Justyna Kołodziej - Vintage lover, not only in the interiors.

Justyna Kołodziej - mother Jagody and Karol, photographer, Vintage lover. One of the first founders of the store inspired by the fashion of the 70s.
In his apartment, he creates an unusual list of objects, even against the commonly accepted rules.

You can't just get a short visit to Justyna. You need to spend a lot of time to enjoy all the details she introduced to her interior, in a Wrocław tenement house located at the quiet district of partisans.
If you don't know it yet, you will quickly find out that Justyna loves to play with forms. Her inspiration for the apartment is on her trip to France and a passion for Vintage furniture. He loves art, design and above all cinema! All this means that bringing another chair, ceramics or interesting print home is a welcome surprise for her. He appreciates the interior, in which, next to furniture or accessories that are design icons, we also find seemingly not much worth old things ...  

We visited Justyna to see her and the new dressing table Lili They get along in her living room, which is an ideal mix of modernity and history.

B.: What is a responsible design for you?

Justyna:It is a timeless design for me, for years, it is high -quality things, of good materials, which will be in service for a long time. It's timelessness, not looking at leading trends. In my opinion, responsibility in design is also combining aesthetics and functions with Less Waste solutions.

I try to buy timeless things myself, those that will be with me for a long time. I am not interested in the latest trends, because I know that they pass quickly, and the classic will always look good and will not get bored so quickly. I hate mediocrity. Buying high -quality things, however, does not have to mean spending a lot of money on them. I like to buy second -hand. Thanks to this, I also have a feeling that to some extent I contribute to limiting overproduction and support the Less Waste movement.

B: Give us a few reasons why you were tempted to choose the Lila Berke toilet for the session.

Justyna:The dressing table captivated me first with her appearance. I like the style of the 60s and 70s. I have some furniture from the old days at home. It is contemporary, but has a vintage feature. I like to mix new ones with the old one. When I saw the dressing player live, I found that he was not only elegant. I was also delighted with her craftsmanship and the materials from which it was made. The quality of the furniture is very important. It affects the comfort of use incredibly. I think it's a nice, multi -functional piece of furniture. It can be used not only as a dressing table, but also as an elegant desk. It looks beautiful decorated with lamps or favorite vases with flowers. It is practical, but also very decorative. It can stand both in the bedroom and in the living room.

B.: What city influenced you and inspired you the most?

Justyna: I have lived in Wrocław for over a quarter of a century, I love this city, I would not like to move out of here. Wrocław is very nice, but it is not a perfect city for life. I complain about polluted air and noise, but more I find advantages than disadvantages: beautiful historic places, parks, favorite pubs, cinemas, theaters. I live in the center and I appreciate very much that I usually move around the city on foot. I don't have a car or a driving license, but I love walking around Wroclaw, I have my favorite walking trails and places. And as a cold, I appreciate that Wrocław is the warmest city in Poland😉  

However, it was Wrocław that influenced me the most, but Paris. It was there that I went for ten months as an eighteen -year -old girl. I went to work as a babysitter. I lived with a French family in a beautiful apartment in a tenement house in the 16th district of Paris. Paris was the first big city I got to know quite well. I was delighted with: architecture, the charming corners of this city, beautiful parks, wonderful food.

B.: How did your stay in France affect your aesthetics?

Justyna:I think that the French have very good taste and a highly developed sense of aesthetics. Just look what shop windows, service outlets, pubs, how the French dress up, how they cover them at the table. I believe that education is important from a small age in developing artistic and aesthetic interests, arousing the needs of experiencing beauty, sensitizing to various forms of art.

The French love beautiful things. This can be seen in the way they dress or how to arrange their apartments. They like to mix styles, combine seemingly non -matching things. In both interiors and fashion, I observe such nonchalance, a natural slack that is manifested by the fact that things do not have to be from the same fairy tale, they should not be a designed set to make them look good together. It is not an art to buy a ready set of furniture and accessories from one manufacturer. It is cooler to create your own unusual list of objects, even against the commonly accepted rules. The French have greatly mastered the ability to combine things from different eras, antiques with contemporary patterns, mixing colors and designs. Nonchalance does not mean mediocrity. The French value good design and things made of good materials, those that will survive. And such things do not have to be very expensive, it can be a chest of drawers after grandma, old porcelain, a lamp from an antique market or a picture from a young artist. I really like interiors in which, next to furniture or accessories that are design icons, we also find seemingly not much worth old things. These are elegant interiors, but giving the impression that they were decorated without any effort. The French also love art in apartments. Their apartments are full of paintings, photos, graphics or sculptures.

B.: Would you say you have a specific style or colors and materials?

Justyna:It's hard to say that I have a favorite style. I don't think I have. I like so many different things. I love the Vinatge style, I love interiors decorated entirely at antiques. I also like modern design. I think I like Mishmash the most, i.e. the combination of old and new ones. I don't like plastics in interiors, I hate imitation. I like wood, glass, natural materials like linen. I also like color. I admire people who have the courage to paint the walls in color and choose colorful rugs, pillows, ceramics. I am more conservative myself. I invest in colorful accessories, but the base is always boring, white walls😉

B.: If you were to be reborn as a piece of furniture or an element of home decor, what would it be and why?

Justyna:I think I could be a mirror, a crystal mirror. I like to watch others. It would be interesting to discover the secrets of the people from the shrond perspective in which they are looking at😉. I could also be a table. Such an old, large and wooden center of home life.

B: Where are you looking for inspiration? Do you have any specific sources, people/places that inspire you?

Justyna:I find interior design inspirations mainly on the Internet. I like Instagram, Pinterest.

 
B.: You love the cinema. Tell us about the movie that made a strong impression on you?

Justyna:It's true, I'm a cinema man. I have my favorite directors. These include François Ozon, Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodovar, Xavier Dolan, Roman Polański and many others. I prefer movies in the cinema than online series. I try to watch cinema news on an ongoing basis, which is not always easy. Recently, several films made a great impression on me, including "Daughter" directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. This is an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's novel. A psychological drama about motherhood, full of disturbing symbolism, breaking taboos. The last film I saw was Pedro Almodovar's "parallel mothers". I liked the film itself, but it did not delight me like the apartment of the main heroine, filled with works of art and design icons, colorful with beautiful natural light. Extremely inspiring.

B: What would you like to have more time for?

Justyna:Lack of free time is my big problem, but I realize that I am not alone in this. As a mother of two children, a professionally working person I am quite an occupied person. I would like to have more time reading books and cooking. I like to cook, but on a daily basis I don't find time to prepare other dishes than express. I hope it will change someday. And I still dream of long mornings. I am a typical owl and I would like to be able to stretch these morning hours so that they are not so stressful to me😉

All photo documentation from Justyna's apartment available on Pinterest