A new dawn for design
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WHEN Nancy Lancaster bought the country’s most respected decorating business from her friend Sibyl Colefax in 1948, it wasn’t only her exquisite taste and sound judgement that secured commissions to spruce up Buckingham Palace, Chequers and great houses from Tyningham to Grimsthorpe—her career was turbo-charged by family connections and a gilt-edged address book. Her aunt was the politician Nancy Astor and her husband the Conservative MP Ronald Tree, with whom she entertained Churchill.
Much has happened since then. Not only has Britain become more cosmopolitan, but the wealth attracted by London’s growth as a financial centre has precipitated a golden age of house building, renovation and restoration and, in turn, a thriving interior-design industry. Having employed relatively rudimentary resources to beautify the threadbare homes of the aristocratic and/or landed, Lancaster wouldn’t recognise the new breed of multidisciplinary interior-design practices, buzzing with in-house architects, as well as project and procurement managers. Nor would she be familiar with the international nature of their clientele, many with homes of a scale and complexity that she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams.
There are some ways, however, in which Britain’s interior-design world hasn’t evolved much since her day. It remains an industry —like the upper echelons of law, civil service and media—that fails to reflect the diversity of Britain in 2022. COUNTRY LIFE’S new list of leading interior designers, architects, garden designers and specialists published today (page 92) demonstrates this all too acutely.
Later this month, Livingetc magazine will host a panel discussion at London Design Week with Alexandria Dauly, co-founder of United in Design, the charity launched in 2020 to address the lack of diversity within interior design. This type of event is encouraging because the most important step in addressing any issue is to discuss it, rather than deny it. The other is to take swift and decisive action, something United in Design is doing by creating opportunities for those from black, Asian, ethnic minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, through outreach programmes, apprenticeships, career guidance and mentorship.
There have been a number of milestones in British design since the Second World War, from the founding of the first interiors school in 1960 to the establishment of the British Institute of Interior Design in 2009. Welcoming more professionals from broader backgrounds would be another exciting landmark. So, too, would a COUNTRY LIFE Top 100 list that reflects the groundwork being done today.