Can you share your journey into the world of interior decoration? How have these experiences informed your approach as Style Director?

My journey  properly started out when I got a graduate job aged 21, selling Classified advertising space into House & Garden and The World of Interiors. Luckily for me, perhaps, I was so wet behind the ears that I had no idea what erudite a world I was stepping into.

I quickly became fascinated with the work of the ‘decoration’ teams who worked across the corridors at these two magazines: conjuring set designs for editorial photography, in a way that (amazingly, to me) combined creativity and fantasy with something that would appeal to people in their own lives. I started to help out on House & Garden Decoration Editor Gabby Deeming’s photoshoots on my days off, which led to an internship, and the rest of my career.

As the Style Director of House & Garden, what does a typical day look like for you?

I genuinely love the variety that my job brings. Days on set are very physical - everyone on a shoot day will be lifting, packing, painting, and pinning and steaming fabrics. On the lead up to a shoot day, I will spend my time creating detailed instructions for set builders, prop makers or background painters. Equally, I might be found arranging logistics, making sure pieces of furniture, antiques or fabrics will get to us on time. 

Earlier in the process, I will spend a long time working out how an idea for a shoot might be executed - preparing schemes and moodboards for each shot. I also hand draw each imagined shot to help me clarify my ideas, with the help of a scale ruler to ensure that everything fits! A day will very often begin or end with the social side of the job: a dinner, drinks, or breakfast to launch a brand, collection or showroom. Despite the digital nature of much of our work these days, I try to physically see as much of what we feature in the magazine as possible - both the people and their designs.

Can you walk us through your creative process when working on a new feature or project for the magazine?

A few ideas will simmer away in the background - in the form of a sketch, screengrab or jotted down words, for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for a topic to come up which fits. Sometimes, you can rack your brains for an idea which joins a theme together, but usually the initial idea is pretty quick to come, and then the devil is in the execution.

Notably though, whenever I am working on a reasonably big project, I tend to have a fun time tracking down niche reference books - a combination of visual and written, on the subject. It's amazing what you find on the Oxfam books website. In preparation for my ‘banners and flags’ themed shoot for October 2023 House & Garden, I found books from ‘Rejected Ideas for the European Union Flag’ (niche!), to ‘Banner Bright’ - an illustrated history of Trade Union banners (essential!). This is totally key for finding visual details, or hooks which bring me joy and spur on the creative side of planning a shoot.

You can guarantee that if you have been fed an image on instagram, your professional peers will have too - especially if they have a similar taste, so it will be hard to keep things surprising by only looking online. 

Who has been the most influential person in your life, and why?

Design-wise, I think it has to be my ex-boss and predecessor, Gabby Deeming! She taught me such a brilliant combination of hard work and fun: seriousness about the job and a sense of humour about everything else. She taught me to do the work excellently and then finish on time and have a nice evening. My tendency in my early working life was to work overly hard to try to prove myself. Now that I am wiser, I think about Gabby and how she would, in a tight spot, think about the most elegant and efficient way she could to make the shot look great, and to ensure that things run smoothly. I regularly go to a ‘what would Gabby do’ place in my head, and it has helped me tremendously. 

How would you describe your personal design aesthetic, and how does it influence your work as an editor?

I think, being an editor, I have long believed I don’t have an aesthetic. I don’t think this is entirely true, but ideally a stylist or set designer should be able to embody different looks and styles depending on the brief and mood, in order to keep the reader surprised and delighted. One way I do this - for my ‘room set’ shoots - is to imagine the human character who lives in the space, and then push that quite far, like a fantasy interior-design client.

Having said that, my personal style at home is definitely evident. It is quite homely, cottagey, cute, and layered. My husband calls it our ‘silly little house’, and that is exactly how I feel about it and why I love it.  

How do you see trends influencing the way people live and interact with their spaces? Are there any trends you believe are overhyped or under appreciated?

I am very bad at thinking in terms of trends. Often this can be a positive - we are reminded to ‘be the voice not the echo’, so I think it is OK to work instinctively and not to have my head turned. I do, however, always go wild with excitement when I connect trends (which are supposed to be just a matter of taste) with socio-economic forces. I loved, for example, noticing how the ‘industrial’ look emerged from a genuine abundance of post-industrial buildings, and of cheap, stripped-out factory fittings, but how that morphed into slightly nonsensical 'industrial' simulacra being sold in high street shops. Those things fascinate me.