New Year Honours List 2020

NEW YEAR

HONOURS LIST

2020

ILLUSTRATION © LINA LISICHKA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Discover the brands and people considered by The English Home to be most deserving of our annual accolades and see who came top in our Readers’ Vote

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NEW YEAR HONOURS LIST 2020 AWARD CATEGORIES NOU

* Furniture

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* Home details

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* Kitchens

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With warm regards,

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* Fabrics & wallcoverings

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PORTRAIT RACHAEL SMITH

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elcome to The English Home magazine’s New Year Honours Awards 2020. Each year, (since the launch of this initiative in 2015) we take the opportunity to highlight a few of the people and brands that have most inspired us over the past 12 months, and to spotlight names we think are ‘ones to watch’ for the years to come.

It is never an easy task to curate deserving names and products for each category in our New Year Honours Awards list, but we enjoy taking a pause to celebrate notable achievements.

This year, there are two awards I’d particularly like to draw attention to. The first is our Lifetime Achievement award, which feels terribly poignant this year: there simply was no other name in The English Home team’s thoughts than the endlessly creative and indefatigable William Yeoward, who, as most of you will know, passed away in 2019. He is greatly missed by our industry and leaves an inspirational legacy.

The second is for the significant, and I would say game-changing, initiatives being implemented by the team at Ian Mankin, with the creation of its Zero Waste collection and its intensive ambitions for the sustainable manufacture of fabrics using organic, natural materials.

Additionally, this year, we have launched a new category to reveal Favourite British Brands, as voted for by our readers online. I hope you find the results enlightening.

* Ones to watch * Top 10 favourite British brands

Kerryn Harper-Cuss, Editor-in-Chief

* Lifetime Achievement Award ABOVE Pieces from the Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, including Ajita fabric on the sofa and the Tanjina side table in Forest by William Yeoward.

LEFT A hand-painted finish on the backboard of a cupboard is an additional offering by deVOL. Prices from £1,000. Discover more about this collection in the pages that follow.

Follow us on Twitter @englishhometeam Pinterest at pinterest.com/theenglishhome Facebook at facebook.com@theenglishhome Instagram at instagram.com@englishhomemag

ABOVE LEFT Wallpapers from the Melsetter collection, Morris & Co ABOVE MIDDLE Foreground cushion in Newill Embroidery, Antique/Carmine, £135 a metre, Morris & Co

ABOVE RIGHT Curtains in Theodosia, Grey, £75 a metre, Morris & Co RIGHT Wallpaper, Melsetter, Indigo/Sage, from £295 for a three-metre panel, Morris & Co

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The beautiful Melsetter collection was created as a celebration of the considerable talents and work of May Morris, whose standing as one of Britain’s most influential figures in English embroidery has long been overshadowed by dint of her lineage, being William Morris’s youngest daughter.

Featuring seven embroideries, seven prints and 10 wallpapers, the intricate designs in the collection deftly appeal to both traditional and contemporary tastes, and offer faithful copies of archive documents as well as reinterpretations of original designs.

We particularly love the Melsetter wallpaper (right), a fresco-effect print inspired by original bed hangings created by May for her father’s bed in 1893. It is available in two colourways and in three-metre-width panels as standard, or four-metre-widths at special request. Fabric is also available, in three colourways.

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From archival reinterpretations to eco-conscious developments, our favourite designs have strong stories

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Fabrics & wallcoverings

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IAN MANKIN The team at Ian Mankin has taken some truly laudable steps in the manufacture of textiles, described by our Editor-in-Chief, Kerryn HarperCuss as “game changing” within the industry.

Firstly, the brand, which weaves all its fabrics in the family-owned mill in Lancashire, launched a Zero Waste collection, challenging its design team to create limited-run designs with surplus and end-of-stock yarns. It then made the hugely significant decision to ensure that all of the natural 100 per cent cotton yarns that it sources are either certified organic or recycled.

It was also the first mill in the UK to receive certified Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) status from the Soil Association, a significant marker of an important shift in awareness of environmental impact in production.

The brand’s most recent 1485 collection, created in association with the Landmark Trust, completes a remarkable year.

BELOW Ian Mankin’s 1485 collection features 34 fabrics and eight braids inspired by The Landmark Trust’s UK buildings built between 1485 and 1603 and uses only natural and recycled yarns.

ABOVE Wallpaper, Bargello, Parham, £715 a roll, Fromental

FROMENTAL Perfect for lovers of the new maximalism, this dramatic and intricate Bargello wallpaper from Fromental has a vibrant contemporary appeal, yet works surprisingly well with classical elements. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that it takes its inspiration from traditional flame-stitch embroidery, which is believed to have emerged in Italy in the 1600s. Indeed, the name Bargello relates to a series of chairs in the Bargello Palace in Florence, Italy which feature such needlepoint.

Available in eight colourways, the design was created in collaboration with Milan-based American interior designer Eric Egan. The original hand-painted design is printed onto wide-width cartridge wallpaper.

FERMOIE Whilst the fabrics in the latest collection from this very English fabric brand all reference the past, they are far from historic in appearance. The three new hand-drawn designs are all printed using traditional methods in fresh, contemporary colourways and are designed to work together for effortless layering.

Shell Grotto (below) is the most decorative and distinctive of the three new designs. The carefully observed details of shells and their placement in symmetrical patterns depict the naive floral shapes that were intricately crafted with seashells by our forebears in magical shell grottos centuries ago. We find the swirling mosaic repeat pattern mesmerising.

BELOW Armchair, Shell Grotto, Yellow (SHEL-002); fabric swatch, Green (SHEL-004), both £110 a metre, Fermoie

BRAQUENIÉ AT PIERRE FREY Featuring a dazzling array of exquisite fabrics, the Comptoir d’Orient collection by Braquenié brought archive documents up to date, showcasing a luxurious level of detailing and exciting colour combinations. The impressive embroidery used for Ahmedabad (not shown) was certainly one of the highlights of the collection.

Designed to be an ode to exoticism, a major theme in eighteenth-century decorative arts, the collection embraced over 10 different techniques to create printed velvets, rich tapestries, fine embroideries and quality weaves. The result is a hugely tempting and tactile collection that appeals to both traditional and contemporary interior tastes.

ABOVE Nelumbo, Nénuphar, £362.40; Aristote, Goyave, £216; Zelina, Petale, £134.40; Semi Kalambar, Alizarine, £156; Okinawa, Hotensia, £122.40; L’Exotique, Terracotta, £194.40, all prices a metre, Braquenié at Pierre Frey

BENJAMIN MOORE With the launch of Century, Benjamin Moore brings a tantalising development in paint technology which it describes as “the world’s first Soft Touch Matte Finish paint”. The result is an emulsion available in 75 colours with incredible depth of pigmentation.

“Years of research has yielded an intricately balanced formula that is produced in small batches,” explains Helen Shaw, director of Benjamin Moore. “Every tin is produced in the same Benjamin Moore workshop and is delivered pre-mixed and sealed, to maintain the level of pigment and one-of-a-kind finish. The aim of Century was to give not only a premium level of colour but a tactile finish, to create depth and dimension within any space.”

LEFT Wild Caraway Soft Touch Matt Finish Paint, £125 for 3.78L (£11 for a 118ml tester pot) Century

by Benjamin Moore RIGHT Thistle Soft Touch Matt Finish Paint, Century by Benjamin Moore

PHOTOGRAPHS © ANDY GORE; (BRAQUENIÉ) © YVES DURONSOY; (FERMOIE) © DEBORAH HUSK (BENJAMIN MOORE) © JOHNNY MILLER

BALINEUM Balineum’s Tube-Lined Decorative Tiles collection offers a 21st-century update to the art deco and art nouveau patterned ceramic tiles of yesteryear. Embellished with raised piping detail synonymous with their historic counterparts, the tiles are made by hand. After being decorated with a thin line of clay to create the pattern, they are brushed with different coloured glazes between the ridges to reveal the designs in their bold decorative form.

Designed to correspond with the brand’s Hanley solid colour tiles, the Tube-Lined collection can be used in a number of ways – from a simple inlaid border to a decorative ‘tapestry’ set within a tiled wall.

Patterns and sizes can be created in any combination of the 30 glaze colours. It is also possible to create bespoke designs, playing with scale, translating wallpaper or fabric motifs or other pattern elements. 

RIGHT Tube-Lined Tiles (by size): Liner (30mm x 126mm), £57.60 a square metre or £7.20 each; Half Square (63mm x 126mm), £1,270.08 a square metre or £10.08 each; Square (126mm x 126mm), £1,088.64 a square metre or £17.28 each; Scallop (82mm x 156mm), £898.56 a square metre or £11.52 each; Half Circle (82mm x 41mm), £2.05 each, all Balineum

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Kitchens

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We consider the most striking and innovative projects that combine style and substance in the hardest-working room in the home

BLAKES LONDON This bespoke project, known as the 6ixteen kitchen, won our attention for the smart reworking by Blakes London of a project it installed just over six years ago. It updated the original dark-blue painted cabinetry by repainting it in Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke, and upgraded the backboards of the wall units with dusty-pink tiles in a herringbone pattern. It also installed brassfinish handles to replace the original stainless steel hardware, as well as a brass ladder rail to enable access to the top cupboards.

“The end result is a highly on-trend, seemingly brand-new kitchen, however, the core of the kitchen, including worktops and cabinets and flooring, all remain the same,” a spokesperson explained.

FAR LEFT Blakes London’s reworking of the original kitchen is a more sustainable solution to installing an entirely new one.

LEFT Adding a ladder allows tall storage to be used to make use of the space offered by the high ceilings.

6ixteen kitchen, £45,000, Blakes London

PHOTOGRAPH (LANSERRING) © BEN REEVES

LANSERRING In this chic family kitchen, the joy is as much in what is hidden as in what is on display. The design is an essay in using not only top quality materials and innovative build techniques, but also in the wellconsidered use of concealed storage and technology to create a deceptively simple and understated space. The hand-painted cabinetry, finished with recessed brushedbrass finger pulls, conceals both a pantry and a breakfast cabinet either side of the room in a pleasing, symmetrical layout. A hidden ceiling extractor fan and stone shelf with brass-lined ventilation cut-out point to use of intelligent integrated solutions.

RIGHT Dark cabinetry, marble island, patinated metal splashback and herringbone flooring create a smart, streamlined family kitchen.

Barnes kitchen, from £60,000, Lanserring

deVOL Customising kitchen designs reaches new levels with deVOL’s additional offering of a hand-painted service.

In-house artist Rosie Briggs can bring to life any number of designs on the backboards of the brand’s Curiosity Cupboards in colours to suit a unique scheme. Clients can choose from preexisting patterns, such as a traditional chinoiserie or a trompe l’oeil, or opt to commission a truly one-off design working with Briggs and Helen Parker, creative director of deVOL. LEFT The decorative service is from £1,000 for the hand-painted finish on the backboard of a cupboard, shown here in the Rambling Wild Roses design (plus £100 a day for bespoke designs). Curiosity Cupboard (plain), from £1,800 (68.5cm x 210cm x 48cm), deVOL

NAKED KITCHENS Constructed from White American Oak, chosen for its beautifully soft colour and unique grain pattern, this Stanhoe Kitchen collection was created to marry the sense of sleek freestanding furniture with the practicality of a built-in kitchen.

Subtle details such as traditional box joints and dovetail side joints in the drawer construction feature alongside large-scale focal points such as the floating shelving to ensure a cohesive and elegantly simple overall look. Precision cutting of the oak means that each drawer front in this project was cut from the same piece to ensure a consistency of colour and a pleasing repetition of grain pattern that reflects the impeccable attention to detail from Naked Kitchens’ design team.  RIGHT The minimalist feel of the Stanhoe kitchen belies its complex detail and precisionengineered craftsmanship.

From £35,000, Naked Kitchens

Scultpure, art or lighting? One would be forgiven for asking. In fact, German-born Margit Wittig is a sculptor and artist who studied figurative sculpture, stone carving and metalwork. She also trained as a physiotherapist and her observations of the human form inspire her figurative bronze and resin sculptural elements.

Having launched her exquisite, handcrafted lamps in 2006, Wittig has expanded her offering to include mirrors, screens, candles and sculptures. Clients can choose from a number of elements – such as hand-blown glass, resins and bronze heads – so Wittig can create personal, truly bespoke pieces.

LEFT Table lamp, £950; selection of floor lamps made with resin, glass and silver-leaf components, featuring Wittig’s signature portraits, from £2,400; mirror frame, hand-cast in layers of resin and finished in gold, £2,850, all bespoke, Margit Wittig

Home details From lighting to door furniture, we highlight the standout details that make for polished and original interiors

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SAMUEL & SONS A family-run business for more than three-quarters of a century, this American brand has long been a secret resource for interior designers. Samuel & Sons has designed more than 15,000 trims in materials as diverse as hand-blown glass, cultured pearls, exotic woods and various grasses amongst exquisite silks and hand-embroidered passementerie.

Remarkably, all of its products are in stock for immediate delivery, whilst many can be admired in showrooms around the globe, including at Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London. Its latest collection, Antoinette, comprises sumptuous borders reminiscent of eighteenth-century French embroidery with lustrous threads on matt linen in contemporary palettes.

LEFT & RIGHT The Antoinette border in Sapphire 04 (bottom left and right) and Tearose 03 (above left), both £108 a metre, Samuel & Sons

PHOTOGRAPH © SIMON BROWN

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OCHRE There is an understated elegance and glamour at the heart of Ochre’s designs.

The all-female design team, who founded the company in 1996, have built a reputation for a focus on form, luxurious materials and fluid yet exacting pieces that exude a mood of calm, and their latest collection of lighting, furniture and accessories is no exception.

We love the leather-clad frame of the Wisp table, but particularly want to spotlight the brand’s latest lighting, including the Aquarelles chandelier (left) which features horsehair shades and porcelain drops. This is a functional object with the appeal of an artwork. This is a collection for those craving statement pieces with a discreet glamour and an emphasis on craftsmanship. Every piece creates a talking point and is a delight to use every day.

LEFT Aquarelles chandelier (20cm), £1,140; Wisp table with shelf (70cm),£1,752; Snooze chair (76cm x 104cm x 92cm), £3,162 (excluding fabric), all Ochre

SAMUEL HEATH Having produced fine, solid brassware from its headquarters in Birmingham for over two centuries, Samuel Heath is a brand that prides itself on innovative design as well as its heritage.

Known today for its hand-crafted bathroom fittings and architectural hardware, its latest collection of three contemporary door levers – Landmark, Bauhaus and Reeded – echoes the core principles at the heart of the brand’s manufacturing ethos.

These are simple, functional forms in fine materials, made with the utmost attention to detail. Each handle is formed from solid brass and handpolished to create a flawless finish before undergoing high-quality electroplating.

The handles are then carefully assembled and hand-checked.

The new collection is available in 60 different finishes and grip options, so that each handle is customisable to suit a wide range of interiors. The result is a sleek contemporary design, meticulously executed. 

ABOVE (Clockwise from top): P6040 Landmark lever in brushed gold and antique brass; P6044 Bauhaus lever in stainless steel and matt black; P6046 Reeded lever in nickel and natural brass, all from £433, Samuel Heath LEFT P6044 Bauhaus lever in matt black and natural brass, from £433, Samuel Heath

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Furniture

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Our winners honour quality materials, solve storage problems and offer a heart-warming marriage of style and social enterprise

PINCH Creating pieces with a quiet aesthetic that celebrate the materials from which they are made and offer an enduring allure is the hallmark of Pinch. Its recent launch of 15 pieces – crafted in celebration of its 15th anniversary – was a joy to behold, from the shapely Christo bed (left) to the perfectly proportioned velvet-covered Roubel sofa with its art deco echoes, which also won our Editor’s Choice award at Decorex.

LEFT The Christo bed comes as a bedstead or as a four-poster design, in either solid European oak or solid black American walnut, both with a clear oil finish. From £6,850 for the bedstead, Pinch

JUSTIN VAN BREDA Known for his updated take on classic English style, Justin Van Breda’s customisable furniture comprises over 400 pieces, designed since his company launched in 2002. His new Cape Weaver Collection of rattan and cane furniture and accessories by prominent international designers such as Nina Campbell, Nicky Haslam and Veere Grenney is hand-woven by the Cape Town Society for the Blind in South Africa. Coming from Cape Town himself, Justin grew up with pieces including laundry baskets and dog beds created by the charity in his family home.

RIGHT Justin’s Octagon Cabinet, £3,500 FAR RIGHT The Nina Campbell Mirror, £1,995; The Nina Campbell Urn, £1,350; All made to order, Justin Van Breda

NEPTUNE The Chawton collection answers an interiors need that has been wanting in many homes: solidly built, freestanding storage that is flexible enough to work for a range of rooms and purposes – from a bookcase in a sitting room to unfitted kitchen cabinetry. The range can be styled to suit homes that are classic or contemporary, added to as needs change and can be bespoke-painted in any of Neptune’s edited palette of colours.

PHOTOGRAPH (PINCH) © JAMES MERRELL

LEFT Base cabinet drawers, £1,425; Triple Height Cabinet Open, £800; Single Height Cabinet Open, £380; Ladder £485, all from the Chawton collection, Neptune

FLORA SOAMES Having set up her interior design practice in 2009, Flora Soames has already established herself as a talent in creating quintessentially English interiors with a youthful twist.

She has also made her first foray into fabric and wallpaper design, launching five fabric designs with a strong nod to heritage patterns, including handscreen-printed linens and elegant weaves, and a wallpaper in a complex, 15-colour meticulously hand-blocked floral design. All are printed and woven in British mills using traditional methods.

ABOVE Interior designer Flora Soames.

FAR LEFT Enid’s Garland, Original, £328 a metre LEFT Chartwell Weave, Pink, £224 a metre

Ones to watch

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We consider the rising stars in the field of interiors whose work caught our eye

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NICHOLA TAYLORSON We are already rather taken with the debut collection, launched just a few months ago, from this young textile designer. After studying Printed Textiles and Surface Pattern Design at Leeds University, Taylorson travelled to Mumbai where she learnt about the traditional craft techniques of mud printing and natural dyeing, now prevalent in her designs. The raised embroideries on many of her pieces are by artisans in Jaipur and lend a wonderful tactile and hand-crafted quality to her fabrics, which are all printed on 100 per cent linen.

No wonder her fabrics are part of the discerning range at The Fabric Collective.

ABOVE Nichola Taylorson, a talent to watch.

LEFT A selection of fabrics and cushions from Nichola Taylorson’s collection. Fabrics, £90 a metre; embroidered fabrics, £150 a metre; cushions from £45, all Nichola Taylorson

SARAH VANRENEN Interior designer Sarah Vanrenen’s recent Dahlia fabric design captured our hearts. With an expressive combination of colour and artistic floral designs, the fabric has a lively, painterly quality. Clearly inspired by her mother Penny Morrison’s eye for pattern, colour and fabric, Vanrenen is making a name for herself in her own right with imaginative fabrics, furniture, lighting and interior design, worked on in collaboration with childhood friend Louisa Greville Williams.

Particular favourites from the Vanrenen GW designs are the tulipwood lampbases hand-painted in faux tortiseshell and faux malachite.  ABOVE Dahlia, Yellow, £162.64 a metre, Sarah Vanrenen for Penny Morrison

Favourite British brands Visitors to The English Home website voted for their best-loved brands. Here, we present the 10 most popular in descending order

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GOLD AWARD EMMA BRIDGEWATER

With legions of fans on both sides of the Atlantic as well as members of the Lifetime Collectors’ Club across the nation filling their kitchen dressers with Emma Bridgewater’s instantly recognisable pottery, it is perhaps little surprise this was the brand voted into first place in The English Home’s first-ever online vote for Favourite British Brands.

Bridgewater’s brand story is not only one of powerful business success but also a heart-warming journey of personal endeavour. She started the business from her kitchen table, setting up production in Stoke--on-Trent in 1985, with her husband and business partner Matthew Rice at her side, and today her pottery produces 1.7 million pieces every year, each of which is touched by 30 pairs of hands, from pouring to painting to packaging, before it attains final pride of place in someone’s home.

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ABOVE RIGHT The Christmas Brights collection features multi-coloured stars, reindeer and Christmas trees. BELOW Tiny mugs, jugs and cups to use as Christmas decorations. RIGHT The Winterberry range is charming for the festive table. All Emma Bridgewater.

READERS’ VOTE SILVER AWARD IAN MANKIN Think of timeless ticking fabric – that stalwart of both classic and country English interiors – and it is virtually impossible not to think of Ian Mankin, the brand. Ian Mankin, the man, and founder, was embedded in the world of British design long before he opened his first fabric shop in 1983, having already worked in textiles, designing clothes for Michael Caine and the Beatles, as seen on the cover of their album Revolver. Today, his legacy of creating enduring fabrics in natural materials continues from the brand’s manufacturing base in Lancashire where recent innovations in eco-credentials abound.

BRONZE AWARD FERMOIE Historical decorator (and former decoration consultant to the National Trust) Tom Helme and his business partner Martin Ephson launched Fermoie in 2012, six years after selling another English brand they had brought to the pinnacle of its success – Farrow & Ball.

Having also trained as an interior designer under the esteemed David Mlinaric, Helme’s love of early printed textiles from around the globe, pattern, colour and the enjoyment of traditional printing methods can be seen in all that Fermoie creates.  ABOVE LEFT & RIGHT Ian Mankin’s new 1485 collection was created in collaboration with the Landmark Trust. Fabrics from £39.50 a metre

RIGHT Walling in Green Savernake SAVE-004, £120 a metre; chair in Sicily SICI-001, £110 a metre; Bedwyn lampshade in Euphorbia, £150 a metre, all Fermoie

4 AGA

Famed in the genre of English literature coined ‘Aga sagas’ as well as for its approval by admired bakers such as Mary Berry, the Aga has become an emblem of the quintessentially English country kitchen. Designed in its first incarnation for his own home in 1923 by the award-winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalen, and manufactured for purchase from 1929, Agas are still made in Britain today in Ketley, Shropshire.

5 BURLEIGH POTTERY

Burleigh is said to be the last pottery in the world using the skilled practice of hand-applied tissue transfer printing, which involves the creation of delicate copper-plate printing onto very fine tissue paper. The tissue is hand-applied and hand-cut to each individual piece, then gently washed away, leaving the printed design in place.

This British heritage skill has been recognised and employed in recent collaborations with Ralph Lauren and Soho Home.

6 CORNISHWARE

Launched in the Victorian era, this brand became a household name, loved for its iconic blue-and-white stripes. Transition to modern manufacturing proved challenging. The business closed in 2007 but rescued by Charles Rickards, Paul Burston and Perry Haydn Taylor, whose team is determinedly bringing hand-painted production back to the West Country. Look out for the green backstamps that denote the new Made in England products.

7 ABRAHAM MOON & SONS

Founded in 1837 in Yorkshire, Moon (as the brand is known) boasts one of Britain’s last vertical woollen mills – meaning it completes all processes on one site – transforming raw wool into high-quality, natural fabrics. Renowned in the 1990s for producing fabrics for the luxury apparel market including Paul Smith and Burberry, the company purchased Bronte Tweeds in 2009 and today its interiors range of fabrics and throws is equally desirable.

8 COLE & SON

Guardian of an archive of 350 screen-print designs, 1,800 blockprint designs, including those by AW Pugin for the Palace of Westminster, and important original drawings of designs for historic houses including Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, Cole & Son has an incredible heritage. It combines this with modern-day passion for innovative wallpaper production techniques and is known for its characterful British aesthetic.

9 GEORGE SMITH

Making every fine piece of furniture at its workshops in Newcastle, craftsmanship is at the heart of this brand, named after the celebrated Regency furniture designer known for his exacting standards. Born in 1786, George Smith became lauded for his wide-ranging influence and his work at The Royal Pavilion in Brighton and as the Prince Regent’s ‘upholsterer extraordinary’.

The company is still inspired by many of his original drawings but also ensures that pieces are aligned to the way we live today.

10 ESSE ABOVE Cornishware mugs come in five sizes, from £8. The 10oz and 12 oz mugs come in up to 10 striped colourways including blue and white.

TOP RIGHT Classic designs in timeless blue and white including Blue Calico, Blue Asiatic Pheasants and Blue Felicity all from Burleigh.

Warming homes across the nation is the specialism of this Lancashire-based brand with a heritage dating back 165 years. It creates wood-burning and electric stoves, cookers that double as stoves, and enamelled range cookers which have been relied upon in kitchens across the nation, from Scottish bothies to Royal households, River Cottage HQ and at The Savoy hotel. n

The Aga cooker’s multiple protective coats of gleaming vitreous enamel take three days to apply.

FOR WHERE TO BUY SEE ADDRESS BOOK

THE ENGLISH HOME 93

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FAR LEFT The late William Yeoward in his trademark blue and white.

LEFT Pieces from the Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, including Ajita fabric on the sofa and the Tanjina side table in Forest

by William Yeoward, still trading today.

Lifetime achievement William Yeoward

Often described as a ‘creative force’, William Yeoward was an energetic polymath with an innate flair for distinctive, alluring interiors, fabrics, wallpapers, furniture, accessories and crystalware. His passion for detail was exemplified in the quality, craftsmanship and beauty of each piece created for his brand and fufilled his mantra that “good design must be practical, elegant and above all comfortable”.

Yeoward championed the use of colour in interiors, earning a deserved reputation for using blue in particular to chic effect.

His room schemes consistently featured a glorious assortment of patterns and his unerring eye would pick out interesting colour combinations that others might miss.

In an interview with The English Home, he commented that adding a dash of unexpected colour to a room could bring it to life, likening the effect to a wellconsidered wardrobe, adding that he was

wearing “a blue suit with a white shirt and a bright yellow belt – how smart is that?”.

Conversations with Yeoward were always a joy: full of insightful expertise and witty personal musings. He laughed that having a “faux polar bear” as part of his Christmas decorations was a necessity as “a real one would be rather awkward, don’t you think?”

He was also modest in admission to being one of the first to mix patterns on upholstered seating, which he said was simply because “I never seemed to have enough of anything, so it was make-do-andmend... but now everyone’s doing it.” His sage advice was that money was not always the answer in design – that ingenuity and a deep understanding of what you were aiming to achieve were the key.

Yeoward initially worked closely with Tricia Guild, then as an interior decorator in his own right (Margaret Thatcher was just one of his high-level clients), before opening

his first store on the King’s Road in 1985, from when he focussed on his own design commissions and curating antiques.

Over the years, he expanded his business to supply bespoke furniture, upholstery, lighting, tableware and his beloved crystal range, then fabrics and wallpapers, and more latterly rugs and cushions. He wrote six books covering decorating and entertaining, and must surely have been one of the best hosts that dinner party guests could hope for.

Even the personal challenges set by being diagnosed with cancer could not slow his indefatigable spirit, spurring him on to set up a charity – Screw Cancer – to help others facing the same confusing and uncertain time.

With his charity and immense body of work, he leaves a legacy that continues in the safe hands of his trusted team and the inspiring insights he generously shared. n

FEATURE KATY MCLEAN & KERRYN HARPER-CUSS PORTRAIT © STEVIE ROBERTS

This posthumous award seeks to honour a multi-talented, inspirational and much-loved innovator who inspired so many, left a huge design legacy and is greatly missed

D A N C E @T H E G R A N G E July | 10, 11

+44 (0) 1962 791020 www.thegrangefestival.co.uk

LA CENERENTOLA

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

RO S S I N I

BRITTEN

M A N O N L E S CAU T

DA N C E@T H E G R A N G E

PUCCINI

M Y FA I R L A DY LERNER & LOEWE

THE MONSTER IN THE MAZE D OV E

‘the star of the Summer’s country house offerings’ Music OMH

5 J U N E - 19 J U LY 2020 +44 (0) 1962 791020 www.thegrangefestival.co.uk