Daydress Founder's Flat Tour
Take a Tour of Daydress Founder Gabby Deeming's pattern filled flat
Beautifully decorated Interiors have as much a place in my heart as beautiful dresses.
I began my career designing the decoration pages of House & Garden magazine and this lucky exposure to the most beautiful textiles, paint colours and furniture have absolutely shaped the way I see now. For any lover of colour and pattern, your home is a primed canvas. My flat in London is a place where I have loved layering gentle colour combinations and favourite textiles. I have a happy mix of new prints I love, older, faded things I have had for years and some beautiful antique pieces which always magically stop a room from looking too floaty and new. I’m scared of Showroom Perfect interiors, although there’s no chance of that in my flat. The building is so old that no corners are 90 degrees and the building is on such an impressive slope, even pencils will roll off the table, but I love these idiosyncrasies.
I have used wallpapers where I can, but most of the flat is panelled so it’s all a mix of paint colour and patterns. The Japanese wallpaper in my hall is actually a screen printed wrapping paper from Choosing Keeping, a brilliant stationary shop in London. I bought 15 sheets so it was much more economical than buying rolls, plus, nobody else has it! This is one of the great things about getting pattern into your house, it doesn’t have to be done in expected ways.
Being inventive with my interior was so important to me, it’s how to let your personality show.
I commissioned a scenic artist, Annie Millar, to paint my closed-up-fireplace with a simple curtain design, adapted from a wall painting I'd seen in a magazine. I love how it now has a different focus; real fire would be nice but as far as I’m concerned, this is the next best thing.
Things for the walls, Pictures, paintings, posters - These play a big part in my interior.
Paintings are often where I find the best colour combinations which I use in my own print designs for Daydress.
They also pull a room together and add a fat dose of personality. Your home says so much about what sort of person you are, there's nowhere to hide!
Textiles, I can’t imagine a home without them! They bring more comfort to me and the flat than anything else material. I think we all have a special connection to textiles, from our first blanket to maybe a dress of our mother’s or other special items we remember the touch and smell of from childhood. This is why all Daydresses have to be made in beautiful fabric, I want them to be remembered and loved for years to come! Dressing the flat with cushions or laying the table with a beautiful cloth, are all such cheery ways to bring even a little pattern into your home.
My bed is like a boat in full-sail with it’s fabric canopy that gives it a cosy, tucked-away feeling which I love. It’s probably time I changed up the fabric to one of my own prints. I’ll put that on the to-do list.
If you're looking for a bit of guidance for your own home, Gabby's course 'How to Style with Pattern and Colour' is available from Create Academy and contains hours of useful lessons, teaching you all the tips and tricks