A shoppable colour palette for your home and your wardrobe
19 things that caught my eye, plus my fear of birthdays...
Hello! I’m not sure where you’ll be when you read this but I’m in London and the weather forecast is – astonishingly – not rubbish at the moment. I’m as surprised as anyone because it’s my birthday this week and it generally always rains (gloomy weather for a gloomy gal), so I appreciate the no-coat temps!
Birthdays have never been my thing, so I don’t have any plans besides a low-key dinner with my lovely, long-suffering boyfriend. I was a melodramatic kid and I remember sobbing in bed on the day I turned 13 because I hated teenagers. They swore and smoked and vandalised bus stops and I desperately didn’t want to be one of them. It was an overreaction in hindsight as I never did become a smoker or a vandal (can’t say the same for my potty mouth) but for as long as I can remember, I’ve worried about time feeling like a terrifying, unstoppable force.
Even when I was very young (way too young to be in my existential crisis era) I was scared about every single aspect of becoming an adult one day. I didn’t want anything to change. I still remember my parents making me stop wearing vests as underwear because I was ‘too old’ for them. I probably was but I hated the sensory experience of my crisp cotton school shirt touching my skin. I think this was around the time when I told my Year 6 teacher that I wanted to investigate the paranormal because I’d recently taken an interest in a book about ghost sightings. It would take another 20+ years for that hypersensitive, spooky little nugget to be diagnosed as neurodivergent…
Now that every year passes quicker than the last, birthdays feel like I’m watching a tidal wave grow in size while I stand frozen on the shore, desperate for it to slow down so I can make a plan. Unpicking all that is probably a task for a therapist, so for now, I’ll quietly celebrate being lucky enough to take another lap around the sun!
My obsession with the passing of time aside, having a birthday during Halloween week and being ginger means autumn is *truly* my season. Earthy colour palettes, hedgerow hues and various shades of sludge aren’t a fleeting preference for the ‘ber months. I’m all-in, all year round. Have you ever seen a pale redhead look good in insipid pastels? Exactly.
When I launched my wavy lampshade collaboration with Munro & Kerr back in 2020, the first two colourways I wanted to offer were tobacco and chocolate brown but we did a poll on Instagram and most people made it clear they absolutely did not want brown. I know I was in the minority back then but I feel like the results might skew differently now…
I was on the King’s Road in Chelsea the other day and I popped into Designers Guild for the first time in a while. They always have a reliable selection of Kantha quilts and mohair blankets and just a few footsteps into the shop, I spotted a heavyweight upholstery fabric that took my fancy and a mohair throw that I knew would look great with it. From there, I started building a room scheme around those two items (just in my head, for kicks) but the blanket in particular was the instigator for this whole post as the colours were perfect. I don’t love bright orange as a rule, so I would have changed that stripe if I could, but in very small doses I can tolerate it.
Two colour combinations I’m gravitating towards at the moment are deep, fruity reds (rich mulberry and cranberry tones) paired with a very yellow-based green (something along the olive, bronze-green or even yellow chartreuse spectrum). I also love the soft pinkish-mauve colour at the bottom of our protagonist blanket and I want to see those muted heather tones with a deep brown.
Let’s step this up a notch and imagine textural combinations. It could be a leather skirt contrasted against a wool rollneck, or a velvet armchair beside a glossy lacquered table. I’ve thrown some cool metals into the mix as I think they make the palette feel fresh, though unlacquered brass would work too.
Paid subscribers, keep scrolling for a few tonal homeware and womenswear picks that I’ve plucked from my saved folder. The pieces in this edit weren’t chosen for their affordability, so I’m not suggesting you should rush out and buy everything (some items are wildly expensive and I could never) but in terms of where my brain is at and what I’m feeling drawn to in terms of shape, colour and texture, they should give you a visual.
Sophie Ashby starts her room schemes with the art and Robert Kime used to start with a rug. I’ve started with a mohair throw…
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19 colour-themed things you might like…
THE mohair blanket that I built this edit around. It’s from a selection at Designers Guild in Chelsea but it’s not online.