From time to time, I think that we need to take ourselves out of reality and go beyond into an imagined world. We do this to make ourselves feel happy, to escape – even just for a little while – into a room outside our own reality. Whether it is defined by architecture (cottage interiors with country-house delusions) or geographic considerations (a Chinoiserie-style room in the English countryside), a fantastic interior will transport us out of a given context into an imagined one.
History is full of examples of artists, designers and dreamers who carved out worlds of their own. King Ludwig’s sublime Neuschwanstein Castle, in the foothills of the German Alps, was a 19th-century romantic invocation of the German Gothic. The Duke of Mantua’s Palazzo Te, built in Lombardy in the 16th century, was devised purely for enjoyment, with rooms named after horses, Cupid and Psyche, and giants. The 18th-century artist, engraver and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi reimagined ancient ruins in exaggerated form. Modern artists have continued in these footsteps. Someone I admire greatly is photographer Tim Walker, who often stages fantastical still lifes by taking an already lovely scene and adding a playful sense of the surreal.
Stage sets are a good example of how fantasy can translate into an interior. Russian artist and theatre designer Léon Bakst rebelled against the realism of the 19th century to create sets in which bold pattern and colour transported the audience into another world. His design for the 1910 Ballets Russes production of Scheherazade constantly inspires me. Other proponents of this school of fantasy were the stage designers Tony Duquette and Oliver Messel. Both used natural and artificial light sources to create ambience and highlight architectural features. Duquette would often create vignettes using drapery and oversized decorative sculpture, lighting them dramatically. All these examples have a strong sense of storytelling at their heart – the starting point for adding fantasy to any interior.
I always like to begin with the context of a project when I am devising the story of an interior. This can come from the location, architecture or history (for some projects, we draw upon the lives of past occupants for inspiration). But the narrative can come from anywhere. Often clients will approach us with a film reference or a painting that they like. Passion creates authenticity and good fantasy comes from a real interest in a particular subject. I don’t profess to have scholarly knowledge of these subjects, but Venice has always been one of my favourite cities and I also love English landscape painting. So when it came to decorating my own home in the West Sussex countryside, I liked the idea of combining Venetian mirrors and Murano lights with my small collection of English landscapes.
The thing that most interiors with fantasy at their heart get wrong is quality. So it’s always worth investing in the room’s physical touch points (floors, walls, seating, etc). There is room for manoeuvre in the decorative moments. A painted screen, a papier-mâché urn, fabric curtains revealing or concealing, thematic artwork. There is a charm in combining good bones with more ephemeral accents that have an artistic spirit behind them. The most important ingredient is fun. Fantasy is about taking you into a happy realm, so have fun along the way and let your imagination go.
