The Bathroom Chronicles

EMMA PATERSON

London

I like showering almost as much as I like sleeping—it’s one of the few instances where the body seems to override the worries of the mind. Unsurprisingly, then, the bathroom is one of my favorite places in the house. It has so many primal gifts to offer: warmth, solitude, a space of one’s own. I get stressed if it starts to feel too cluttered, and limit myself to the basics: shampoo, conditioner, and maybe a luxury face peel that promises to turn back the years. Alongside those sit my handmade pineapple (a wedding present) and my favorite toothbrush, which you can see and judge me for here. My husband’s first nickname for me was “Pineapple” because of the way I wear my hair.

AGNES BARLEY

New York City

This is a picture of my petite but beloved sink. The sink is for me at its most beautiful when it is uncluttered and clear. The soap in the shell and the flowers change regularly throughout the year and the change in seasons.

IMKE JUROK

Hamburg

In my bathroom there’s a casket with lion’s feet, which I bought at a flea market in southern Italy. It was originally intended for our holiday apartment in Monopoli, Puglia, but it ended up coming back with us to Hamburg, where we live most of the time. The casket contains nothing but a few rusty hair clips, safety pins, stray buttons, and a stub of kohl, but it still reminds me of hanging washing on the roof every day, the sound of the neighbors yakking away, and drinking wine with lunch—there’s nowhere quite like Italy.

MIRNA FUNK

Berlin/Tel Aviv

I love my bathroom. I love getting ready in there for the day ahead but also making myself up for an evening out. Every night I take off the rings that I inherited from my grandmother: one with pearls, one with a diamond, and one with a ruby. I bought the postcard that is propped up beneath the mirror at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. It shows my great-grandmother Lola Leder. Max Liebermann painted her portrait quite a few times, and there are several of his paintings in the museum. Both women—my grandmother and my great-grandmother—are very important to me. They shaped my sense of what it is to be a woman and continue to do so to this day.

JUMAN MALOUF

Bearsted, Kent

My friend sent me the postcard. It’s by an artist named Alfred Wallis. I sometimes think it will be the last postcard I’ll receive in the post. Wallis worked on a ship as a child. He mostly painted boats with sails, maybe because they were being replaced by steamships. The postcard happens to be one of the steamships he dreaded.

My bathroom reminds me of a bathroom on an old boat—except maybe for the wallpaper. That looks like the garden in summer outside the window of the bathroom.

ANNABELLE HIRSCH

Paris

The lady in the photo is my French grandmother. As far as I was concerned, she was always the very image of a movie star. In fact, as a young woman she dreamed of becoming an actress. Some people from Paris once came all the way to her little fishing village in Brittany to do a screen test with her. In the end, her parents were against it and refused to let her move to Paris on her own. But she remained a coquettish woman her whole life and attached great importance to her appearance and her “toilette.” Much to the chagrin of my grandfather, this meant spending the requisite amount of time in the bathroom. Every holiday I went to stay with her in Brittany and would always get up early to watch her make herself up: lipstick, powder, eyeliner, eyelash curlers—the whole old-style glamour look. The plethora of beauty products that now stand in front of her picture in my bathroom would certainly have made her happy. Most of them were gifts. One of my best friends from Munich was a beauty editor for a while and was always presenting me with bags of products. Another dear friend from Paris is a writer but works for Chanel during the day and brings me a little bottle of Chanel No 5 almost every time I have a party. The bottle of Grey Flannel in the corner is the one thing that belongs to my husband.

SABRINA DEHOFF

Berlin

The markings on the bathroom wall show how my son, who is now thirteen, has grown over the years. Ever since he could stand up, we’ve measured him against the wall, at completely random intervals. It tends to happen on the spur of the moment, after he’s had a bath, so we use whatever we have on hand in the bathroom—eyeliner, lip liner, that sort of thing. Everyone is forbidden from wiping this section of the wall. If we ever move out, we plan to pull the tiles out and take them with us.

ROZ CHAST

New York City

This is a little shelf that lives in our bathroom upstairs. The shelf came from a secondhand store and is bird-themed, because I like birds. It holds a tiny emu that was given to me by a friend when I was in Australia, also because he knew I liked birds. The painting was done by my kid. He said that it symbolized him as a child, being supported by my husband and me, as he was learning to stand by himself. He may have been pulling my leg—I’m not sure. There are no birds in it.

LUCA GAJDUS

Berlin

At some point my boyfriend decreed that we needed “lots of houseplants around the place.” This plant has stood beside the toilet ever since. It was a matter of some dispute between us from the very beginning, and there came a time when it folded over on itself and then died altogether. Maybe the bathroom was too warm for it? I always have to have my bathroom warm—it makes getting up so much easier in winter. Aside from that, I’m against houseplants as a matter of principle.

I like my bathroom best when my kids are having a bath in there. I sit on the floor beside the bathtub and watch the two of them playing. More and more water splashes out onto the floor. At first I protest, but it’s not long before I end up joining in with the giggling and splashing.

ALEXA KAROLINSKI

Los Angeles