Aimee Farrell

Utopian visions from the past continue to propel design

She may be known for subtle shades, but her new paint range has surprisingly vibrant depths

Throwing shine among the shadows, mirrored interiors have dazzled since ancient times. In Rome, Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea – the Golden House – sparkled with fragments of mirror and glass. And a century before the Sun King’s Galerie des Glaces spectacularly showcased the French glass-making industry in 1684, the Mirror Hall of Golestan Palace, with its reflective grid ceiling and elaborate symmetry, shone as a beacon of brightness in Tehran. In Mirrors: Reflections of Style, author Paula Phipps…

“Who isn’t excited to sleep in a four-poster bed?” asks Charlotte Freemantle, the co-owner of Jamb, Pimlico Road’s purveyor of fireplaces, lighting, antique furnishings – and now four-poster beds. “It’s the stuff of dreams.” That sense of fantasy and romance was front and centre in Freemantle’s mind when it came to her first decorating job at Aldourie Castle, a resplendent and rentable 12-bedroomed fort on the shores of Loch Ness. As the project progressed, what kept Freemantle up at night was…

What is the power of place in defining who we are, and how we dress? This is the question at the core of two of spring/summer 2024’s most compelling collections. Erdem and Chanel presented a tale of two chatelaines — respectively, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and Marie-Laure de Noailles, the Surrealist arts patron and brilliantly unconventional collector — whose homes became a defining influence on their stories. “I always knew I wanted to create a collection around Deborah,” says…

Since her teens, the English interior designer Flora Soames has scoured Provençal flea markets, East Anglian antiques shops, car-boot sales, auction houses and dealers in search of decorative treasures, often from the 18th century. “I’ve picked up old gold threads, lengths of damask and French patchwork quilts,” she says of her obsession. “There wasn’t always a plan. I was merely collecting things that appealed to me and that I wanted to live with.” For Soames, collecting is one of life’s most…

Embroidery is a lifelong obsession of mine. I wasn’t brought up with sewing – my mother couldn’t sew – but I’ve always been drawn to it. I’m like a magpie when it comes to decorative textiles. I spent much of my life thinking I couldn’t sew. As a teenager at secondary school, I spent a whole term trying to add a zip to the denim skirt I was making. I was hopeless at sewing machines; I couldn’t manage them. It’s only now, in my 60s, that I’ve found the confidence – and I have the zeal of the con…

Our favourite Christmas decoration is an art form worth celebrating

“I constantly have my head buried in hedgerows,” says the artist and designer Jess Wheeler of the brambly boughs that have been a hallmark of England’s rural landscape since before the Romans. “They’re often overlooked but they are crucial ecologically. They create so many homes for animals and native species.” Working from a converted cowshed in the foothills of the Berwyn Mountains in north Wales, Wheeler draws on the bounty of these hidden landscapes to create elemental oak-leaf candle sconc…

“Art is made to be enjoyed, lingered over and talked about,” says art dealer Milo Dickinson. “We’re trying to create an atmosphere where people can experience the work without the hushed reverence you might feel in a museum.” To this end, the new exhibition at the eponymous gallery Milo runs with his father brings together a triumvirate of family talent, marking the first time the Dickinson siblings – artist Phoebe, 39, interior designer Octavia, 37, and Milo, 34, managing director of the galler…

Remy Renzullo’s world is one tethered to the splendour of the past. To enter the Islington home of the American decorator is to cross a threshold into a bygone era where every object is rich in patina and provenance. He is inexorably drawn to the faded and fabulous remnants of the 17th and 18th centuries; almost nothing in his rooms – besides a few pieces of contemporary art and a fish plate by ceramicist Katy Stubbs, which was a birthday present – is new. “I’m really a frustrated antiques deal…

Painted paper shadesJapanese lanterns get a joyful rejig this season. The trend for paper pendants takes a painterly turn with this sculptural limited-edition Formakami design by Jaime Hayon for & Tradition, £300. Globular glasswareFeeling tipsy? The trend for surrealistic stemware that mimics melting glass — as pioneered by glass artist Miranda Keyes’s hand-forged Ball Knoped collection for Fels Farm Shop at London Design Festival — will have guests quizzing their levels of inebriation (£240).…

Vincent Farelly and Jean-Baptiste Martin’s home is the new creative heart of their Paris design studio

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The fashion designer invites us to her grown-up fun house

Low lighting improves your mood, sleep and complexion. So why not strike a match?

Under the direction of Federico Forquet, the beloved fabric emporium is undergoing a major renaissance

The artists on where they find inspiration – and antiques – in the South Downs

The instant sunshine of the plant world is the queen of winter blooms

A beautiful container can turn even tax receipts into treasure