Each year, the American magazine ELLE Decor publishes its prestigious ELLE Decor A-List, a closely watched selection of interior decorators and architects. The 2025 edition has just been revealed, and behind the succession of names emerges an instant portrait of the styles and cities that define high-end decoration. This ELLE Decor A-List 2025 continues to distinguish its ELLE Decor A-List Titans - the established masters - and a series of newer studios, from New York to Paris and Milan.
For readers, this represents a gateway to the best interior designers of 2025, from Kelly Wearstler's Californian glamour to Vincent Van Duysen's textured minimalism, including the universes of India Mahdavi and architect Peter Marino. For fifteen years, the ELLE Decor A-List has served as a compass, much like Architectural Digest's AD100. In 2020, the magazine described its selection as listing the "125 best interior decorators in the world," according to ELLE Decor, as cited by Challenges.
The ELLE Decor A-List Titans concentrate these stars of the profession, but the A-List galaxy also extends into public projects. Brazilian architect Juliana Lima Vasconcellos, regularly featured in the ELLE Decor A-List USA, will create an immersive installation called "Source of Pleasure" for Lavazza from April 6-13, 2025, in the courtyard of Palazzo del Senato in Milan. The project features an 18-meter circular structure with a luminous water column centered around coffee. For this family group founded in Turin in 1895 and present in 140 markets, this collaboration illustrates the desire to "awaken a better world every morning."
Facing these big names, the A-List has also served as a springboard for more pop profiles like Sasha Bikoff, a New York decorator who appeared on the ELLE Decor A-List 2020 and the "Gold List" 2024 of Luxe Interiors & Design magazine. The New York Times nicknamed her "The interior architect for the young and wealthy" and praised her "bold approach to juxtaposing colors with vivid patterns, earning her a growing list of clients, particularly businesswomen and young Manhattan couples," as reported by Challenges. A Hamptons publication wrote: "If Marie Antoinette were the Queen of France today, her interior decorator would be called Sasha Bikoff."
Her maximalist universe, nourished by French baroque, 1980s Memphis design, and Miami Art Deco, leaves no one indifferent. "If some critics think I'm flashy, it's because they don't understand anything," she says, before adding: "I study very rigorously the characteristics of each era to combine them and create something unique." To those who would judge her New York office as kitsch, she simply responds: "No, fun!"
Bikoff's references are intimate: an Iranian grandmother who was "elegant in all circumstances" and Lisa Fine, who "greatly influenced her." "Everything inspires me," she summarizes, from nature to Renaissance masters. From her pianist mother, she retains the idea that "a woman must provide for her needs without depending on anyone," and at a very young age, she transformed her bedroom into a color palette of "several shades of pink." When she later proposed to redo her mother's apartment, she set one rule - "provided you don't restrict me on budget and don't ask me any questions" - before getting noticed at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, where she said: "I immediately felt an energy that evoked dance and that's how I worked around the jazz theme."
Her daily work relies on a permanent hunt for unique pieces. "I use everything at my disposal," she explains. "To find rare objects and antiques, I search the internet, auction houses, and flea markets." She insists: "None of my projects include mass-produced decor. Artisanal pieces don't just make a space more beautiful, they also weave a narrative around their origin." She is currently working "on a village of several bungalows in Bermuda. The atmosphere will be very tropical" and wants "to work with brands," whether it's her hibiscus lamp - "my favorite flower" - or more accessible projects.
Having worked at Gagosian Gallery, where she says she "learned a lot," she dreams of "working for a star, like Mariah Carey, but also for a mass retail brand." These retailers "that reach a broad audience" align with her assumed credo: "So what? There are influencers who improvise as decorators; I'm a decorator who became an influencer. I totally own it. I'm a millennial. I live with my times."
