pop of colour.”
House of Hackney wallpapers provide impact. Plantasia has been used in the hall
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The House of Hackney wallpaper Stratus has been used in the lavatory
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Seymour’s son’s room was given an instant lift with peel-and-stick grasscloth wallpaper
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She concedes that the rumour about cooking in New York City (as in, the locals never bother to) is true. “I love to cook, and we have a great kitchen, but for some reason I find it really challenging,” she admits. When she hosts work events, it’s usually Mark, the “exceptional cook” of the pair, who puts on the apron — his slow-cooked beef ribs, coleslaw and mashed potatoes with homemade barbecue sauce is already the stuff of Aligne legend.
Seymour has two sons who are now back at school in the UK after a brief interlude in Manhattan. Her flip-flopping across the Atlantic won’t be permanent: “It’s very strategic, but home is definitely the UK, where I get that creative energy.”
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