Designer Donald Nxumalo on culture, colour and craftmanship
FROM celebrity followers and A-list clients to magazine covers and TV appearances, Johannesburg-based designer Donald Nxumalo has become the industry’s most exciting young talent – and he’s only just getting started. We spoke to him at his home, which has seen a recent overhaul during lockdown, about how the last year has impacted the way we live, the importance of making home personal and what excites him most about the future. PIET SMEDY: Your interior style sits at the confluence of many – often seemingly contradictory – influences. Tradition meets industrial, heritage with progress, local yet at the same time global – how do you establish a calm balance in your designs with so many factors at play?
Donald Nxumalo: I believe that every space, much like every person, has a story to tell and it is my duty to help my clients tell that story. My ability is to engage their needs and blend it with functions that create interiors with a purpose. Of course, my clients have diverse backgrounds, which would explain the meeting of many worlds. When I work with my clients I see myself as a collaborator, and as such the results that you see are the products of my influences as well as their own.
PS: One thing your spaces never are is boring and you are never shy on bold tones or layered patterning – your own home is an especially heady mix of the two – but you’re not a “colour for colour’s sake” designer. What’s your thought process in this regard?
DN: For my home, the thought process was organic and fluid. It was selecting colours that were attached to a memory of growing up. That’s what, for me, would make it feel like home. I was thinking, “what do I like as opposed to what is trendy or current”. As a person, I believe that my background is complex and, as such, my home is reflective of that; it’s not one dimensional. It’s honest. I have art that I collected from varsity but mixed in with pieces from a gallery and even a piece from Cuba, and some sculpture I found from an artist on Instagram. It is everything that I love. PS: At the risk of sounding esoteric, you’ve said before that you experience interiors as “feelings” or that there’s an emotional quality to spaces – unpack this for me and how can readers become more attuned to that intangible emotive quality of their rooms?
DN: Homes need to reflect who we are as people, our ambitions and goals. The key for me is getting items that resonate with you and that say something about who you are. They could be attached to a memory or even the idea of who you want to be. I like using client’s personal items, like pictures from different times in their lives. By converting them to black and white and putting them all on one wall, it creates a collection of memories while at the same time, on a design level, creates a focal point that anchors a room. On an emotional level, it focuses one’s attention on the clients values and connections.
PS: Your projects are all infused with a sense of luxury, how do you achieve that and what defines luxury in the home for you?
DN: To me luxury is a multi-sensory experience that engages sight, smell and touch. So we pay attention to lighting, as it can set the right mood in a space, and fragrance, as this can be powerfully emotive. Fabrics are an integral part of our planning as it is in the sensation of touch that luxury can be communicated. There’s nothing like running your hands over a gorgeous fabric or smelling a wonderful scent as you walk into a room for the first time. Hopefully with all these things in place, the home will sing to you.
PS: The past year has certainly challenged the way we look at our homes and the different roles we need them to play. What have been your biggest lessons from lockdown?
DN: That home should be our biggest flex. We need to be more deliberate in creating different experiences in our personal spaces. Not everyone has a big home, so many of these spaces need to be able to adapt to another function. As we spend more time living at home now we need to create spaces that can “transition”. So, for example, the bedroom may have to transition into an office, and furniture helps us do that. Pieces need to be adaptable.
PS: Similarly, the design industry has seen some radical paradigm shifts as we’ve all come to realise that the “old normal” wasn’t working or sustainable. What have been some of the bigger mindset changes that you’ve picked up on, and which ones excite you most?
DN: I am excited that clients have spent more time at home and, therefore, are having more honest conversations about how it is they are living. People are genuinely taking note of what they want from their homes and getting fully involved in the design process. I feel this makes for more inclusive and layered conversations and everyone feels heard at the end of the project. We are designing more honestly and with purpose.