In conversation with...
Top British fashion designer Henry Holland tells us about his love of interiors and his new homeware collection at Freemans
Fashion designer Henry Holland has turned his talented hand to homeware
Have you always been into homewares?
Yes! My mum’s really into interior design and she deals in antiques. She lives in France and goes to brocantes, and I’ve been going with her for as long as I can remember and picking out my own pieces. There are also so many synergies between fashion and interiors. One of my favourite things about fashion is how wearing different pieces can change the way you feel, and that completely crosses over into home design. The way you dress your rooms creates different feelings to suit what you need, whether it’s comfort or it’s entertaining.
What are your design influences?
I love things with a bit of personality. My reference points always tend to be mid-century ’50s and ’60s pieces but I have such an eclectic range of sources and inspirations. Having a job where you think of things and then they become reality is such a privilege.
What’s a typical day?
One of the things that I love about my career is that there isn’t a typical day and that’s what keeps me focused, and also that I’m always learning. I tend to start my day catching up with my emails at home and then I head into the studio. Then it’s kind of a ping-pong back and forth between the laptop or zoom calls, working with suppliers, on this collection and on other projects as well.
Tell us about your Freemans collection...
I didn’t want it to be too themed or too seasonal. I wanted to introduce some really incredible forever pieces, and then build in some more changeable pieces. There’s lots of print and colour in the soft furnishings then the bigger pieces are slightly more neutral. There are 100 pieces in the collection so there’s something for every room but it also all works together so you can grow a collection.
Which are your favourite pieces?
The ribbed wooden side table is really fun, it gives a pop of colour in the coral pink and mint green, and it can be added to a neutral room without being too overpowering. The reeded-glass-door metal cabinets are also really stunning. And I love the Ursa boucle chair – we call it Shaun, because the boucle makes it look like Shaun the Sheep! The printed, loose-weave cotton cushions in the two signature prints in the collection are favourites too.
Tell us about your home style...
It’s quite eclectic. We tend to focus rooms around one or two really stand-out pieces and build it from there. We have a lot of artwork we use to introduce colour and a more playful side to our home. We don’t necessarily have every room with a different colour but we create that feeling through artwork and pieces that are movable and changeable. We’ve actually just moved house so we’re still trying to figure out if all of our pieces fit!
Visit freemans.com to shop the Henry Holland collection and read our full interview at bit.ly/henryhollandinterview