Which Interior Designer Invented Laid-Back Luxury?

Our bespoke interior design philosophy is based around a laid-back luxury that is not only beautiful to look at but extremely easy to live in.

Over the past few decades, there has been a shift away from show-home minimalism in interior design towards a nuanced balance between celebrating individuality and celebrating your space with a light, airy, open form of design.

The best way to do this is to listen to your needs and use them as a starting point, but it also helps that there is a century of pioneers to draw inspiration from that have shaped the homes we live in today.

Possibly the most important interior designer of the 20th century was the sharp, pioneering and borderline iconoclastic American designer Elsie de Wolfe, author of The House In Good Taste.

Initially an amateur actress, Ms de Wolfe had a particular sensitivity to colour and style that would be her guide and lead her to becoming the first female professional interior designer.

She despised the traditional Victorian approach to interior design, which favoured a rich, regal, maximalist approach that could often cause rooms to feel somewhat busy and claustrophobic.

Whilst her acting career ultimately fizzled, it did give her experience with staging, a keen eye for detail and a lot of connections that she leveraged with the help of Irving House, her home that she owned with partner and theatrical agent Elizabeth Marbury.

It was not intended to be a showhome, but the focus on lightness and softness made her home particularly inviting to guests, and she would take advantage of several staple interior design techniques such as mirror features, naturalistic colours and textures, and colour schemes that prioritised pastel colours and white.

Within two years of quitting acting, Ms de Wolfe was commissioned to design the interiors of the Colony Club, the first women’s social club in New York

Her focus on visual cohesiveness, light colour schemes and simplicity over Victorian ornamentation made her the first modern interior designer, and the progenitor of the laid-back luxury we cherish today.