Step Inside Emma James' Spellbinding Cairo Apartment

[tranquil music]

Hi AD, welcome to my home in Cairo

on the island of Zamalek.

[person speaking in foreign language]

[lively music]

This building was built in the 1950s, steps from the Nile.

It's about four stories

and it's now surrounded by massive building blocks,

but it remains gracious and beautiful.

It has big high ceilings where you enter

through the entry vestibule.

Then you're in the inner living room,

what I call the inner living room,

which opens through a generous architrave

to the other sitting room and the dining room,

and then you can see it's the corridor that spans the width

of the length of the whole apartment.

[lively music continues]

When I moved back to Cairo, I always had imagined

that I would move back to Maadi, which is where I grew up,

which is a leafy suburb south of here.

However, it felt when I moved back,

I had most of my close friends in Zamalek.

It's central for the cities, all over the city.

It was like a central point so you can really have a kind

of community-led life.

I can't leave my house without bumping

into at least five people I know,

which most of the time I really like.

So I am a textile designer

and this is something I've kind of come full circle to

in the last year.

However, most of my career I've been working

in interior design and decoration.

All of these sort of facets are really connected

and enhance the different aspects of what I do.

I only lived in the UK for four years

and I've lived here nearly 25,

so I'm really a Cairene at heart.

Cairo is my greatest muse.

I feel like I do my best work here.

I feel the most alive

and I just can't imagine not being here.

So I was living here solo.

However, as of December, I adopted Cuckoo.

[person chuckling]

This is my lovely fluffy cat Cooks.

He moved in in December,

but it has already felt like he's always been here.

He kind of owns the apartment and we just all live in it.

[lively music continues]

I chose this room to be the main living room

because it has really good vistas.

From here, you can see the art wall

in the inner living room.

You can see the dining room.

You have access to the balcony,

and it just felt like the right space.

What's interesting about this room as well,

it's kind of storytelling through color,

lots and lots of layers of turquoise

and it's probably my favorite color

and connects me with both my mother

and my grandmother who loved the color.

The stool here is one I just designed.

It's inspired by Islamic architecture.

The cresting normally found at the top of the building,

and that same theme is followed in the dining room

where you can see cresting painted

in a mural form on the walls.

I'm inviting into this space different explorations

of techniques done in Egypt

and motifs found here

that can be layered together in a way that makes sense.

[lively music continues]

So now we're leaving the living room

and we're walking through the French doors

to the dining room.

This is a space where I like to host.

I throw big parties. I like to throw brunches.

I also take meetings on this table.

It's a room that was kind of inspired by the theme

of vessels, so you'll see them trickling around the room.

One of the features that I really love about this space

is the way the different items connected,

and I also wanted something inlaid,

whether Syrian or Egyptian.

It's just a really important technique in this region,

and so I felt like it needed to be in this house.

Only a couple of months ago, I found this mirror.

What's lovely about, it's also quite tall, it's portrait

and the room has really high ceilings.

It's quite narrow,

so I felt it was proportionately appropriate

for the room that you can see in the top

of the mirror is really beautiful

and it helped me choose which pattern to paint on the wall.

I chose a cresting pattern from Islamic architecture

and I wanted it to echo.

[lively music continues]

We're in the master bedroom right now.

I wasn't looking to sort of like create a specific style.

I'm sure other people could kind of put labels on it,

but it was such a personal journey piecing this together,

and I think it all kind of was born from this notion

of I wanna feel like I'm in a Maadi garden,

even though I'm not.

When I first moved in, it was a white box,

and actually it was in the same configuration.

The shade of lime wash that was chosen for this room,

I would call it maybe like a grapefruit color,

was inspired by this tapestry,

which was a birthday gift from my grandmother

from the Art Centre Ramses Wissa Wassef.

They weave in Cairo, in Harrania.

It's an amazing project set up years ago.

I grew up going there as a child,

and this one is a beautiful kind of depiction

of sunflowers and birds

and the sky looks like it's sort

of at sunset when the sky goes all pink,

which it often does In Cairo.

I feel like in Egypt we probably have the largest sun.

It feels very low in the sky and big.

We have the most incredible sunsets,

so it was kind of inspired by the sunset sky.

This room really cocoons me

and I think it opens onto the balcony.

So yeah, it's a really calming

and inspiring place to be for me.

[lively music continues]

This is the space where I dream and design

and collect and think about decorating,

not just for myself but for other people.

It's really a place that I study and research.

I have a lot of books around me.

On the other side of the room are two chairs,

so I host clients here.

I take meetings, have a whole library of my samples,

whether it be wood finishes, marbles, fabrics

that I can pull from.

Now let me show you my favorite space, the balcony.

[lively music continues]

Most mornings start here, a little bit magical.

I open the curtains, come out, have a seat with my coffee,

a book, my journal, and I try

and start the day in this little secret garden,

kind of collect my thoughts

before I go out into the crazy city of Cairo.

Living in a really urban like center of town,

most people don't have the luxury of a garden,

and so my way of dealing with it

was making sure I'm on the first floor.

I'm surrounded by trees despite the fact

that there's concrete all around afterwards

and then the terrace becomes this little garden.

Well, AD, it's been lovely having you,

but I've got lots of work to be getting on with.

So I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.

[lively music continues]