The country house 'laboratory' of Sibyl Colefax designer Philip Hooper

[gentle music]

In many ways, this house is a bit of a sort of laboratory

and so I'm experimenting,

and it took a couple of years

to really understand what I wanted to get out of here.

I think I've got the sort of function

of everything right now.

I find it very difficult to sort of understand

if there is something such as a Philip Hooper room,

but other people tell me that they can recognize it.

It is about practicality

and it is about making people comfortable.

And so, you know, I will always make seating groups,

I will always make sure the lighting's right.

It's also about symmetry as well.

There's an awful lot of symmetry

goes into how I think,

which may be the architect in me again as well.

With my first job, I ended up sitting

at a desk next to David Chipperfield

and I'm sure on the way in which he worked,

and by osmosis, must have migrated onto me.

That idea of decoration from his school mixed in

with the architectural side of things started

to create this sort of mix,

which was extremely interesting.

I never thought in a million years I'd end up

in a blue and yellow drawing room.

It's always been one

of my least favorite color combinations.

And so by default, here we are in it.

I've always had a sort of interest in 20th century pictures.

What we've got around us in this house here

is part of the collection I've been acquiring

over the past 40 years.

In this particular situation, I needed to have a piece

of furniture to sit inside this niche.

It was also an opportunity to introduce

this sort of gray-blue color,

which I thought was rather good.

It picks up on the blue in the curtains at the window.

[gentle music]

And being a compulsive hoarder,

I tend to find that I've got rolls

and rolls of fabric dating back

probably about 30 or 40 years in some cases.

And I did have a roll

of this discontinued Colefax and Fowler chintz

which I always thought was particularly insane

with the hunting dogs and the passion flowers on.

So I thought, Well,

I'm in the right kind of house to use it.

Let's resurrect it.

And so here we are.

Again, work in progress,

thinking about different ideas.

That's a Colefax one, which we're starting to reprint

based on the squiggle again.

Some ones we've sewn,

which I'm sure Luna will be very pleased to see here.

And then another old John Fowler design,

which is called Bees in Trefoil.

[gentle music]

My love of eBay shows itself with these curtains,

which are actually an old Jean Monro print,

which I found when I was trawling

through the auction site and thought,

Well, those are big and they'll fit,

and they're a good color.

Let's buy those.

And so again, repurposing,

you find things like that very cheaply

and it's a great way to furnish a big house.

[gentle music]

I've never really been sure what this is.

I saw it in an antique shop around the corner from us

in the Pimlico Road and fell in love with it immediately.

It almost has the feeling of a cartoon

that was produced prior to making a tapestry,

but as a piece for impact and scale,

you can't beat it in here.

And I love the sort of knocked back colors.

This is quite a bit of Fortuney,

and if you recognize it, it'll jump out.

And you'll be fascinated to know

that this is yet another eBay find;

a huge pair of gold Fortuney curtains and a bedspread,

I'm afraid, bought for a song,

but then you do have to spend

an awful lot of time sitting at the computer,

looking at eBay to find things like that and be lucky.

So my good fortune was to find these

which are now in the bedroom,

and probably something I would never

be able to have otherwise, but I do enjoy them.

[gentle music]

Well, here we are in one of the guest bedrooms

and this is a classic example of my repurposing.

But this was probably printed maybe about 30 years ago

and was part of a room scheme designed by Roger Banks-Pye

who was a former Colefax director like myself.

There's so much beautiful workmanship gone on to this.

Not only the printing, but also the embroidered edges,

the sort of scalloping on the fabric.

It just needs to be given a new lease of life.

I had some frills on some

which was this sort of Kelly green glazed linen.

[gentle music]

I always say that I think the best designers

are the ones that have the ability to self-edit,

but I think you've gotta be strong enough

to look at what you've done,

and if it's not right, rip it up and start again.

You know, self-edit, self-edit, self-edit.

You know, never be satisfied with what you've done.

You've gotta push yourself further and further.

[gentle music]