Beauty Confidential: Alexandra Wilkis Wilson

"My husband and I went to Bali on our honeymoon," explains Wilson about the Indonesian accents sprinkled around her Park Avenue pad. "We came back with 24 pieces of furniture and a little bit of art. Teak wood is so inexpensive there, that I sat down with a man one day and started designing pieces. The way some of the things turned out is not how I envisioned them, but they fit our old apartment. I always knew that if something didn't work, we could give it to my brother!"

"These are all photos of our family—my four grandparents and my husband's parents on their wedding day," explains Wilson of the framed photographs in her living room. "Our apartment has a mix of old and new items. Even though we just relaunched Gilt Home, all employees, including myself, can't shop early and can't use their discount until a sale's been live for six hours. Like anyone, I go through waves as a customer. Last night, I stayed up buying gardenia candles to give as hostess gifts."

"We have a lot of Asian art," she notes about a neon painting near a giant window. "My husband bought this at an auction to raise money for Japanese tsunami relief. We do business there, and it was so sad to hear their stories after the disaster."

"I actually just bought the McQueen book," Wilson says as she looks at an impressive collection of coffee table tomes stacked in a large bookcase. "Most of the others are from friends. I spent a semester abroad in Paris during college and wrote a paper on decadence and dandyism." As for the cards? "I love handwritten notes and collect boxes of stationery."

"I have to keep a lot of things away from my son, or else he might throw them," Wilson says matter-of-factly when asked about the blue polka-dotted piggy bank on her bureau. "The Lladro (right) was actually a wedding gift from my godmother. My mother's from Cuba, but a lot of her family is from Spain. We decided to paint the walls in the bedroom blue when we moved in a year ago, because I read somewhere that it would soothing."

"We try to have friends over about once a month," she continues as she walks past an elegant, old-school bar near the dining room. "Tonight, a friend of mine who's Nicaraguan is catering. Everything is delicious and bite-sized, which is great because we don't have the space to do a seated dinner for 20 people."

"I love orange," Wilson explains as she adjusts a floral arrangement. "I collect Hermès scarves, and the flowers are for dinner tonight."

"I've always loved Bobbi Brown and Dior, but ever since Gilt started selling beauty products, I've bought DDF skincare items, Oscar Blandi dry shampoo, even tanning towelettes," she says. "The Marc Jacobs perfume is probably my favorite, but I still have a few Bulgari ones from when I used to work there."

"We bought the fish and spices at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul," Wilson says with a smile about the gilded fish painting in her hallway and her kitchen spices. "The leaf is gold-dipped and there's a message written into the drawing. Funnily enough, the leaves are supposed to be from West Palm Beach. Who goes to Turkey to get a leaf from Florida?"

"I love to cook," she says as she walks through her bright kitchen. "I grew up in New York, and traveled a lot, but spent many childhood summers in Miami. I love it there—I'm a true beach bunny."

"I collect these when I travel," Wilson explains about the quartet of tea cups and saucers on her kitchen wall. "But now I have to keep them out of the way." As if on cue, a towheaded toddler comes barreling into the kitchen, and Wilson laughs.