Tour Fashion Influencer Allie Provost’s Pink NYC Apartment and Shop Her Favorite Pieces

Color, whimsy and fun. Those are the three style pillars NYC fashion blogger and photographer Allie Provost lives by, and her home is no different. Before her big move and renovation this year, Allie invited HGTV to take a peek into her former studio apartment featuring a menagerie of vintage baubles, bold pink walls and tons of pattern mixing. Tour this perfectly curated pad, see how Allie stores her infinite collection of shoes and bags, and shop her favorite pieces in each space, from furniture to decor.

“I really wanted my living space to be almost a direct representation of my personal style,” said Allie. “But when dealing with the interior decor space, it is very different than just trying to pick out an outfit because your design is much more permanent and things last much longer versus an outfit. If I don't like it, I can change it in the afternoon and it's fine. I move on with my day, but when you're looking at a couch you're thinking, ‘OK. Am I going to love this striped couch four years from now? Is it still going to stand the test of time?’”

Allie said she felt a lot of weight when putting things together and navigating the project so she hired designer Shannon Claire, who she says read her mind and took her personal style and translated it into her space. “She took my Instagram, took my closet and transformed my space to look like this,” she said.

Allie and Shannon wasted no time telling her fashion story. From the minute you enter the apartment, there are accessories on display. “I really love my entryway table because it's the perfect introduction to the rest of the space,” Allie said. “I love these glass cases that allow me to both have function, and they’re also pretty to look at at the same time.”

Form meets function in Allie’s home office nook, too, with a luxe velvet chair that Allie says is “the most comfortable desk chair.” The bold emerald riffs off one of Allie’s favorite pieces in her collection: a Carolina Herrera sample sale score. “I have to have a little bit of overflow for my closet here and my favorite part about this section is this gown.”

As it’s a studio, the space doesn’t have true walls to divide Allie’s bedroom and living room, so she worked with Shannon to separate the spaces by creating very distinct zones through the use of area rugs. “I have two rugs: one in my living area and one in my bed area,” she said. “And that really does a good job of dividing the spaces without a physical divider.”

Just as much attention was given to the studio’s ceiling. And for Allie, it was another opportunity to play with color. “I love the fact that we painted my ceiling,” she said. “I think that is a wall in a sense that everyone really forgets about, and the fact that we painted it a darker color adds a lot of visual interest and adds dimension to the space.”

While not a true bedroom, the bed vignette feels like its own room thanks to the floral accent wall behind the bed. “I love the fact that we did the statement wallpaper on the back, and we layered that with this photograph by Sharon Core,” she said. “It’s a photograph that's made to look exactly like a Wayne Thiebaud painting. The perspective, the scale — everything tried to be matched, and just thinking about the craft that went into creating that photograph spoke to me so much and so that's why it's just proudly hanging above my bed. Being a photographer, I couldn't have my first piece be a painting or any other medium. It had to be a photograph.”

With a pink bed, pink walls and pink table lamps, the blue-striped dresser contrasts beautifully with other patterns in the space. "It’s just so fun to keep layering in different patterns,” Allie said. “And the stripe of the dresser here really ties in with the stripe of the couch in the living area."

Allie wanted the living area in front of her bed to feel like a dedicated living room so she could “kick my feet up and relax at the end of the day.” But small space living means everything has to serve double duty. “In New York, I have to just embrace the fact that my storage has to be in the middle of my living room,” she said.

Instead of a traditional coffee table, Allie has two upholstered ottomans that double as storage bins for bulkier accessories. Her media cabinet doubles as extra storage, too, with glass drawers dedicated to her belts and headbands.

But the really savvy storage is in Allie’s step-in closet. “In the main closet when hanging up all of my clothes, I have to use these space-saving hangers,” she said. “They limit the amount of space that hangers take up so I'm able to fit much more clothing in here. Wearing different outfits and clothing is a part of my job, so I have to make sure I'm able to store all of them properly and so that none of them get damaged.”

For her collection of sunglasses, Allie used nail polish racks and mounted them to the backs of the closet’s French doors. “These are such a lifesaver because sunglasses are one of those things that take up a lot of space, but it's actually really small, so utilizing the backs of the doors on this was absolutely key.” Another wall-mounted trick: her jewelry armoire tucked in the closet on the side.

“In New York, you have to build up. You can't really build out,” she said. “So when I'm storing my jewelry, I have to make sure that I'm able to see everything. I'm one of those people who, if it's tucked and hidden away I do not remember that it exists, so I have this jewelry mirror here, which allows me to effectively see everything jewelry-wise. When it comes to my bags, I have to do the same thing,” she said. “So I utilize this shoe shelf here to use more of the height in my closet because it was just dead space being wasted, and I wanted to make sure that I was still able to utilize that space up to the ceiling as far as I could.”

But not everything can fit in the closet or in drawers so Allie turned to her past life as an employee at Kate Spade and decorated her apartment with her favorite pieces on display as if each corner and nook were a curated boutique. “I can't help but merchandise everything,” she said. “I have like shoes hanging off of a bag, very much an ode to my past retail life.”

There’s even a wall just for hats. “Hats are a really interesting thing to try to store because a lot of them are really delicate and as a result, they take up a lot of space,” Allie said. “So hanging them is really the best option, especially for me where I have a lot of them and I don't have enough space to store them all laying flat. So, I just decided to dedicate one section of the apartment to be my hat wall.”

But nothing is more Carrie Bradshaw than Allie’s bookcases of shoes. With limited space for shoe storage in the closet, she took two glass cabinets and displayed each colorful pair of heels like fine china. It’s whimsical, on-brand and uplifting. “Nothing makes me feel more powerful than a fabulous pair of shoes,” she said.

For Allie, interior design — like fashion — should always be fun. And her apartment is a place where you walk in and you smile. “The fact that I don't take my space and my style too seriously really allows people to be invited in and have fun and relax,” she said. “I want people to feel happy and joyful and playful.”