IN CONVERSATION WITH: SENIOR INTERIOR DESIGNER, HARRIET KNOWLTON_
AT HOME WITH A.LONDON July 2020
Here at A.LONDON, we pride ourselves in designing tailor-made schemes for the imagined home owner. Each project resembles a different personality whether that’s based on the client’s desires and needs or taking inspiration from the surrounding area of the property. Behind each of these beautiful schemes are a team of talented interior designers. We caught up with Senior Interior Designer, Harriet Knowlton to see where she gains her inspiration from for the incredible projects she creates.
What is your best kept interior design secret?
My secret is all about art. As a designer I think it is really important to support young aspiring artists, I feel I have a responsibility to do this being a creative myself. A lot of my friends are artists trying to make it in the art world and I love to support them where I can. When it comes to my interior projects, it’s important to pick the right artists artwork within the right project. I do my research, see if I can find an artist local to the area, with an affinity with the property. This allows us as designers to create a platform for the artist to voice their message, but it also becomes an investment for the client. If it is a development, having an artwork commissioned for them gives their Sales team a key focal point to discuss, to story tell when selling apartments, while the artwork simultaneously adds personality and compliments the interiors.
“As a designer I think it is really important to support young aspiring artists, I feel I have a responsibility to do this being a creative myself.”
– Harriet Knowlton
Interior Designer
What are you looking forward to most about being back in the A.LONDON Studio?
Most importantly… the team! We all work really closely together and are like a second family so to be able to see everyone again is really exciting. I’m also looking forward to our new office! We’ve headed back to where it all began in Fitzrovia and have located to Mortimer House.
What do you get up to when you’re not creating
award-winning interior designs?
The great thing about doing something I love means what I do in my free time, normally inspires my day-to-day work. When I’m not on site or in the office, you’ll either find me in London hunting an antique market like Portobello Road or driving somewhere random to pick up an unnecessary eBay purchase, and not forgetting playing with my chickens, Brenda, Bianca and Belinda.
Where do you go for you interior Inspiration?
Everywhere and anywhere. I have Instagram and Pinterest which enables me to follow likeminded people and friends who work in similar industries all around the world. I am however quite old fashioned when it comes to this and I love having hard copies of magazines to flick through and leave around the house! Cabana is a favourite. The content is amazing along with the actual quirky design of their magazine covers and are great to place on coffee tables! I also find so much inspiration through flea markets, eBay and antique shops. I think that often these second-hand items are overlooked for luxury contemporary interior when these are the pieces that add character and a touch of history to the home and are things you can’t just buy off the shelf. The bold choice of wallpaper I used for my Hamilton Court project in Maida Vale added so much personality to the room and really embodied the character of the area.
How would you design your dream home?
To me, a dream home is one that embodies the person living in it, that displays a story of who they are what they love. For people to come in and really get a feel for the person living in the house. With that being said, I love to entertain, have music on and have people over. At the moment, I am extremely lucky to be living in a house, with a couple of friends, that I would class as a dream home for the time being! We have been property guardians for over a year now and with that, comes the ability to do anything to the house that we can imagine. I’m not quite sure they realised the scale of our imaginations when they said that to us, but we took it quite literally and have tried to make each room really fun and quirky.
Our pink drawing room is my favourite, we picked Mischief by Little Greene. A deep, vibrant pink with so much depth to it. We have tall windows in this room, so we painted the walls and ceilings to really create an atmosphere. The room is styled with all sorts of pieces we have collected along the way with each and every one having a story behind it. From the sofa I bought on eBay that got delivered to my old house by accident to the disco balls on the ceiling coming from a party my sister and I organised for my parents.
Last weekend we took inspiration from Monet’s dining room, along with Little Greene’s Yellow Trumpet and painted our dining room in really intense yellow. Being able to be so bold with the house has really taught me that you should always just take a risk, if you have a quirky idea, just go for it. The risk makes it all the more rewarding.
