When we think of decadent and luxurious interiors, one designer comes to mind first: Alidad. We think of the citrussy silks and sun-lit gilding of Buscot Park, bejewelled Middle Eastern niches with mirrors and stained glass fit for the likes of sultans and shahs, and his own Mayfair flat that acts as a living roadmap of his life and personality. The 2024 WOW!house installation gave us an opportunity to experience the way he works first hand. This room was filled with pieces from many eras and origins. Alidad's masterful layout and use of small details like passementerie on the walls provided design enthusiasts with a hands-on lesson in going above and beyond to create a space that feels like it’s always been there. It was a lesson in luxe.
When designing our own homes, it's a common problem that our budgets fail to align with our tastes. The general cost of living situation, the difficulties of starting out in one’s career, having small children, or simply being afraid to spend money on ourselves – all of these make it so we prioritise other expenses over our homes. It's very easy to end up with a space that doesn't reflect our true tastes and personalities. We see rooms of Alidad’s calibre and think that they’re unattainable. Well fret not, frugal design enthusiasts. We’ve spoken to Alidad himself about his tips for making your spaces luxe for less, and we promise, an Alidad-approved space is, in fact, within reach.
His first piece of advice is very simple: ‘No matter what your budget is, you must do a furniture layout for your room,’ he says with authority. This helps to avoid large and expensive mistakes from the beginning. If you want to see exactly how he achieves this, we recommend watching his Create Academy course. Spoiler alert: it’s a surprisingly easy process.
Next, you need to think about the actual furniture. Sofas from popular brands like Howard & Sons, a stalwart in the upscale design community, can set you back several thousand pounds —and that’s before you have it upholstered in a custom fabric. However, Alidad says you don’t necessarily need to go for the costly pieces to get the right look. ‘If you go for a classical shape with a timeless look, you’ll be fine,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You can buy a sofa that may not be the exact shape or colour you want, but you can drape something over it like a suzani or another antique and interesting textile, which changes the look immediately; that’s what I’ve done with my Ikea sofas at my cottage.’ Wait a minute—Ikea and Alidad? That’s a pairing that might have shocked us in the past, but remember, his Legend Room at WOW!house had a sneaky piece of Ikea that he and his team talked about with glee and encouraged us to find (it was a furry rug, by the way). ‘At the end of the day, you need a sofa,’ he then said. ‘If you can’t buy what you really want, then buy it from somewhere that is reasonable. If or when you buy something that is more expensive down the line, then stick it in another room when you’re done with it.’ After all, tasteful interiors are never wasteful.
Then, the often-daunting step of selecting fabrics comes into play. There are so many options out there that are beyond tempting: front of mind right now Robert Kime’s Opium Poppy, Bennison’s Oakleaf, and basically anything from Carlos Garcia’s own collection — the selection process can easily go from exciting to overwhelming. As these fabrics retail for north of £200 a metre, and it takes anywhere from fifteen to twenty metres to upholster a sofa, well, we’ll let you do the maths, there’s a reason why we pursued careers in the arts. ‘You don’t need to use expensive fabrics,’ Alidad assured us. ‘If you can’t afford to cover a sofa in a pattern you’re in love with, don’t cover your sofa in it; hang a bit of it above your sofa, make it into cushions, or drape it over something.’ In other words, fabrics such as solid linens can act as the inexpensive base fabric, while your initial fabric of choice can still be enjoyed as an accent—as a cushion or art piece, as Alidad suggested, or even something like a small stool that floats proudly around your drawing room as needed. He reminded us to look closely at his own spaces, and to notice how most of the furnishings in his rooms are upholstered in solids that have been adorned with patterned accessories.
‘It’s the juxtaposition of different things that make a room special,’ he continues. ‘One fabric could be something special, but the rest of them could be relatively ordinary. It’s all about how you use them—I even tend to cut fabrics up and join them with other fabrics. Both fabrics could even be ordinary, but sometimes putting two fabrics together becomes something special.’ We noticed he used this technique on an armchair in the Legend Room; a green and blue velvet was given life and texture by a central streak of red and gold flame stitch. In his own home, his red dining chairs have an added level of depth with the addition of a central damask panel framed by gold braids. Alidad’s rooms also tend to feature a table draped in fabrics that are a mix of both high-end and less so, often united via simply stacking one fabric on top of the other. However, the best part about these tables is that they themselves are often very inexpensive. ‘Most of my tables of this sort are plywood that have simply been covered in nice fabrics and tablecloths,’ Alidad said. After a quick Google search, we can confirm: these tables are readily available online starting for less than £100. When used to support decorative objects such as silver picture frames, an Imari lamp, and small, sentimental reminders of beloved people and places, an inexpensive plywood table that’s been draped with a tablecloth suddenly becomes the height of sophistication.
‘Curtains are more of a challenge on a smaller budget,’ he said regretfully. ‘If you have a limited budget, then I wouldn’t go for swags and tails.’ Although this may seem like devastating news for grandmillennials, he does offer some very solid advice, which is to add braids, fringes, and tassels to a plain fabric that’s been simply hung on a rod of your choice. In other words, treat them as you would treat a more elaborate curtain configuration—minus the need for extra metres.
Walls can be treated in the same manner; think about the Legend Room and how he added braids to the walls for an extra layer of colour and texture, and as we know, Alidad is all about adding layers of colour and texture. ‘We tend to think of a room having four walls—I never think of a room like that,’ Alidad said. ‘I think doors are walls, literally anything that is flat is a wall for me, even when I put in a mirror on a mantelpiece; it becomes a wall because it is a flat area,’ he continues. ‘I often put paintings in front of mirrors—and they don’t have to be big. People often say, ‘well how do you hang a painting on a mirror’ and I tell them that it’s very cheap and simple. You get some fishing nylon, and you just hang the painting from behind the mirror.’ Fishing nylon and small works of art; so far, that sounds fairly budget-friendly to us. Alidad really stressed his belief that nothing must be truly ‘special,’ including the things on your walls. ‘Scale is the most important thing for me,” he said, conjuring images of the large-scale tapestries he often hangs above sofas. ‘You can even use textiles that are brand new and less expensive, but they happen to have a beautiful design. Why not put that over your sofa? It really is about scale.’ On that note, we see a trip to Joss Graham in our near futures.
When discussing the suede-upholstered corridor walls in his own home, Alidad further reminded us to think outside of the box when it comes to achieving the same look with alternative materials. ‘If I were trying to cut costs, I would have used felt—like the ones you use on billiards tables,’ he explained. ‘It’s just going to be on the wall; no one’s going to be touching it. If the colour is pleasing, then that’s all you need for laying things over it.’ Think of the mirrored stripes that run down his drawing room walls; what is stopping us from searching ‘pack of tiny mirrors’ on Amazon and adhering them to ribbon or cotton lace for the same effect? Let’s also keep in mind that the intricate mashrabiya walls of his library were hand-painted by a friend (note to self: be extra kind to artist friends in hopes of discounted mural work).
Alidad’s most beloved rooms typically have one element in common: jaw-droppingly beautiful rugs. As we sit here scrolling through 1stDibs looking at similar rugs that stretch into the five-figure price range, we are grateful that Alidad has some sage wisdom in this area as well (which makes sense, considering the fact that he was the departmental director for Islamic works of art and textiles at Sotheby’s). The first step in finding a good rug is to educate yourself about them. ‘With Oriental rugs, the majority either have a blue or red background, and then there are some with beige backgrounds, which are rarer, and green backgrounds which are even more rare,’ he explained. ‘So then let’s say you have a blue background—the motifs are red, yellow and green. Then if you have a red background, the motifs are blue, green, and yellow. So, knowing that, you have to decide what background colour you want and go from there.’ Once you’ve figured out what colours would complement your room the most, then it’s time to search for a rug that also complements your budget. ‘If you want an authentic Oriental carpet look, it’s always going to be expensive, but some of the modern rugs will do just fine as long as their colours work with your schemes,’ he continued. ‘I suggest going for a modern rug with a beige background that may not have the same motifs as an antique, oriental rug, but it still has all of the colours there that you want for your room.’ Alidad then shared with us that he chose handmade kilims from (wait for it) Ikea to adorn his floors in his home in France. ‘I’m always very relaxed about rugs,’ he added as he explained how Oriental rugs have been made to be casually thrown on the ground for thousands of years. ‘There are lots of dhurries you can get from India, which are really not that expensive. They’re modern, and some of them are made with harmonious colours and designs. If the upholstery in your room is very colourful, then I quite like a sisal,’ he said, maybe thinking about his own use of sisal in the Legend Room, which was the supporting layer for a variety of different rugs arranged on top.
Lastly, Alidad stresses the importance of scale once again, but in relation to lighting. ‘You can get lamps that you like that aren’t very expensive, but they have the right scale. Scale is crucial—the lamps should be quite big,’ he said with conviction. With the money saved buying a less expensive lamp, he suggests perhaps splurging on a more expensive shade. ‘Colourful shades can do wonders for a room,’ he explained, ‘especially if your upholstery is plain.’ He then adds that lighting is more than just lamps and shades; it’s the light itself. ‘I would never go for a white light,’ he said. ‘I would always go for a warm light, as white lights kill a room.’ In other words, it's often the little and least expensive elements of a space that can make it or break it.
‘At the end of the day, it’s all about a variety of things,’ Alidad emphasized. ‘It’s about making it look like someone’s been there for a long time, and generations of your family before that: as if they’ve all put their own stamp on it. The only way you can do that is by having fabrics that don’t necessarily go together—having a variety of fabric qualities, paintings, drawings, rugs, textiles—everything.’ In other words, build your home over time and as your budget allows—a slowly-designed home that reflects your travels, interests, and crafty ideas will always be more interesting than an expensive home that was thrown together in a matter of months. ‘Do something that is you: something you haven’t done just because it’s fashionable,’ Alidad concluded with, ‘—and remember, not everything has to be top quality to have a good look.’
