Tricia Guild is the founder of Designers Guild, best known for its range of stylish and colourful fabrics. The collections are available in the GCC exclusively through Maison D'Art in Dubai
Maybe six. I grew up in London and have always lived there. I had short spells in Paris, but otherwise it's London.
I have lived in my Notting Hill home for 10 years. It's a good space and the light is fantastic. In this part of London, there are lovely garden squares behind the houses and they're sort of private. Our house has a small garden that leads onto a larger communal garden. Given the fact that this was a Victorian house, there were some good, clean and clear spaces. And I haven't changed that at all.
The actual structure is quite minimal but I've always liked to use a very eclectic mixture. So my home is contemporary but also decorative and maybe those two things are conflicting, but in a way I like that conflict. Using pattern in a very contemporary atmosphere doesn't frighten me. It's just what I've always liked to do. Maybe the ingredients change but the thought behind them doesn't; I like that freedom and mixture. It might be retro glass or a piece of Arne Jacobsen or an antique Rococo mirror. But I like that kind of dialogue.
I have different spaces that I love for different moods and climates, although the whole house was conceived at one time. So it's not just one thing. My studio is at home - sort of an open space where I have my collection of ceramics and books. Then, of course, who gets away from the kitchen? It's always where people seem to gather.
It's more rustic; it has a softness about it. I suppose it's a place where I feel that freedom of responsibility in a way, which is lovely. It's an escape - but having said that, it's also hard work. It's more hands-on there somehow. The garden always needs tending, which I love, and I like to entertain there. I'm always going to food markets and I probably cook more there than I do in London actually.
I loved the wonderful, protected feeling I had at my grandparents'. I suppose my first memories of being involved in a garden were really with my maternal grandfather. Although I was really quite small, that left a great impression on me. I had a much more contemporary experience in my parents' home in London. It was more dynamic and of the moment. I'm sure that set me on a course of being very interested in design. All the houses I've lived in have been very special to me. The gardens are almost hardest to leave because, somehow, when you've planted trees and they're coming into their prime and you have to leave - it's heartbreaking. The kitchen in a Chelsea house in which I used to live - where we collected all of these fantastic tiles, had retro linoleum flooring and everything was irreplaceable but had to be left in that way - that was also heartbreaking. But then one moves on.
Both. I absolutely love collecting and I don't like feeling over-cluttered so I collect things, and then I look at them and I put them away, and bring them out. When I'm travelling I always bring something back and I do travel a lot. You know what I do like collecting? Textiles, but I don't have to have them all out all the time.
A home for me is a starting point to everything. It's where you rest, where you laugh, where you have discussion, where you are a hostess, where you love, and at the same time, it's a kind of a haven. It's everything to me, that space, and I want that feeling when I walk into my house.
Time to be in it.
