How are you all? I do hope that you and your loved ones are well? This is my first blog post since ‘you know what’. I can’t quite bring myself to mention it because the blog is primarily about sharing interior decorative beauty and will continue to do so. But with the seismic shock that one way or another we have all experienced, the virus has frozen in time everything that happened before March 2020.
There is no getting away from the fact that I was ‘frilled’ to see the New Year’s Day prediction blog realised this week in G P & J Baker’s showroom set. Designed by interior designer Emma Sims-Hilditch, her 21st Century take on an English country house bedroom formed one of the main ‘curated spaces’ at The Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour for London Design Week (8 – 13 March 2020).
I am rather tickled by a phrase that has emerged from the U.S. to describe the return of Old School or English Decorating. It is a favourite blog topic and one that is currently experiencing a renaissance of interest on both sides of the Atlantic. Thanks to Emma Bazilian in her September 2019 piece for US House Beautiful magazine (a much preppier version of Hearst’s UK edition), Grandmillennial style has been coined.
Take the formula of an out of town supermarket, add a few ingredients from IKEA, the precise display skills of a west London prop house and finally a sprinkling of sports store Decathlon to discover the recipe behind Oxfam’s new superstore design. The blog takes a tour of this new sustainable and charitable department store concept to find out what might make us all want to shop there.
No stone was left unturned this week as I dived in and out of showrooms at The Design Centre for Focus 19. I had the pleasure of attending talks from top interior designers, interviewed creative directors and textile company owners discovering along the way that more than just a handful are several generation family owned. I even managed – on neutral territory – an undercover meeting with the Interior Spy.
In its second year, The London Interiors Show (15 – 17 September) at The Chelsea Harbour Hotel offers interiors companies who don’t have a presence at The Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour a very welcome three-day opportunity to present their new collections to press, interior designers and the trade. Complete with camouflage of West London uniform of tea-dress-and-trainers, I have hot footed it around the show to share with you some interior design highlights…
I am thrilled that the blog has been nominated for the prestigious Amara Interior Design Awards for the third year running, this time in the Best Interior Design category. The hosts for the awards night will be TV presenter and interior designer, Sophie Robinson with journalist Kate Watson-Smyth who writes the award winning Mad About The House blog. Voting has now opened so I would be most grateful if you and your dog (or any other pet that comes to hand) could please vote. Just press the voting button below for the blog to be shortlisted!
In our house, it’s written in stone that Sunday nights are spent watching the latest period drama or film. When The English Home magazine asked if I would like to recreate three rooms from Downton Abbey to coincide with the forthcoming feature film, you could say it was a bit of an open and shut case – albeit of the vintage prop variety.
Continue reading “Styling Downton Abbey film sets for The English Home magazine”
One of the sweet spots of the summer season is the moment when our calendar gets filled with dates to visit gardens open for charity on behalf of The National Garden Scheme. More exterior than interior I suppose but fairly inextricably linked for floral/botanical design inspiration and for the patterns found in imaginative landscaping. These are usually private gardens and there is often exceptionally fine, freshly baked cake from precious family recipes. If you are lucky, proper tea cups and saucers with the odd plant to buy and a bit of bunting. Heaven really.
Charis White Interiors 