Poonawalla, 42, is the executive director of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines. Founded by her father-in-law, the company is headed by her husband, Adar, whom she married in 2006. Originally based in Pune and Mumbai – where they still have houses – the family first rented the building as both a residence and a representational space for the family business. “During the pandemic, our close collaborations with AstraZeneca and Oxford University prompted our decision to move,” she explains. Having transferred their two sons, Cyrus, 14, and Darius, eight, to new schools in England, they bought the property in December 2023. “The quirkiness and whimsical aspects spoke to me loudly,” Poonawalla says, recalling the first time she stepped through the door.
Over the past decade, Poonawalla’s visibility on the fashion scene has been ever-increasing. Quite literally, the scale and intricacy of her larger-than-life wardrobe have made her an inescapable presence on front rows and red carpets alike. Her avant-garde style blends opulent glamour with an unapologetic taste for pop, reflected in the fashion fanaticism she wears like a badge of honour. It filters into her decor too. In Poonawalla’s home, Virgil Abloh’s boldly decorated Louis Vuitton collector’s trunks serve as coffee tables within Lagerfeld’s starkly modernised 1920s salons. Damien Hirst lobsters climb the walls of dramatic staircases. Her sons’ retired fleet of child-size toy cars are prominently parked in the hallway. And Fendi paddleboards line the walls of the subterranean swimming pool, one of the largest in London.
The house was built by a prominent industrialist between 1920 and 1922. Today it stands as a monument to what Poonawalla calls “wearable art”. When you ascend the curved staircase of the black-and-white marble-clad hall to the first floor, you’re greeted by a mannequin dressed in the look she wore to the 2022 Met Gala: Schiaparelli haute couture gold armour with planetary orbs styled over a heavily embroidered gold Sabyasachi sari. Never mind the Matisse on the wall next to it, which has just replaced a Monet. A passionate art collector, Poonawalla switches her paintings around like she changes her clothes. Under this roof, art and fashion are created equal. “I always have arguments with my friends who sell art,” she says. “Why is fashion not included in that?”
Poonawalla’s real devotion to fine dressmaking peaks in the “mannequin room” – a large, bare salon that is inhabited only by a tableau of some of her most treasured looks. It is her spirit manifested: effervescent Noir Kei Ninomiya dresses, cascading Giambattista Valli gowns, voluptuous Dolce & Gabbana constructions. Among them, the Schiaparelli haute couture creation she wore to Edward Enninful and Alec Maxwell’s wedding in 2022, its towering, cloudlike headdress enveloping her face in folds of fabric as if daubed in whipped cream. “I thought, ‘When can you wear a white dress to someone else’s wedding?’” she says, smiling mischievously. “I knew they’d appreciate the effort.”
Poonawalla, who regularly moves her fashion archives around between India and England, periodically edits the display in the mannequin room. “I came out of the closet when I came to London. People said, ‘It’s OK to be fabulous.’ When I go to Mumbai, I still dress up, but when I’m in Pune...” she pauses. “My parents are all about education and scientific backgrounds. Fashion is the F word in my family. It’s been that way since I was 14 years old and wanted to be a fashion designer. “‘Fashion? You want to be a tailor?’” she says, mimicking her father. “So, this is my personal floor. I can do whatever I want with it. And I want to put the dresses out. This is Karl’s house, so it’s fine. I came in crazy and I’m going to stay like that.”
Poonawalla’s first forays into fashion unfolded on travels with her father, who had interests in the hospitality industry. It evolved during her stints at Cornell, Stanford, Harvard and Columbia, and at the London School of Economics, where she earned a master’s degree in organisational behaviour. “Fashion has this magical ability to break boundaries and grab attention,” Poonawalla says. In her philanthropic work, her otherworldly wardrobe has been instrumental as an icebreaker. “It’s enabled me to connect with a broader audience and initiate conversations about social change. I’ve collaborated with incredible individuals who share my vision, raising funds and implementing programmes that genuinely make a difference in the lives of those who need it most.”
Her current causes include the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, dedicated to improving lives through education, healthcare and environmental sanitation, the British Asian Trust’s Children’s Protection Fund for India, its India Advisory Council, and Girl Effect, a non-profit focused on media and tech that empower girls. “For me, it’s not just about looking good; it’s about using style as a force for positive change,” she says. That feeling pervades the Poonawalla household, where displayed treasures are not so much about material worth as about celebrating the artistic value of one-of-a-kind objects. A case in point is her steely black walk-in wardrobe, left just as Lagerfeld intended it, where the rarest shoes and bags are exhibited like objets d’art in a museum.
How does her husband feel about living among mannequins and display cases? Poonawalla points to a typographic Lawrence Weiner work placed over a staircase and quotes it: “The Right Thing in the Wrong Place.” She laughs. “My husband is very practical. He says, ‘As long as I can get my business meetings done.’” Some of those meetings take place in the library on the ground floor, where his wife has added a typically futuristic one-off Zaha Hadid chair to a desk by the same architect left over from Lagerfeld’s decor. They’re surrounded by black velvet space-age takes on quilted sofas, an Anish Kapoor disc that looks like planet Earth, and a Broken Egg light by Ingo Maurer. The bookshelves hold horse-racing trophies won by the family, which owns India’s leading thoroughbred stud farm, founded in 1946 by Adar’s grandfather.
In the adjacent dining hall, the house’s original emblem graces the upholstery of the chairs lined up around the black perspex banqueting table chosen by Lagerfeld under the patronage of the Kulczyk family, the house’s previous owners. The walls still carry the mock Gobelins the late designer installed there, featuring a black-and-white photoshoot of his muse Baptiste Giabiconi as he frolics in the French countryside in a loincloth and a laurel wreath. As an homage to the audacious nature of the room, Poonawalla had the entire ceiling covered in gold leaf. Normally the room is used for board meetings, formal dinners and piano lessons for the children on the futuristic Pleyel that graces the majestic bay window.
“This is not just a residence. It’s a space that has witnessed some of the most incredible meetings and work deals that have propelled us forward,” Poonawalla points out. In December last year, the house played host to a lavish party following the Fashion Awards, where guests from across the arts mingled and raved in its vast neo-Gothic rooms. The dining hall saw Karen Elson perform a rendition of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”, the family kitchen moonlit as a champagne bar, and Poonawalla turned a grand salon into a makeshift dance floor. “That party was so much fun. That’s the kind of energy I want to bring into the house, because normally it’s used for business and all these very serious scientists from Oxford,” she says with a smile. “I mean, the decor is playful.”
Her current causes include the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, dedicated to improving lives through education, healthcare and environmental sanitation, the British Asian Trust’s Children’s Protection Fund for India, its India Advisory Council, and Girl Effect, a non-profit focused on media and tech that empower girls. “For me, it’s not just about looking good; it’s about using style as a force for positive change,” she says. That feeling pervades the Poonawalla household, where displayed treasures are not so much about material worth as about celebrating the artistic value of one-of-a-kind objects. A case in point is her steely black walk-in wardrobe, left just as Lagerfeld intended it, where the rarest shoes and bags are exhibited like objets d’art in a museum.
How does her husband feel about living among mannequins and display cases? Poonawalla points to a typographic Lawrence Weiner work placed over a staircase and quotes it: “The Right Thing in the Wrong Place.” She laughs. “My husband is very practical. He says, ‘As long as I can get my business meetings done.’” Some of those meetings take place in the library on the ground floor, where his wife has added a typically futuristic one-off Zaha Hadid chair to a desk by the same architect left over from Lagerfeld’s decor. They’re surrounded by black velvet space-age takes on quilted sofas, an Anish Kapoor disc that looks like planet Earth, and a Broken Egg light by Ingo Maurer. The bookshelves hold horse-racing trophies won by the family, which owns India’s leading thoroughbred stud farm, founded in 1946 by Adar’s grandfather.
In the adjacent dining hall, the house’s original emblem graces the upholstery of the chairs lined up around the black perspex banqueting table chosen by Lagerfeld under the patronage of the Kulczyk family, the house’s previous owners. The walls still carry the mock Gobelins the late designer installed there, featuring a black-and-white photoshoot of his muse Baptiste Giabiconi as he frolics in the French countryside in a loincloth and a laurel wreath. As an homage to the audacious nature of the room, Poonawalla had the entire ceiling covered in gold leaf. Normally the room is used for board meetings, formal dinners and piano lessons for the children on the futuristic Pleyel that graces the majestic bay window.
“This is not just a residence. It’s a space that has witnessed some of the most incredible meetings and work deals that have propelled us forward,” Poonawalla points out. In December last year, the house played host to a lavish party following the Fashion Awards, where guests from across the arts mingled and raved in its vast neo-Gothic rooms. The dining hall saw Karen Elson perform a rendition of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”, the family kitchen moonlit as a champagne bar, and Poonawalla turned a grand salon into a makeshift dance floor. “That party was so much fun. That’s the kind of energy I want to bring into the house, because normally it’s used for business and all these very serious scientists from Oxford,” she says with a smile. “I mean, the decor is playful.”
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