The Stuff That Surrounds, episode two: Inside the home of Vyrao founder Yasmin Sewell

Welcome to the second instalment of the new Wallpaper* video series, The Stuff That Surrounds. Watch as we're invited into the intriguing and idiosyncratic homes of creatives and makers (such as our debut with Veronica Ditting), catching a glimpse of their interior lives via the objects with which they surround themselves, all of which tell a story.

Yasmin Sewell began her career in fashion at luxury retailers such as Browns and Liberty. But she has always been drawn to holistic practices; she is certified in reiki and trained in Ayurveda and flower essences.

When she started her wellbeing brand Vyrao in 2021, she sought to combine her expertise and, with her genderless, natural and vegan eau de parfums, incense and candles, ‘fuse energetic healing with master perfumery’. Vyrao aims to enhance spiritual wellbeing through scent – or ‘[bottle] joy’ – even claiming to use neuroscience principles in the creation of its fragrances to activate emotional and memory centres in the brain.

Sewell’s ‘take on wellness’, which she defines as ‘our energetic, spiritual emotional wellbeing’, continues in her home, which is filled with objects that make her happy. ‘I always choose things that make me feel great when I see them,’ she says. ‘I fall for them in some way, for whatever reason that I can't totally explain.’

Among the objects that contribute to Sewell’s haven of positivity: a Varier ‘Ekstrem’ chair, a 1980s lamp bought from Vincenzo Caffarella, a dealer at Alfie's Antique Market in Marylebone, and a pendant light from Kempton market in Sunbury. She treasures the light not because of any label attached to it, but because, when she looks into her house from outside, and her children are in there, she ‘always thinks it looks really magic’.

Curios and gifts serve as mementos of people and moments throughout. ‘My house is full of things that have either sentimental meaning or were made by people that I love,’ Sewell says: wax statues bought in Puglia, for example, or a hummingbird pendant given to her by Vyrao’s art director, and a photograph of her grandmother, Georgette (after whom Sewell named one of her fragrances), taken for a magazine shoot.

There’s a note from her ten-year-old, terrariums containing frogs and spiders, and a crystal collection – although Sewell isn’t ‘a big crystal girl’, they were all gifted to her by friends or family. Her art was gifted, too, from an artist with whom she forged a connection, her best friend, her cousin’s husband... ‘If you can fill your space with things that you genuinely love, these things, they do hold a vibration,’ says the founder.

And, of course, Sewell’s house smells divine: ‘I'll maybe spray two or three different scents throughout the day depending on my mood,’ she says.

One of the most striking things about Sewell’s home is its colour: it is, overwhelmingly, green. ‘This voice just kept saying to me, everything has to be green,’ she says. As she was painting, the idea for Vyrao – derived from the Latin ‘vireo’, meaning ‘I am green’ or ‘verdant’ – materialised. Green is associated with balance and healing, which is what Sewell, at home and at work, strives for.

We hope you take as much joy in Sewell’s soothing space as she does.

Featuring: Yasmin Sewell. Video: Studio Soeur. Head of Video: Sebastian Jordahn.