COLOUR INSIGHT

Colville’s co-founder Lucinda Chambers on great colour combos

In a great colour combination, the colours don’t just work together, they speak to each other. For example, khaki with red is a winning pairing for me. Brown and blue also work effortlessly as a team. Together with my Colville co-founder Molly Molloy (former design director at Marni), I’m always looking for ways to create interesting colour combinations.

At home, I tend to paint a room according to how I feel at the time and its purpose.

I opted for an energetic electric yellow called Mister David by Little Greene to bring our dining room to life, but I’ve taken a much softer approach in our bedroom with soothing Setting Plaster by Farrow & Ball. Reds are brilliant for living rooms because they inject a dramatic feel. I chose Firefly by Little Greene – it looks and feels so welcoming.

I always test colours by painting large swatches on the wall to get a true feel for each.

I then take a piece of art that I particularly love and hang it nearby. Suddenly, I’ve got an exciting colour conversation going on.

In our family room, I’ve painted the picture rail Shadow White by Farrow & Ball to create a dividing line

between the vibrant red below (Firefly by Little Greene) and the electric yellow above (Mister David by Little Greene). I think to have a surface and not to paint it is a wasted opportunity! Whether it’s a door frame, skirting board or dado or picture rail, it’s always an excellent excuse to add another colour to the mix in my opinion.

I’ve never decorated my home from top to bottom in one go.

I paint one room at a time and I tackle the project slowly. When I couldn’t decide what colour to paint our small bathroom, I stuck every imaginable colour swatch on the wall and it stayed like that for two years.

I love to create contrast by mixing matt and glossy finishes.

In my entrance hall, I’ve painted the bottom half of the wall a glossy brown colour from Paint & Paper Library and the top half in Mizzle, a soft grey-green by Farrow & Ball. There’s no dado rail so I’ve painted a fine black line to divide the two colours.

All the front doors on our street are duck egg blue except ours.

I wanted something a bit different that reflected the interior of my home, so I chose Deep Reddish Brown by Farrow & Ball in a fabulous gloss finish.

Colville is all about collaborating with artisans, bringing together their craft and our love of colour and knowledge of the luxury market.

My favourite designs in our SS21 collection are hand-blown Murano glass vases shaped like bowling balls. The colour mixes are so exciting – at Colville we don’t do beige!

If you want to dip your toe into colour, start with a white room and then pop things in that are very colourful, like a yellow lamp or an electric blue cushion. Start with the small stuff and work your way up and suddenly you’ll find that colour is completely life-enhancing.