Tag: Kelly Hoppen

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Top UK Interior Designers 2026: London and National

Top UK Interior Designers 2026: London and National

The following is a curated reference list of interior design studios and practitioners active in the UK in 2026, compiled for homeowners, property developers, and clients seeking design representation for residential and commercial projects. The list is organised by location — London studios first, followed by national coverage — and listed alphabetically within each section. No ranking is implied. All studios listed were active and accepting new commissions at the time of compilation.

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London Studios

Beata Heuman. Stockholm-born, London-based, Beata Heuman’s studio produces interiors of playful sophistication — bold colour, idiosyncratic furniture, and a distinctive blend of Scandinavian restraint with maximal personality. Her residential work has been widely published and her aesthetic is among the most recognisable in contemporary London design. Website: beataheuman.com

BradyWilliams. Founded by Shayne Brady and Emily Williams, BradyWilliams offers a comprehensive bespoke interior design service for residential and commercial clients. Known for acute detailing, timeless design, and strong project management, the studio operates across London and internationally. Website: studioshaynebrady.com

Buchanan Studio. Led by Jessica Maybury, Buchanan Studio specialises in high-end residential projects with an emphasis on craftsmanship, natural materials, and considered materiality. The studio’s work has a quiet confidence and a strong understanding of bespoke joinery and architectural detail. Website: buchanan.studio

David Collins Studio. One of London’s most established luxury design studios, founded in 1985. The studio — now led by Iain Watson and Simon Rawlings — has defined interiors at iconic London locations and continues to work across hospitality, retail, and high-end residential. Known for layered palettes and architectural precision. Website: davidcollins.studio

Design Haus Liberty. Founded by Dara Huang, Design Haus Liberty blends mid-century and contemporary European influences across residential and commercial projects. The studio has worked with Four Seasons, Cartier, and LVMH alongside a significant private residential portfolio. Website: dhliberty.com

Elicyon. A luxury studio based in Kensington, led by Charu Gandhi. Elicyon works across interior design, interior architecture, and project management on some of London’s most prominent prime residential developments including One Hyde Park, with an international portfolio extending to Dubai, Monaco, and Singapore. Website: elicyon.com

Fran Hickman Design and Interiors. Fran Hickman’s studio is characterised by bold colour, pattern, and confident maximalism. Her residential work is full of personality and her commercial portfolio includes Soho House properties. A strong choice for clients who want distinctive, colour-forward interiors. Website: franhickman.com

Kelly Hoppen Interiors. A global name in luxury interior design, Kelly Hoppen’s studio is known for its East-meets-West aesthetic — neutral palettes, geometric precision, and harmonious spatial composition. The studio has worked on celebrity homes, luxury yachts, hotels, and aircraft. Website: kellyhoppeninteriors.com

Katharine Pooley. Katharine Pooley’s Knightsbridge studio produces polished, sophisticated interiors for the most discerning clients. Her work spans Mayfair and Belgravia townhouses through to international luxury residences and is consistently among the most refined in the London luxury market. Website: katharinepooley.com

Lawson Robb. Lawson Robb bridges architecture and interior design with particular expertise in high-end residential and superyacht interiors. The studio’s technical capability — integrating complex AV, lighting, and environmental systems seamlessly into the interior — sets it apart from purely decorative practices. Website: lawsonrobb.com

Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. Founded in 2000, MBDS is known for bold, timeless, and immersive spaces across hospitality, retail, and residential. Notable projects include Annabel’s, Bacchanalia, and numerous hotel and restaurant interiors in London and New York. Website: mbds.com

Natalia Miyar. Cuban-American designer Natalia Miyar brings an international perspective to London’s design scene. Her interiors are glamorous, refined, and impeccably detailed, with a particular strength in luxury residential. Her studio has grown rapidly since its founding and is among the most watched in the current London market. Website: nataliamiyar.com

Nicky Haslam Design. Nicky Haslam is one of Britain’s most celebrated decorators, internationally renowned for original, glamorous, and authoritatively realised commissions spanning decades. His studio continues to work across residential, hospitality, and commercial projects. Website: nickyhaslamstudio.com

Nina Campbell. Nina Campbell established her practice and shop in 1974 and remains one of the most respected and influential interior designers in the world. Known for stylish, characterful interiors and for her own collections of fabrics and wallpapers, her studio continues to deliver residential and commercial commissions of the highest quality. Website: ninacampbell.com

Oliver Burns. Led by Sharon Lillywhite, Oliver Burns Studio has become an esteemed practice serving some of the world’s wealthiest families and luxury property developers. The studio’s focus on thoughtful luxury, artisanal sourcing, and narrative-led design has produced a client list spanning Belgravia townhouses to international country estates. Website: oliverburns.com

Retrouvius. Not a conventional design studio — Retrouvius specialises in architectural salvage and designing interiors around reclaimed materials. The results are entirely unique: spaces with genuine material history and character that cannot be replicated with new materials. A first choice for clients who want sustainability and authenticity above all. Website: retrouvius.com

Rose Uniacke. Working from her Pimlico Road showroom — part gallery, part antique shop, part design studio — Rose Uniacke creates interiors of extraordinary calm and refinement. Spare, elegant rooms furnished with carefully sourced antiques and her own furniture line. Among the most admired British designers of her generation. Website: roseuniacke.com

Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler. The most venerable name in English decoration, with a client list spanning generations of aristocratic and distinguished families. The current team maintains the firm’s tradition of scholarly, comfortable English country house style while remaining fully contemporary in its approach. Website: sibylcolefax.com

Staffan Tollgård Design Group. An award-winning architectural interior design practice offering a bold take on residential interiors. Staffan Tollgård’s style draws on Asian and Scandinavian functionalism combined with a strong appreciation of furniture as sculptural art. Website: tollgard.com

Studio Ashby. Sophie Ashby’s studio is one of the most consistently exciting in London — warm, layered interiors that mix mid-century pieces with contemporary art and artisan-made objects. Recent projects include The Whiteley development in Bayswater and a growing hospitality portfolio. Website: studioashby.com

Studio Hessian. Scarlett Hessian trained as an architect and brings a rigorous spatial intelligence to residential and commercial interiors. The studio has a significant international presence across London, Stockholm, and the west coast of the United States. Website: studiohessian.com

Taylor Howes. Taylor Howes Designs operates across prime central London and international markets, delivering sophisticated, elegantly layered interiors for high-net-worth residential clients with an established presence in Mayfair, Knightsbridge, and Chelsea. Website: taylorhowes.co.uk

National Coverage

Ben Pentreath. Based in Dorset with a London office, Ben Pentreath is among the most respected English decorators working today. His interiors draw on a deep knowledge of English architectural history and decorating tradition — layered, colourful, and deeply comfortable. His influence on a generation of younger British designers is significant. Website: benpentreath.com

Eadie and Crole. Founded in 2019 by Sophie Eade and Fi Crole, Eadie and Crole operates from Hampshire with a portfolio spanning London townhouses and country house projects across the south of England. Known for elegant, understated interiors that pair subtle hues and natural textures with antiques and contemporary art. Website: eadieandcrole.com

Emily Smoor Interiors. Based in Edinburgh, Emily Smoor’s practice began as an upholstery studio and evolved into full residential and commercial interior design. Her interiors are eclectic, texture-rich, and characterised by a talent for sourcing and combining pieces from different eras and places. Website: fantoush.com

Henry Prideaux Interior Design. Henry Prideaux offers sophisticated, practical schemes notable for unexpected and extraordinary moments. Based from a showroom-studio in Twickenham with a portfolio of residential projects across London and the home counties. Website: henryprideaux.com

Max Rollitt. Max Rollitt is an interior designer, furniture-maker, and antiques dealer working from his Hampshire showroom at Yavington Barn. His interiors are distinctive for their layers of colour, texture, and history — richly composed rooms drawing on antiques, bespoke furniture, and a sophisticated understanding of English decoration. Website: maxrollitt.com

Rita Konig. British-born Rita Konig is a sought-after talent on both sides of the Atlantic, known for her acute understanding of comfortable, personal, and quietly stylish interiors. Her recent collections with Schumacher have further established her international profile. Website: ritakonig.com

SHH Architecture and Interiors. SHH is a London-headquartered practice with a national reach, known for bold palettes, architectural confidence, and exacting detail across residential, hospitality, and commercial projects. Listed in Country and Town House’s 50 Best Interior Designers in the UK in 2025 and 2026. Website: shh.co.uk

Sims Hilditch. Sims Hilditch operates from the Cotswolds and London, specialising in English country houses and town houses. The studio is known for warm, layered interiors that combine strong architectural understanding with a fine eye for antiques, textiles, and colour. Website: simshilditch.com

This list is updated periodically. If you are an interior designer or studio and would like to be considered for inclusion in a future edition, contact us via kothea.com/contact.

Kothea supplies trade fabric to interior designers and architects.

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Who is the best interior designer in London?

London
London (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

I was wondering just “Who is the best interior designer in London?”. I recently wrote about who was the best interior designer in the world and got some rather unexpected results.

You could, and of course, probably did, do that same Google search to find London’s “best interior designer”, just like you’ve probably also googled your own name at some point.

And yet here you are.

Maybe you are one of those top interior designers wondering why your name didn’t appear on Google’s first page like Blanchard, Helen Green, Tollgard and Robin Moore Ede did?

Is it really important? For example, I’m writing this in 2013 and Victoria and David Beckham have just, apparently, commissioned Kelly Hoppen to do their London pad. Do you think they did that Google search? Probably not, in fact certainly not, as I am sure they were influenced by many other factors. So even if you target ‘rich people’ then you might argue that your target market will never make that search.

Maybe.

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I bet some of them do though. I bet some of those responsible for recent influxes of property investment in recent years do as they are based out of London. Perhaps they did have one or two recommendations but perhaps they also wanted a few new faces to present fresh ideas. & you weren’t on that list!

So how do you get on that list? Well, this blog page probably did get on or near the top of that list. So you might wonder why? Well if you look at the first paragraph you will see that I use ‘who is the best interior designer in London’ near the start of my article (google likes that) Oooh and look I’ve just included it again in the previous sentence. Google likes that too. But I will stop putting it in as if you do it too many times Google does NOT like that. & now take a look at the title, the name of the page and the excerpt…do you see a pattern emerging? 🙂

So the lesson is that you actually have to put the words into your website that people might type (keywords). That’s an art in itself. Covered elsewhere on this blog. Of course, now you know the trick you will all do it and I will get bumped further and further down the listing…giving me a reason/excuse for not being on the first page when you finally get around to reading this!

Then, of course, you actually have to have a good website and I ‘m sure you’ll agree that those companies that come up do have amazing looking websites. We deal with some of them and they certainly ARE at least amongst the very best designers in Europe, let alone London. And yet if you have the time to check their technical google ranking or ‘pagerank’ (I’ve done it for you!) you will find that most are 3 or 4; which is not so great. Certainly no higher than this blog. So you DON’T have to have a really high pageranking to get on that first page. You have to have the right content (as well as an OK pagerank).

Now here’s how you can cheat. Search instead for a generic “interior designer in London“. Different results. And you will see that maybe your adwords advert for those keywords appears on the right-hand side (you don’t use adwords? why not?). You will maybe also see that you need to have a google business/places listing to get put there as well a perhaps a listing in Yell.

So you can cheat by paying for a position on the ads on the right-hand side. It might cost you a bit though. And if you get a lot of ad clicks then google will promote you to the ads at the top of the search (because your ad generates more revenue for them). And you will see that those ads at the top don’t always look like ads and then kind of blend into the normal search results. And people kind of think that they are the first results of the search…and click them. Good clicks if you can get them maybe?

Maybe a listing in Yell is a good idea and getting a Google Places/Business listing IS DEFINITELY a good idea.

So who is the Best Interior Designer in London? Well Google’s first page for that search shows designfinder.co.uk and their listing says that www.forsterinc.co.uk are the best designers…so it must be true.

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An interview with KOTHEA’s founder

Notting Hill Carnival 2007 (London, UK) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

London based Lisa Parsons supplies fabrics to the hippest and most exclusive UK designers. The founder of KOTHEA, her Spring2011 collection-in-progress is about to take Velvet to a new level of opulence.

With no time to think I would paint my walls with … Kelly Hoppen’s “Perfect Taupe”. Her colours are fantastic and, in this case, it does what it says on the tin.

My favourite piece of furniture is … an old chair I picked up in a local junk shop and I had it recovered in one of my fabrics; LeapFrog.

The car’s almost full in that small space I would pack … The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, I’ve just started it and a spot of holiday reading beckons.

Guests to my house are intrigued by … this bizarre surveying tool I have in the corner of my lounge. It’s a measuring stick used with a theodolite and it adds a bit of height and interest to a corner of my room. It also detracts from a piece of my husband’s artwork which, although good, I have to compromise on putting on show from time-to-time.

I am … passionate about my fabrics and design; I am always inspired by many of today’s amazing yacht interiors, Terence Disdale is fantastic.  I would love to be in a position to commission him.

The hardest thing about work is … keeping my beautiful fabrics at home clean whilst having three children and their 30 sticky fingers. Gulp.

In my spare time … I just said I have had a third child; what spare time! I do love yoga though, with headstands being my forte. I have also designed and made many pieces of jewellery. Chris Farrow made this one up to my design, it has 3 rotating rings with a semi-precious stone on which rotate around a larger holding ring also with a set stone.

The trendiest colour is … hmm, trendy. Difficult one, KOTHEA operates at the top end of the market and I would have to say that the desirable colours there have varied little over the last ten to 15 years. Lower down the market it is different.

My favourite designers are … well I’ve mentioned a few already. I would certainly look at Gotham (Notting Hill) for furniture. John Hutton did amazing chairs and I was privileged enough to sell a few when I worked at Donghia in the 90s. Nick & Christian the famous Candy brothers have done some amazing things just look at One Hyde Park.

The best technology is … I suppose I should say Apple but I love my Blackberry as it helps me stay in touch with everyone and everything.

The most iconic British designer is … without a doubt, Terence Conran. His massive influence has probably been understated.

A plug for your company?…We mostly deal with the very top interior designers; not all of them but many of them. That’s the market we are in and intend to stay in. We know it pretty well and we like to think our fabrics meet their needs. A case-in-point is our new velvet collection. Opulent Cashmere and Italian Silk velvet.

Most interesting use of your products? … Some of the yachts they are specified on are pretty interesting! We’ve supplied some pretty interesting pop stars and celebrities (if you are into that sort of thing). One interesting client came through a Mayfair yacht broker and temporarily wanted his ‘fishing boat’ fitted out wall-to-wall with faux leather. All I can say is that it must have been a pretty large fishing boat and certainly not what I had in mind when I think about fishing boats!

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Designers: What to blog about

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

OK so you’ve decided to raise your business profile by blogging at least weekly. It will boost your brand awareness in your customers’ eyes and also, eventually, help your position in the results of google searches.

Unfortunately after a few weeks you run out of things to write.

So…

DESIGNERS: “WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT?”

Let’s go.

1. Original content. Whatever it is it MUST be original. If you copy articles or republish them Google ‘knows’ that. It won’t help you one jot in your position in search results.  It might be of some benefit to your readership though but why not just post the link to the information preceded by your professional opinion about what is in the link and why is worth visiting? Add value, don’t plagiarise.

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2. Apple iPHONES? So many people blog about technology and how wonderful it is. Perhaps, I would suggest, many of those conversations don’t get far over the dinner table or at parties. Why? Mainly because they are of limited interest. And, let’s face it, those discussing technology just use the technology they don’t actually invent the darn thing! HOWEVER you design amazing interiors for houses. That’s interesting to many people, they live in them funnily enough, it is an area that is very interesting to many people. So talk about your job, its one of the few jobs that people envy and are interested in. Don’t be embarrassed!

3. So blog about your last job. More importantly make your last job into several blog posts. Focus on specific aspects of about 200-300 words for each post. Talk about; products, services your approach to the project, what your client thought, how good certain contractors were. Honestly you could go on for a few months based on one project alone (remember short posts with images ideally).

4. Talk about design in general. What’s good, what’s not. And I want to hear YOUR GENUINE opinion please, not a re-hashed version of something that someone told you was “cutting edge design”. True originality and creativity is rare -people with money want to buy that (oh yes, that’s right they are your potential customers).

5. Trends. At the turn of the year I found VERY few designers talking about trends for the year ahead. And many of them were just rehashing colour trends produced by paint maker Farrow and Ball (or whoever it was). YAWN. So who is one of the most sought after media-savvy interior designers in the UK…Kelly Hoppen. Look here, she gives her professional opinion on the year ahead and writes in an engaging way. Trends are one of the easiest things to write about and few of you (with notable exceptions)  did it. Great job Kelly!

6. PLEASE think about your readers. Do NOT write something that will be of interest to all your staff. Why? They are not your customers. Write about something that your customers might be interested in. So we, KOTHEA, sell great fabrics to interior designers but I don’t tend to talk about that. I talk in this blog about stuff that might help you make more money (eventually) by doing better business. Eventually KOTHEA will stick in your brain and you will buy some of our fabrics!

 

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