Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with the best of the interior design industry. This week's guest: Deirdre Dyson
Welcome to the House Guest podcast where C&TH Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration, the people behind the houses and hotels you see in glossy magazines like ours. Some of the names will be familiar, and others may be less so, but we’re sure you’ll recognise the hotels and restaurants they’ve designed. And if you’re in the middle of your own building project or restyle, we hope you’ll pick up some tips. Enjoy!
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House Guest: The C&TH Interiors Podcast
Episode 151: Deirdre Dyson
This week’s House Guest is rug designer Deirdre Dyson. First and foremost an artist, Deirdre nearly had her career stalled by a headmistress who told her: ‘You cant make a living out of art’. Hence she left school without the necessary qualifications and worked as a secretary while compiling a portfolio. She talked herself into a place at Byam Shaw fine art school by doing shorthand for the head in the afternoons. By the second year she had a scholarship and also met her designer husband, James. Tune in to hear more about how she enjoys the restriction rug design imposes on her art, spending lockdown on a boat in Guadaloupe and why Paris is a special place.
Previous House Guest Episodes:
Episode 150: Louise Bradley
Louise Bradley is one of the UK’s leading interior designers. Her name is synonymous in the industry with bespoke luxurious design, and she is known for creating classic, contemporary and luxurious spaces. She chats about how the design industry has changed over the decades and how she has adapted and grown her business. She’s recently completed a new book: Interior: Louise Bradley… tune in for more.
Episode 149: Toby Lorford
Toby Lorford, who is blowing the cobwebs off antique-buying. ‘Antiques bring history into an interior, softening it’, says Toby Lorford of Lorford’s Antiques and Lorfords Contemporary, who started his first antiques shop in Tetbury, Gloucs in 2003, with a view to creating a new breed of antiques shop and modernising the way antiques are sold. He now has two hangars full of traders and a company that offers a concierge service. Along the way he started his own furniture company, Lorfords Contemporary, thanks to chef Marco Pierre White (it’s a lovely story) and thinks that antique dealers should get together more to sing from the treetops about how it’s the ultimate in recycling. He has big plans for changing the way we shop…. tune in for more.
Episode 148: Sophie Garnier
Today’s House Guest is Sophie Garnier of Kalinko, a ethical homeware and interiors brand championed by Kit Kemp and many others who have been seduced by Burmese craft. After seeking adventure, Sophie planned a trip to Burma and on her return, urged her new husband to do the same. ‘We had only just married and it got tongues wagging that our relationship was already hitting the rocks, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth, I just wanted him to experience Burma and to fall in love, which is what happened to me,’ she explains. He did and came back announcing – somewhat to Sophie’s surprise – that he had found a job so the pair upped sticks and moved in May 2015. They were both captivated by local craft – rattan, woodwork and textiles, and launched Kalinko to connect the country’s artisans to a UK market. Their aim is to keep their industries alive, provide skilled work for talented people, and to fill homes around the world with objects that make a difference. ‘We don’t use middlemen,’ explains Sophie,’ so all purchase costs go straight to the people that make each piece’. Currently in the UK due to the military coup, and pandemic, Sophie emphasises that Burma is very much their home for them and their two children. Tune in for a fascinating dip into another world.
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