A Look Inside Joe Mimran’s House

Sharp / October 1, 2014

Joe Mimran brings his work home with him. The same smart, stylish simplicity that’s been a crucial tenet of every brand the 61-year-old impresario has founded in the last 30 years—from Alfred Sung to Club Monaco to Joe Fresh—is, perhaps unsurprisingly, present in virtually every square inch of his leafy Toronto estate.

“It’s a sense of enduring classics,” Mimran says of his approach to design, be it clothing or interiors. “How do you keep reinventing them so they feel modern? It’s usually silhouette, finish, and attention to detail that gets you there opposed to a lot of trickiness.”

In the case of his 4,500-square-foot Forest Hill house, Mimran got “there” by keeping the fixtures understated and allowing his extensive collection of contemporary art and antique oddities to truly shine. The result is a home that’s full of flair and effervescent personality while still showing a great deal of tasteful restraint—just like the man himself.

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‘I’ve had this chair since before we bought the house. It was carved from a solid piece of Indonesian teak by a guy named Jérôme Seguin, who’d done work for Ralph Pucci.’

‘The white shirt is what I started my career on. It’s iconic to me. I give a lot of them away because I’m constantly updating the body – making it a little short, changing the shade – but at any given time, I have about 50 of them in my closet here, and probably another 50 at my place in New York.’

‘About 25 years ago, maybe longer, on my first trip to England, I went down to Jermyn Street and bought my very first pair of slippers from Tricker’s. I’ve been wearing and ordering them ever since – nowadays, I have an embarrassingly massive collection. I love the bit of panache it brings to a look. There’s an old world glamour to them, a sense of casualness, an almost ‘I don’t care’ type of attitude.’

‘It’s become a little passé, but I still love to handwrite notes. I keep notecards and stationary in an Hermes box on my desk.’

‘This was drawn by the German artist Stephan Balkenhol. He does these sketches in chalk, and I was immediately drawn to this one—to me, it’s a perfect representation of my aesthetic, from the simple black and white tones to the timeless striped tee.’

‘I collect vintage sunglasses. It’s always a treat to find pairs from the ’60s or ’70s – they’re hard to come by these days. My eyeglasses, which I love, were made for me especially by Oliver Goldsmith.’

‘Back in 2000, we were on a spur-of-the-moment, five-day trip to Marrakech when I spotted this table in an antique store. I fell in love with it and had to rescue it and bring it home with us.’

‘The staircase was one of the toughest things to get right. I wanted it to be twisted like an old Parisian stairwell, and it took several attempts to get the curvature just as I’d imagined it. Black-and-white photography, meanwhile, was one of my first loves. It’s where passion for art collecting really began, just by wanting to own work from the talented friends I worked with, like Dick Avedon.’

‘My advice for novice wine collectors? Buy up as many 2009 bottles as you can. They’re highly rated and soft enough to drink right now, but they’ll cellar for at least 15-20 years.’