The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Set for life
He started in film design – now everything he does is cinematic, whether it’s exploring the Central American jungle or creating luxury interiors for the director Ridley Scott. Talib Choudhry meets Martin Waller, the Indiana Jones of interior design. Photo
The former set designer at the head of an eclectic interiors empire
‘Martin lands in the UK on Friday night but can be available on Saturday, January 21,’ says the PR lady for the interiors company Andrew Martin via email, as we try to fix a time to photograph its founder, Martin Waller, for this article. ‘He’s currently hunting for a lost city in the jungles of Guatemala on horseback. He then flies to New York and on to LA, so I really hope Saturday works.’
To say that Waller is a jet-setter is factually accurate – he is constant ly ping-pong ing around the planet – but the term has a glitzy connotation that doesn’t apply to him: the softly spoken 60-year-old is charming and discreet ly wealthy rat her t han look-at-me r ich. He’s more akin to t he gent lema n explorers of the Victorian era, continually hunting for new ‘treasures’ for the flagship Andrew Martin store on Walton Street in Knightsbridge. The shop is brimming with all manner of f urniture and curios, bot h ancient and modern, and has become a design hub for anyone seeking the unusual. It is the sort of theatrical retail experience that Mary Portas would get in a froth about.
Waller, it transpires, started out designing film sets, and he knows just how to conjure d ra ma wit h his eclec t ic i nter ior-desig n schemes. The Andrew Martin shop is littered wit h ci nemat ic ephemera, a nd Waller ’s products have been featured in the Harry Potter f ilms, as well as Tomb Raider and
Gladiator. Ridley Scott, the director of the latter, is a long-standing client – Waller is currently sourcing furnishings for Scott’s LA home.
His adventures rival film storylines: he has scoured t he ice pla ins of Siber ia for frozen mammoths; searched for the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia; ridden with headhunters in Nagaland; and, most recent ly, trekked through the Guatemalan rainforest
to a recently discovered Maya temple, at the ancient city of El Mirador.
‘It’s a great place to find treasure,’ enthuses Waller when we meet. He is standing next to one of a pair of enormous ‘ancient’ Egyptian statues – discarded Hollywood props – that loom over the thousands of other objects in t he shop. ‘Isn’t it clever t hat Ramesses II invented polystyrene?’ he quips.
Despite his Boy’s Own- style jaunts, Waller has managed to turn Andrew Martin into a multimillion-pound business with a presence in 63 countries and a clutch of high-profile fans: both Samantha Cameron and Heather Kerzner (the ex-wife of South African magnate Sol Kerzner) popped into the Knightsbridge store while Waller was being photographed, and he is currently working on a design project in Mumbai for the family who have bought India’s most expensive house for a staggering $120 million.
The business is a lso ver y ega l it a r ia n. Designing interiors and sourcing furniture for lu x ur y hotels (includ ing Sa ndy Lane i n Barbados, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong and Hotel St Petersbourg, Tallinn) is lucrative, but Andrew Martin fabrics and wallpapers are also stocked at John Lewis. The designs are often bold and amusing – perfect for a bedroom feature wall or papering a downstairs loo.
Waller’s interiors are a colourful riposte to bland good taste, informed by his travels
Waller is standing next to an enormous ‘ancient’ Egyptian statue. ‘Isn’t it clever that Ramesses II invented polystyrene?’ he quips
to far-flung lands and infused with his cheery disposition. Having launched the company in 1978, he is still buoyed by enthusiasm for his field.
‘I think it was me who coined the phrase “the decade that taste forgot”, but when you look back at t he 1970s, people were ver y brave in desig n ter ms,’ Waller says. ‘Our decorative style has always been influenced by other cultures. I was very early into India and Nepal to find Tibetan rugs and Indian dhurries. In the ’90s, we had that Chinese moment, with lacquered trunks and wedding cabinets and all of that. Then in the 2000s, tribal art from Africa was a huge look. We’re about a lot of things.’
He springs up from a capacious leather sofa (very Andrew Martin) and grabs a genuine 3,000-year-old Egyptian death mask, then waves a 50,000-year-old cave-bear claw at me. Behind him are a piece of contemporary street art and the framed signature of Queen Elizabeth I – one of only two sold in t he past decade; Waller bought the other one, too. The ‘layering of time’ and eye-catching objects are key components of the Andrew Martin look. But isn’t Waller loath to par t with all the ‘treasure and magical things’ he painstakingly sources?
‘Have you seen Charade – that film where Audrey Hepburn’s husband is killed and everybody is after her for the money that he had stolen?’ he asks by way of an answer. ‘It turns out it was stashed in the form of an incredibly
valuable stamp on a letter, which is mistakenly sold to a dealer in Paris who very honourably gives it back, saying something like, “I knew it was a mistake, but to have owned it for an hour was enough.” And I sort of feel that. You don’t have to own things for ever to enjoy them and learn from them.’
But then Waller has always had a knack for embracing the new and presciently riding the desig n zeitgeist. He launched the Andrew Martin International Interior Designer of the Year award 20 years ago, raising the profile of the profession and his company at the same time. A young Kelly Hoppen was the recipient of the first award and Rose Uniacke’s career went stellar after she was garlanded in 2013. This year, there were over 400 entries from China alone, but the winner, somewhat surprisingly, was 77-year-old society decorator Nicky Haslam.
‘I’m a g reat believer that interior desig n isn’t really about cur tains and car pet and cushions,’ says Waller. ‘It’s about imbuing a space with personality, and Nicky has that in spades. Good designers can make people live more happily. I compare it to music. People are always saying, “It’s the soundtrack to my life.” A home is the backdrop to your life. Why not make it an inspiring canvas?’