I’m in with the in(teriors) crowd

Can’t tell your artisanal from your elevated? What used to be simple home decorating has become a jargon-laden trend minefield. Luckily Anna Pursglove is here to translate

We’re pimping our living spaces like never before. In the UK, interior design is serious business. Not only has the industry grown every year in the past five, it is doing so faster than the economy overall and was estimated to be worth £1.5 billion in 2023.

We’re whacking up the wallpaper (yes, still), popping in the pelmets (those are back) – and if you haven’t festooned the place in scallop-edged soft furnishings…

What’s that? You’ve missed the scalloped edge? Then you clearly haven’t been keeping abreast of the latest trends – and that might be because you aren’t sufficiently well versed in interior-design-ese.

It’s such a complicated and contradictory language that it should probably be included on the Duolingo app. Imagine the warm glow (which should, incidentally, have a currently fashionable peach tinge) as you correctly translate the following remark: ‘This year, I’m all about biophilic design.’

To help you towards fluency, we’ve put together this handy guide to the terms you’ll need for the latest trends. So, pull up something upholstered in corduroy and let’s get started.

Artisanal

Made of unfinished wood; frequently describes kitchen implements. The sort of things you secretly fantasise about dumping in a vat of Ronseal. Keep those fantasies to yourself. Artisanal ‘pieces’ score maximum points with interior designers, so just put up with the splinters.

Biophilic

This is, we are told, a massive design trend right now, but even the insiders struggle to say what it actually is. ‘Biophilic design emerges when the line between indoor and outdoor spaces dissolves, allowing them to blend seamlessly,’ Homes & Gardens attempts. ‘It’s a state where these spaces unite, and their movement is choreographed in a fluid and effortless manner.’ As far as anyone can tell, we’re talking about houseplants (sales of which are up 130 per cent since 2019).

Bookshelf wealth

This distils down to colour-coding the spines of your books so you can show off about them more easily. The ‘wealth’ is in your heart as you gaze proudly at your collection – you will not need to put a wad of tenners next to War and Peace.

Curate

One of the most fundamental basics of interior-design-speak is that you never ‘tidy up’ – you ‘curate’. If this involves several sturdy bin bags and a pair of Marigolds, then you might want to think about curating a little

‘OPEN PLAN’ IS OVER AND ‘INTIMATE’ IS IN – SO SHUT THE DOOR BEHIND YOU

more often – or paying someone else to do it.

Deck head

Brace yourself for summer’s inevitable outbreak of ‘deck heads’, ie, people who talk incessantly about their decking. Chat tends to centre on the cleaning thereof, so prepare to comment intelligently on your host’s choice of washer nozzle.

Elevate

You may have noticed that interior designers never use the word ‘decorate’. This is because they want to keep plenty of clear blue water between themselves and the decorators. Designers are visionaries; decorators know about undercoat. If you’re painting a room this year, then you’re ‘elevating’ it. And anyway, it’s not a room – it’s a ‘space’.

Hue

When an interior designer ‘elevates’ a room, they will do so with a new ‘hue’, or a ‘palette’ or a ‘tone’. What they won’t be using is a colour – these are for people who wear overalls and have trade discounts at B&Q. Incidentally, grey is out and peach is in. For extra fluency points, tell anyone who’ll listen that ‘peach hues are the new neutrals’ (while secretly deciding that you’re just going to leave the grey where it is because who actually wants a peach house?).

Intimate

Had your kitchen knocked into your dining room knocked into your living room? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but open plan is over and ‘intimate spaces’ are back. Shut the door behind you, will you?

Objet

A knick-knack. Sainsbury’s has adopted the term very enthusiastically in its homeware department – although this clearly caused confusion for the shopper spotted standing next to a geometric objet (£8), remarking loudly to her husband, ‘They’ve missed out the c!’

Roman clay

Yes, you have possibly spent most of your adult life trying to fill in dinks in the wall with Polyfilla, but those dinks are now extremely fashionable. If your walls are high-gloss and mirror-smooth, then you probably don’t actually live in your house. But when you go back there, bung on some roman clay and tell everyone airily that you were inspired by a shack on the Cretan coast.

Sculptural

Has pointy bits. This term can safely be used for anything from a lampshade to a houseplant. Just don’t use it for an actual sculpture. If you need to describe something curvy this year, it’s ‘organic’.

Talking point

For use in conjunction with any very mundane fixture or fitting. Example: ‘This brushed brass loo-roll holder will provide a real talking point’ (brushed brass, you’ll gather, is a thing this year). Interestingly, the defining characteristic of a ‘talking point’ item is that it has never inspired (nor is ever likely to) an actual conversation.

Texture

Before you object that this can hardly be an interiors trend – given that everything with physical form has texture – can we just say that we don’t make the rules. In interiordesign world it means fabrics that bring some people out in hives. So if your living room currently looks like the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s time to get busy with the velvet and corduroy.

Very Colefax

This is a bolt-on phrase for extra brownie points when chucking around your opinions on texture (see above). Referring to fabric and wallpaper company Colefax and Fowler, it simply means ‘a lot of competing patterns – predominantly floral’. Drop it in with a knowing nod as you finger something with a scalloped edge.

Very Colefax, Karen