Does Design Come From The Core Within?
Nat explores her relationship with design, from childhood memories to her current family home. Here she gives you insight into how it’s shaped the creative she is today and the lessons she's learnt along the way.
I'm a design fanatic. I live and breathe creative from the minute I wake up until the moment I go to bed. From branding to packaging, websites to interiors, my being is deeply rooted in design. So to look at where I am today, the career that I've mapped out over the years and how that's translated into this very interiors business; you could say it was always been in the making.
Let me start at the beginning. Before I was born my Dad was a photographer in Florence. He switched careers in my younger years to become a chef, of which he still is to this day. My Nana was a dress maker and from this my Mum inherited her creative flair. In her younger years she had a fashion design business in Camden Market and in more recent times she created sweet treats for our family business Modern Persian Kitchen. My parents then went on to design and create a complex of luxury apartments in Turkey. Although he dipped his toes into other industries, my brother is now a designer… so I suppose you could say it's been built into our genes.
Looking back at my teens, I fondly remember Mum's passion for decorating, back in the day when magazine clippings formed real life Pinterest boards, she would stick up ripped out editorial spreads on the walls and change the style of rooms in our family home monthly. This clearly had an impact on me, on regular occasion I found myself getting on the bus and travelling to town to buy paint in a bid to decorate my room every week. I would change the room layout monthly, eager to get it just right. As I grew slightly older this expanded into different rooms in the house, painting walls, styling and switching around the furniture layout. Mum would often return home from work to discover I'd taken on that paint job she hadn't had time to finish or I'd redecorated a space in the house to give it a fresh look and feel.
I was lucky to have creative freedom in my own space, the ability to explore and create from an early age, pushing the boundaries in a hopeful bid to create something beautiful.
Since moving out of the family home at 19 to start uni I have tried to make my space my own, show my personality and make a mark on my surroundings. Becoming a home owner in my very own flat in Putney is where I first really had the ability to express myself in my surroundings.
Meeting my husband Tom we took on our first Victorian home in Wimbledon and transformed this over time. Initially I was going through my ‘Monochrome and Copper’ phase, insisting on everything strictly following this palette (which included our wedding haha!).
On designing our extension and as we grew into our home, our style as a couple (and then a family of 4) changed, hence branching out into colour, a mix of texture, expressive artwork and styling.
Has my style evolved over the years? Almost certainly. However as I've grown up, my understanding of interiors have developed. I've grasped a deeper understanding of colour, layout, styling and ultilising spaces for their purposes both in a practical sense and in look and feel. I've also learnt to adjust with our family, move through the times and prioritise, but not compromise.
As a design Mum I’m keen to inspire my girls to be creative (Lily, 5 and Rosa, 2) and allow them to explore, giving them the freedom I was so lucky to have had as a child. As it turns out, Lily has quite the eye for interiors and talent for DIY… watch this space!
Written by - Natalie Jahangiry