Santos Kitchens decorated by stylist Sol van Dorssen

Sol van Dorssen studied Interior Design in Buenos Aires (Argentina), and soon embarked on a prolific career as a design and interior stylist in publishing and advertising. She currently heads Vestir tu casa, an in-person and online decoration service that – through a keen understanding of users’ tastes and styles – creates spaces tailored to them. She also collaborates with architecture and interior design studios, finishing off their projects with styling or preparing the settings for photo shoots.

Sol loves ‘beautiful and inspiring things’ and firmly believes in the idea of the home as a haven where one should feel most at home. She’s passionate about working in private homes to ‘dress them up’ with finishing touches and turn them into warm, cheerful and magazine-worthy homes.

Her kitchen styling projects hinge on three goals: breathing life into them, showcasing them authentically, and giving them a warm and cosy touch, particularly when the design makes them look cold. Her projects start with an analysis of the colours of the cabinets, flooring and wall coverings in the kitchen so she can propose colour palettes and materials to be used in the different areas based on it. Thus, she judiciously uses fabrics and wood to convey warmth, and goes for the placement of aromatic plants near windows or sink areas to give the room a lively, refreshing and natural touch.

One of her absolute musts in styling is choosing decorative items carefully. She goes for elements that are aesthetically pleasing while seamlessly blending into the overall style of the kitchen and home. For kitchens with an island, for example, she uses still lifes made up of large elements related to day-to-day life. She’s fond of using wooden trays as – aside from offering a wide variety of sizes and formats – they help keep things looking orderly and can frame smaller details.

If the kitchen has open shelves, she tends to use baskets to conceal items that are best kept out of sight, playing with repetition. Now, if the kitchen opens out to the dining room, she adds elements from outside the kitchen to visually connect it with the rest of the home, such as rugs, upholstered chairs or stools, pictures on the shelves or walls, table lamps in the worktop area, linen curtains on the windows, etc.