‘Director of ambience’ Arman Naféei’s LA pad is a crucible for cool
He sets the mood for some of the world’s hippest spaces. And his tiny LA apartment, filled with vinyl, disco glitz and Persian elegance, is the mother ship
Before you even reach the bright yellow front door of podcaster and DJ Arman Naféei’s Los Angeles home, the mood is set by an exquisitely restored 1980 Fiat 124 Spider 2000, in a grey-green metallic Grigio Fumo. It feels on brand for the “directeur d’ambiance” for clients including Giorgio Armani and Moncler. Inside, Naféei is at the sunny yellow La Marzocco machine making an espresso. He pours water from cult wellness destination and grocery store Erewhon into Svenskt Tenn glasses. “I wanted a mid-century home, with light and space — and beautiful, expansive sunrises,” he says of the one-bedroom, one-bathroom home just off Mulholland Drive, at the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. Its panoramic views take in the Hollywood Sign, the Griffith Observatory — and the chaotic 101 freeway. Was that the ambience he was after? “I get a sense of the city’s energy,” he smiles.
Naféei’s podcast Are We On Air?, launched at the start of the pandemic, invites high-profile cultural names to tell their life stories through playlists. Now in its sixth season, and with 120 episodes and 1.2mn total listens, guests have included David Byrne, Marina Abramović, Dua Lipa, the late Jane Birkin, Sir Paul Smith and Patti Smith. The eclectic line-up speaks to Naféei’s roots. “I grew up in a very political, left-leaning family, where culture and literature were a part of daily life,” he says. “I was surrounded by poets, musicians, intellectuals — and Farsi was spoken at home.” Naféei’s Iranian parents had fled Tehran and settled in Cologne after the revolution in the late 1970s. Here, his father became a journalist for Deutsche Welle — the German state-funded international broadcast service.
But it was in the UK that Naféei’s own cultural identity blossomed. He moved there in the early 2000s to study business, French and German literature at Queen Mary University of London and went on to become assistant to curator Sir Norman Rosenthal at the Royal Academy. But his “stomping ground” was Erol Alkan’s nightclub Trash, and he also started to DJ across the city. West end clubs “paid better than the east end parties,” says Naféei. But the east end was what he “loved” — “cooler and more culturally interesting”. That kudos landed him DJing events at museums, galleries and art fairs — the Venice Biennale, Art Basel and the Vitra Design Museum. Then he met Jay Jopling, founder of gallery White Cube.
That meeting proved fortuitous. In 2009 Jopling introduced Naféei to hotelier André Balazs, who hired him as “director of ambience” for Boom at The Standard hotel, New York. Curating the bar’s events, he booked names including Lady Gaga, Blondie and Erykah Badu, and went on to become music director for Balazs’s other locations, including London’s Chiltern Firehouse and Sunset Beach in Long Island, where he finessed what he describes as “a 1960s St Tropez, world music, Balearic sound”. The historic Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood was next — and the west coast stuck. As has that early title. “Director of ambience sounds flimsy,” he admits, “but it’s about creating an experience and an environment: music, light and the mix of people. It actually sums up what I do quite well.”