Which Interior Designer Influenced Laidback Luxury The Most?

Whilst everyone will have a different definition of what laidback luxury is, particularly with interior design, a trait commonly associated with it is a certain sophisticated lightness.

The use of off-white, eggshell and very light pastels, contrasting with accents and splashes of colour, has been a key component of the designs of many living spaces and bedrooms for decades, in no small part because it maximises the size of the space and helps people feel more at ease.

When the idea of an all-white room was first attempted by Syrie Maugham, however, it was seen as scandalous and almost iconoclastic.

Who was Syrie Maugham?

Born Gwendoline Barnado in 1879 and daughter of the founder of the children’s charity Barnado’s, Ms Maugham started her interior design business in the 1920s whilst navigating personal scandals, including a called-off engagement and two unhappy marriages.

Her personal celebrity, combined with her prodigious talent for interior design and willingness to push the envelope, granted her great success, and all of these elements would lead to the room that changed interior design forever.

In 1927, Ms Maugham would redecorate the music room of 213 King’s Road, her London home that she shared with then-husband W Somerset Maugham.

It was scandalous at the time! Nobody had ever attempted an all-white room of this scale, and even fewer had realised the power of texture, textiles and finish on the overall effect of a room that was at Syrie Maugham’s command.

Despite how iconoclastic it looked at the time, and her insistence on “pickling” antique furniture by painting it white was controversial both then and now, her design sensibilities, judicious use of mirrors and varied use of textures proved to be incredibly influential.

Unfortunately, unlike contemporary American interior designer Elsie de Wolfe, she never published a book, so a lot of her designs are lost.

What is known is that whilst she was nicknamed the Princess of Pale, she only ever made one all-white room. The rest of her interior designs often used lighter, neutral shades, but the styles themselves varied from restrained luxury to the surrealism of Monkton House.