On Top of the World

Legend’ is a word much bandied around today, but few people have earned the right to wear that particular badge. In Celia Birtwell’s case it is most appropriate. Not only is her image immortalised in one of the most visited paintings of all time - Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney - but she was the pragmatic half of one of the most exciting fashion partnerships of the twentieth century. The prints she created for her then husband, Ossie Clark, were transformed by his gossamer touch into romantic, womanly, sensual garments that send the e-bay community into a frenzy each time one is listed. No wonder that Top Shop has snapped her up - her first collection launched in Spring 2006 caused near riots when it hit the rails. The west London villa where she lives with her partner, Andy, is overflowing with paintings, books, mementoes and mad touches of kitsch that have caught her eyes over the years. Celia may be a grandmother of six, but there is nothing matronly about her home - deep red felt lines the walls of the drawing room giving a depth of colour paint can only aspire to - while Fornisetti plates look chic against the lavender white of the dining room. As she says: “This is a fun house. The children can come round and slide down the banisters if they want - they create a lot of happiness when we are all together”... view feature

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Baby it's Cold Outside

Set on the edge of a village of gingerbread-perfect wooden houses in Finland, glass designer Anu Penttinen’s colourful Modernist home is a beacon of light in this winter wonderland. Because Penttinen spends up to 13 hours a day in busy, industrial furnaces, designing and blowing glass for her contemporary brand, Nounou, as well as creating cartoonish toucans for the Finnish interiors giant Iittala, she wanted her house to be a private, personal retreat. If the landscape was wintry and grey, her home had to be filled with colour. If it was cold and dark outside, her space had to be flooded with light and warmth. And if the factories she worked in were cavernous and industrial, her home had to be small and cosy. “The walls and ceilings are white, the rest black. I wanted a monochrome palette against which I could play with colour” states Penttinen... view feature Pin It Now!

Festive Finesse

Violise Lunn is a fashion designer graduated from Denmark Design School who always returns to her childhood home at Christmas. Here she adds her finesse and creative personal touches to the decorations to prepare for the festivities. Violise specialises in the design and making of one of a kind pieces of clothing for women - evening wear, dresses, accessories, bridal wear and unique pieces of daily wear. Violise also has a fantastic collection of stunning fabrics, brought home from her many travels around the world. The fabrics and the stories behind them are her main source of inspiration. Alongside creating these wearable items, Violise has designed china collections for Royal Copenhagen and her other passion is making unwearable items from the simplest textile of all: paper... view feature
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A stunning loft conversion with glamorous furnishings, a period house with a contemporary twist. An haute couture creation or an updated toile du jouy fabric. An upholstered sofa that adds definition or a killer heel. What do all these have in common...? Designers.

Creating new concepts for their clients or using iconic design pieces juxtaposed with vintage and retro classics; bespoke wallpapers and fabrics that marry geometric patterns with organic forms. Delicate ceramics with a pure elegance or busy, quirky interiors with eclectic flea market treasures. But how do they decorate their own homes? In “Designers” a new addition to our feature theme section we have a variety of designers’ homes... click here Pin It Now!

In His Jeans - Diesel

This old farmhouse and estate was rescued from building development by a leading Italian fashion designer who restored and replanted much of the vineyards which now boast award winning vintages. The old farmhouse has a large open ground floor with two hearths and a long dining table, upstairs there is a mezzanine lounging and TV space and off that a single bedroom and bathroom. The house is decorated in a rustic cowboy, rather than farming, style and has an unusual collection of taxidermy... view feature Pin It Now!

Sir Peter Osborne

Sir Peter Osborne, one half of the successful interior design company Osborne & Little has access to some of the most wonderful fabrics and papers but hadn't decorated his home for ten years. When he finally got round to it he selected from ranges produced by his company, many with a 1930s Art deco feel. Osborne is a great collector and many of the diverse collection of objects around the house have been found by him, including a bust by Dame Elizabeth Frink, a Fornestti chair and Matthew Hilton candlesticks. Lady Felicity Osborne worked for O&L for many years before starting her own catering and Deli business... view feature Pin It Now!

A Bright New World

Leaving a fashion job in London for rural Cheshire gave Jan Constantine not just a colourful new home, but a fresh career, too. While visiting her sister on her farm near Crewe, Constantine and her husband, David Ralphs, saw a house and outbuildings for sale in a neighbouring village. They bought the property and went back to London to sell up and move. Constantine, who worked in the fashion industry at the time, commuted for a while until they had converted the buildings next to their new home, turning them into holiday cottages. The main house was once the doctor’s; he held surgery in what is today the dining room, with a damask-covered table and sparkling chandelier. Where the village bakery once dispensed warm loaves and spicy buns, there is now an office, and one of the store buildings was turned into the HQ of Constantine’s furnishings company... view feature Pin It Now!

Creative Genes

One of today's very hot and innovative fashion designers is Maxjenny Forslund, who has opened Copenhagen's first mini-department major, K29, selling her eye-catching collections with asymmetric shapes, bright colours and organic materials along with her mother, Margareta Forslund designs and father Owe Johansson jewellery. Maxjenny started up its first fashion brand, "Les Couleurs Nationales," which became known for its sparkling form - and colour language, where the colourful design was her main characteristic. Her career quickly took the momentum and one day she was approached by Madonna's stylist, who wanted to use some of her designs in a music video. It is obvious that it is not from strangers that Maxjenny got her creative genes. Her father is a silversmith, her mother is fashion designer and sister is a glass designer. Born and raised in the scenic part of Southeast Sweden. Maxjennys private oasis is the apartment in Vesterbro, when the opportunity arose to combine the neighbouring apartment with their own, they jumped at the chance immediately... view feature Pin It Now!

Missoni

Rosita and Ottavio Missoni's homes are not just proof of the fashion duo's natural eye for colour ­ but for objects, collected all over the world. In the sprawling contemporary six-bedroom double-storey, built for Italy¹s leading knitwear designers in the early Seventies, rooms are bursting with objects collected all over the world. As well as a colourful collection of furnishings, ranging from Hans Wegner chairs to Cittero sofas, there are paintings of all colours, styles and provenances on every wall ­ from Di Chirico and Balthus to photographs by Lartigue looms... view feature Pin It Now!

Made To Measure

This south London cottage is owned by one of Britain's leading fashion designers who also has a passion for art and ceramics. His well tailored home features prize pieces of vintage furniture and collections of china, some of the paintings are his own work and the bathroom and kitchen fittings are also his designs now being commercially produced... view feature Pin It Now!

Three Chords and the Truth

This phrase, coined as it was by a country musician, and later appropriated by the punk-scene is anything but the equivalent of simplicity as many take it to mean. On the contrary, it requires hard work, the ability to improvise, historical knowledge, and a whole bunch of will-power. It just looks and sounds simple. Like a good architect’s work. Walking from cabin to cabin between the rock-formations, and from room to room, it dawns on us that what the owners have created here isn’t just an updated version of the “summer-cabin”, but an alternate cabin-universe altogether... view feature Pin It Now!

Rightfully Restored

It's easy to see why the owners fell for this property; full of charm, built on fertile ground and situated close to both, water and forest. The house in Taarbaek, north of Copenhagen has in recent years undergone extensive renovation. The previous owner had renovated it in 1979, giving the property a complete 70s theme, however, the new owners wished to restore this wonderful property back to its original 1863 style. Floors were torn up, ceilings down, and windows were replaced. Where original materials could not be salvaged they were replaced either by recycled materials or in the case of the kitchen, built to requirements by a local carpenter... view feature Pin It Now!

The Historical Patchwork

Only a hundred meters to the right of the dock, where you arrive by ferry, there is a proud building, without shame, ready to show off its history and seduce its guests, albeit on borrowed time... In the white-painted Villa Wille, which was once moved in its entirety by Bernt O. Wille from Ålesund, and rebuilt as the first house of its kind in Sandvika in the year 1909, his descendants spend all their vacation time during the summer months. His daughter in law, Anna Wille, spent 30 years alone in the house until 2006, when the younger generation came back and took over the maintenance and storytelling. So the story begins here. Mr Wille was involved in the restoration of Ålesund after the great city- fire. The log buildings were left standing, and the young gentleman took the house to Sandvika in order to raise a family and run a small furniture factory... view feature Pin It Now!

An Unpolished Haven

Situated in the hills down to Sejrö Bay, Rie Elise Larsen and her family have their home. The house is small and the garden a wilderness - the perfect family retreat for those weekends and holidays away from their apartment in Østerbro and allowing Rie the inspiration for her work, designing textiles. Her work is also reflected clearly in the building's interior; colourful fabrics and local flea market finds, illuminating, creating life in the little house... view feature Pin It Now!

French Liaisons

This elegant apartment gives creed to the notion that style cannot be bought. With a tasteful blend of new and second hand, expensive and inexpensive, this apartment has a surprisingly luxurious feel to it. In this household, where he’s Norwegian and she’s French, the mix of backgrounds adds an exciting twist to the decor. Call it ‘chic’, or whatever you want, but there’s no doubt that this apartment in Oslo’s west-end has a certain je ne sais quais that money cannot buy. Around every corner in these light and spacious rooms, a new surprise is waiting, nonetheless, this apartment is done up according to a few simple ground rules bypassing extravagance or costly surfaces. Still, one cannot escape the fact that there’s something here, which gives it that little extra touch... view feature Pin It Now!

A Percussion of Colour

At home in the apartment and housing business Pang Christianshavn. Both places bursting with life, imagination and love for interior design, for which Anna-Britt has many years experience - including, set designer at Danmarks Radio. "After 18 years with Danish Radio, where I worked on set design, decor and props, I wanted to live my dream of owning a shop," says Anna-Britt Harding. Ceilings and floors are white and bright and are finely contrasted with all the many colourful things... view feature Pin It Now!

The Artists Palate

Designer Tricia Guild brings her keen eye for colour to the table, where she serves an inspiring Italian feast. It may be winter outside, but inside Tricia Guild and Richard Polo’s kitchen/living room it is springtime: lime-green walls, a green glass table, orange and purple flowers, the splash of signature pinks and turquoise… It all seems to fuse through the glass and into the terraced garden beyond; creating the impression of one big space that says summer is coming... view feature Pin It Now!

Where the art is

When a potter and a designer set up home together in South London, their creative vision and eclectic approach resulted in a masterpiece. “Everything we have has a history,” says Jennifer Lee. “That’s why we don’t have comfortable sofa – this one belonged to Jake’s family.” She perches on the back of a red velvet two-seater while her husband – the artist, designer and food writer Jake Tilson – finds a comfortable hollow on the cushion below and crosses his feet, which are shod in the multi-patterned canvas boots he designed for Paul Smith. The rambling five-bedroom property provides them not only with a home but also two workspaces. It is in hers, at the back of the house, that Jennifer makes pots, exhibiting as part of the Collect event at the Saatchi Gallery. Jake, who has writer and broadcast about fish, especially eels, has a studio packed to the gills with packets, tins and bags of dried fish, labels, netting and floats... view interior feature Pin It Now!

The Greatest B&B in Britain

Sumptuously decorated and embellished with eccentric touches, 40 Winks is designer David Carter’s East End homage to fin-de-siecle frivolity. The result is a glamorous hotel that belies its bijou size. The property, 40 Winks, is claimed to be “the smallest hotel in the world”. Whether this is true or not, the three-bedroom Queen Anne confection (two guest rooms, plus Carter’s “private boudoir”) must surely be one of the most seductive. The house is a fantastical melange of the terribly grand sprinkled with a soupcon of the voguishly shabby; it’s like a piece of living theatre, exuding wit, charm and glamour... view interior feature Pin It Now!