Spotlight on : Fearless Set Design from the “Harlem” TV Show – Vol.1

Late last year I remember seeing promos for Harlem. I was in mourning from Insecure ending and in need of new TV gal-pals running around a city being fabulous together. I knew it wasn’t going to be as unique, funny, or masterful, because you can’t rival Issa, but I thought, Meagan Goode is in it, it looked cute and I was ready to let it be a warm comfy blanket.
And then, of course … I totally forgot about it. Like 100% completely forgot. What happened ? No one knows.

By March, I had not seen one frame. Thankfully, the universe knows I’m a hot mess, so it always steps in to clean shit up. It sent me not one, but two clients in same week with reminders to catch up on the show. It was subtle, like a screenshot on a TV in the room pictures, or in a Pinterest board, but enough to say to me : “hey dumbass, you dropped something !”.

So I grabbed some popcorn and sat back to finally watch the show and holy crap ! I was expecting fabulous clothes but not fabulous interiors ! I was delighted throughout the whole season to discover such incredibly colorful spaces with so much personality for each of the characters. No half-assed accent walls here, it’s wall to wall for every space !
Bold colors, amazing eclectic touches, and everything feels so personal. I. Was. Floored.
More set design like this, please, forever !

The other aspect I really enjoyed was recognizing actually affordable décor pieces in these spaces.
So I thought, first, I need to share the amazing work of Production Designer Javiera Varas with the world and also, let’s turn this inspiration into something you can recreate for yourself !


I’m going be a running a series this week highlighting all the spaces so make sure to follow along room by room – today we’re starting with Quinn and her delightful candy-colored space !

Quinn’s Apartment :

(Disclaimer : I pulled some images to share but you can see more details on Javiera Varas’ website )

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