HTSI editor’s letter: up for some interiors bingo?

People say that decades are rarely defined by the styles for which they become known until far later than expected: the banana plants, swing chairs and rattan themes of the ’70s, for example, only became apparent during the second part of that decade. Likewise the ’80s: its electro-pop primaries and Memphis modernism are only remembered with the benefit of hindsight as having defined interior design at the time. 

Anyone looking for some more razzle dazzle at dinner time?

Many people predicted that, as with the Roaring Twenties last century, there would be a resurgence in the same exuberant, maximal decorative taste this time around. And as we head toward the midpoint of the decade it’s clear that certain hallmarks of that spirit have taken hold again. Looking at the features we have lately put together, I have been taken by a number of design tics that have been popularised in recent years: paint in deepest jewel tones that covers every inch of ceiling, woodwork and coving; clashing textiles; curvilinear furniture; terrazzo everywhere; and a spike in pearly iridescent tiles. In order to verify your style kudos for 2023, we’ve compiled a game of bingo against which you can check your own aesthetic leanings. If you want to stay on trend this summer you should be using coloured bathroom grouting and enlisting in a workshop to decorate your ceiling rose. 

Many of the ideas above feature in the home of India Rose James. The “Princess of Soho”, granddaughter of Paul Raymond and heir to a £329mn fortune has invited us to see the property she has been renovating for the past six years. As a scion of a legendary pornographer and impresario, James was unlikely to live a quiet life in the suburbs, but she has diverged from the family’s first interests to plough new energy into the area where the Raymond estate still manages a vast portfolio. Her Soho Revue Gallery promotes emerging artists, with artists’ studios now open near the Soho Estates HQ, and her home reflects the same artistic sensibility – her walls are full of her protégés’ vibrant works.

I’ve always been fascinated by the mythology of Soho. With its seedy licentiousness and unapologetic taste for hedonism, it feels deliciously unique to London: the capital’s dirty, beating heart. On its fringes lies a rare point of gentility, Liberty London, one of the city’s most extraordinary landmarks and a temple to high fashion, haberdashery and arts and crafts. This month sees the department store stage a takeover in Milan as it becomes the focus of two exhibitions, as well as the subject of a new collection of textiles conceived by the nonagenarian Italian interior designer Federico Forquet. Forquet, a lifetime admirer of Liberty’s – its ties were the quintessence of gentlemanly deportment when he was growing up in Naples – was determined to use the collaboration to go beyond the chintzy tana lawn prints one might associate with its archive. Instead, his designs draw on the futurists, the English vorticists and the work of the former Liberty creative Bernard Nevill – you can see it all here, photographed around his home. It’s a fabulous irony that it should take a 93-year-old to teach a new generation of textile artists how to rethink design. But in its nod to many previous artistic movements the results are dazzlingly contemporary.

Lastly, for anyone looking for some more razzle dazzle at dinner time, Ajesh Patalay offers some options that will surely make you smile. What better way to bring some theatre to the table than with a crescendo of “Hello, Trolley!” style? 

@jellison22