Let’s Talk Luxury Interiors with Vinita Chaitanya

An interior designer par excellence, a fashion icon, an Instagram influencer – Vinita Chaitanya carries her multiple personas with utmost ease. This celebrity designer holds her own in India’s interior design market which is largely dominated by architects. The reasons are not hard to fathom. Her aesthetics are a blend of contemporary, classic, bold and eclectic and her unique style can completely transform a space. Vinita has worked with a who’s who list of clients, including top industrialists, start-up founders and Bollywood stars like Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh. Her forte lies in her personalized touch to create a lifestyle for her clients. Even after years of handing over projects, many of her clients still call her to advise them before any new purchases.

by Manisha Natarajan

Ahead of the summer, this ace interior designer shares trends and ideas for a new look for your vacation home or even a luxury weekend home in the city.

Create Welcoming Yet Quiet Spaces. The biggest trend for leisure homes currently is weaving in nature. Post covid, there’s literally a 360-degree switch. People want to step out, breathe, walk in the grass. The important theme in vacation and weekend homes that I’m designing in the outskirts of Bengaluru or in destinations like Coorg, Goa and Alibaugh, is the blurring of outdoor and indoor spaces. All doors lead you to the outdoors. Indoor - outdoor spaces are seamless and blend in to each other. Personally, I like to add touches which bring in nature into your homes. Especially if you can’t have a large garden. We create those fragrances and experiences by bringing in clusters of plants like Eucalyptus, Jasmin or Roses.

The other important aspect I nudge my clients to look at, is to design their get-away homes with different zones. You will have guests over! There should be entertainment spaces for all of you to be together, yet they and you, both need privacy and quiet moments. Entertainment zones and guest rooms can be planned to be detached from the main house. And adding creative pathways and walkways increases the experience of the space, even if it’s just a short walk away. Indoor courts are also a great feature not only to add light but to bring in nature. Post pandemic, the length of stays in second homes has gone up exponentially. A sound-proof dedicated room to do your work, take your calls with excellent wi-fi is a must. This space if located in your garden always works wonders.

The biggest space for the family to bond is the kitchen. My kitchens are drama! We add skylights or vegetable gardens to wander into, we add Islands not only to work on but to sit around and have a family cookout. This is the space where you want to toss a pasta or a salad with your kids, mix a sangria with your friends, and bond over meals. I spend considerable time designing this space in holiday homes.

In larger homes, you can design a big kitchen which doubles as a bar and opens into a family lounge and voila, the kitchen becomes the fulcrum of family activities. For clients who love the garden, I even take the kitchen extending into the garden, as a conservatory.

And it’s always most important to get the basics right like dividing the kitchen into wet and dry. Do accommodate for a back kitchen where the staff can continue to do their work, without interfering in your private space.

The other important aspect I nudge my clients to look at, is to design their get-away homes with different zones. You will have guests over! There should be entertainment spaces for all of you to be together, yet they and you, both need privacy and quiet moments.

Personally, I like to add touches which bring in nature into your homes. Especially if you can’t have a large garden. We create those fragrances and experiences by bringing in clusters of plants like Eucalyptus, Jasmin or Roses.

vinita Chaitanya

Comfort First.

Comfort is the most important aspect of the holiday home interior design. People need places to lounge, and here furniture design assumes most importance. Of course, it must be stylish, but don’t compromise on the comfort. Large couches, pull-out chairs which people can lay on, footrests to keep your feet up, tables that layer up for multiple uses, lazy boys, these are some of the must haves. Then add some snuggle friendly pieces like colourful throws or a Lucious shawl, large lumbar cushions and throw pillows. You can source online from a Pottery Barn or international designers, or just opt for our lovely pashminas as softwraps.

Comfort should also be extended to “easy to maintain”. The right flooring in Indian stones or honed marble, which feels great when you walk bare feet and is low maintenance, should be the way for tropical homes. For colder locations, you need to pick the right wood with insulation and drape it with stunning textured rugs.

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Well, if you’re in Goa, you might be happy with a vibrant colour scheme. People still enjoy ochre or terracotta, or the Mediterranean blues look. I am personally moving towards creating calmer spaces in sync with tropical greens. I don’t add too much colour on my walls and use warm sophisticated neutrals instead.

Bathrooms, believe it or not. You can’t imagine how comfortable and stylish a bathroom can be. It's not that people use a lot of tubs. But if you have that space, opt for a bathtub against the window or an outdoor hot tub amidst level privacy. If you don’t have space for a pool, go for a Jacuzzi as an outdoor piece. I love to create homes for my clients to feel calm in, like a personal retreat.

My style is pretty freewheeling. It always nods to the client’s travels and lifestyle, marries vintage classics, bold modern pieces with traditional craft and artisanal made objects, and always involves the use of heritage whether in art or textiles.

My involvement goes as deep as not only sourcing the best of accessories but even the wine for your bar! I remember the time when Jitu Virwani of Embassy Group moved into his Bangalore home that I had done the interiors for. On the first evening when he was entertaining some friends, he called me for the location of the corkscrew for his wine.

Large couches, pull-out chairs which people can lay on, footrests to keep your feet up, tables that layer up for multiple uses, lazy boys, these are some of the must haves.

In my earlier years I used to import a lot of my furniture, rugs, art pieces and curios. Many of my luxury clients were brand conscious and wanted international luxury brands. I enjoyed that process and my trips to Milan and Paris to see what the world was doing. That was a time when getting that finesse and finish in India was difficult.

I would come back and show my contractors the photographs and slowly we started working with local artisans and craftsmen to contemporise and perfect the finish. Today, there are a host of exceptional Indian brands which offer quality at par with the best internationally. Vikram Goyal Studio, Jaipur Rugs, Jaipur Trunks Company, Scarlett Splendour are a few names. I was able to convince Dilip Surana of Microlabs who had this big vision board, with the best of the brands from the world. When I entered the project, I convinced him to visit a few of the Indian brands I work with, and he was most delighted with what he saw. Dilip now proudly shows off some of his best pieces which are sourced from India. v