How Interior Designer Lee Broom Brings His Fashion Flair to Home Decor

After working in theater and fashion, designer Lee Broom channels his flair for the dramatic in coveted furniture and lighting collections. 

If this year’s Milan Design Week had a theme, it would be minimal serenity. The annual event was held in June, rather than the typical April due to COVID concerns, to coincide with the all-important furniture fair, the Salone del Mobile. Think of it as Art Basel Miami Beach meets Fashion Week, but with sectionals. 

Hermès presented massive, elegant pavilions inside a palatial venue that glowed in bright colors. American brand Kohler installed a mesmerizing simulation of a white tunnel by Daniel Arsham in a palazzo courtyard. And, in another courtyard on the tony Via Manzoni, furniture brand Poltrona Frau led visitors inside a mirrored structure that reflected the surrounding greenery and terra-cotta colored architecture. 

And then there was the installation by British designer Lee Broom, whose vast, almost experiential offering was, in itself, a quasi-spiritual affair. It was as if Broom had said to his competitors: Hold my negroni. 

Visitors to the installation were guided through various rooms inspired by the Bauhaus architecture he experienced as a child growing up in the West Midlands of England, a concept that elevated his lighting designs in a way most brands could only dream of. In one room, a conical, six-meter chandelier was visually elongated via a reflecting pool and flanked by eight steel benches. In another, carved-oak pendants surrounded a baptismal font made using the same technique. And in another, dozens of aluminum lights were viewed from a mezzanine and illuminated by faux stained-glass windows. 

Not bad for a 15-year-old brand that can give Hermès a run for its money. 

“Some people were really moved by the exhibition,” says Broom reluctantly, after some prodding. At 46, the boyish-looking entrepreneur and designer of furniture, accessories, and lighting is, if anything, humble almost to a fault. 

Twenty-thousand visitors passed through the doors this year, almost double or triple his usual attendance, and it’s even more impressive for an off year in the middle of a hot Italian summer. 

“I can remember walking into churches as a child and feeling a sense of awe,” he says, recalling the wonders of England’s modernist Coventry Cathedral. “It felt very exotic,” he says, but admits it had little to do with the Almighty. “Looking back I was reacting to the drama,” he says in his distinctly working-class accent that puts you at ease, belying his impeccable personal style. 

The unexpected thing about a talent like Broom is that he exudes drama purely in his work, not in his social life or on Instagram, and the typically monastic-acting contemporary design industry is better for it. Even more refreshing for the industry? He’s self-made. While his installations, products, and interiors have been published widely, this fall he’s getting a bit of well-deserved adulation with his first monograph, Fashioning Design, published by Rizzoli. 

The book guides readers through Broom’s colorful and dynamic portfolio, punctuated by hand-drawn sketches, personal photos, and odes from various top-shelf names, including Christian Louboutin, Stephen Jones, and Kelly Wearstler. One of the most important notes, however, is the delightfully brief one from Vivienne Westwood, made all the more poignant considering she was a former mentor. 

Broom’s early attraction to drama is, of course, not surprising for any out creative in the modern era. “I was quite the flamboyant child,” he says. Raised by middle-class parents who owned a small printing company, he started dealing with his inner drama in a more predictable way: the theater. He began acting at the age of seven, acquired an agent a year later, and the year after that joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he shared the stage with legendary Brits such as Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes. 

To make ends meet during his years in school, he would ask bars and clubs if they needed anything decorative made or sewn: pillows, drapes, and the like. So much so that when he graduated he was given a commission to design Nylon, a client’s new nightclub in London’s financial district. The resulting over-the-top interior had Murano chandeliers, fish tank columns, and all sorts of “1970s party palace” elements. “It was like an intensive training course in interior design” that took nine months and that he undertook with a friend, all while dreaming of his future as a fashion designer with his own brand. Unfortunately for his fashion aspirations, the club was a huge success, and more interiors commissions followed. 

In 2003 he started MakiLee, his own interiors firm, with college friend Maki Aoki. In 2006, he started Lee Broom on his own. “I was so sick of interiors,” he says. “I wanted something where I didn’t have to think about durability or regulations...something more art-piece driven.” 

Broom did both interiors and products in the early years of his own brand, including wood cafe chairs with neon lights attached, and tables and lamps covered in traditional ceramics. In 2012 he did his first Milan Design Week and exhibited what would become a watershed design for him: his Crystal Bulb. The fixture that looked just like an incandescent bulb, but was made using cut crystal, was an instant hit—it celebrated craft before it became an accepted buzzword—even though he was swimming against the design current of the time. “You weren’t allowed to deviate from your parking space,” he says, describing his early days as an interiors-world outsider. “I didn’t really care, and I still don’t care about that.” 

Today, he splits his time between his headquarters in London and his ultra-posh home in Manhattan that doubles as a showroom. His team of 30, mostly in London’s Shoreditch, includes his husband Charles Rudgard, an ever-present companion and former management consultant who handles logistics and the like. “He’s created a really sustainable business and brand,” Broom says. “If I had done it without him, it would have been a struggle.”