IDM 5 the Semi-final!

Three designers battle it out for a place in the final... all they have to do is create a show-stopping backstage dressing room for Wembley Arena!

What a brief, what a venue and what a perfect guest judge for this semi final, someone with real lived experience of many a dressing room — Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Certainly she had great insight into what makes the ideal space to both soothe pre-performance nerves and cheer post-performance success.

For that was the challenge of this episode. We can’t make it too easy can we, it’s the semi final!

So what do I mean… Well, it’s easy to imagine a ‘star' and a sort of glamorous pedestal to put them upon, but this is to forget the human being behind the public persona. The person before the make-up goes on, the game-face is engaged and the ego is pumped ready to do their thing. This is the person that first walks into a dressing room. This is client number one.

And then, post performance, what’s needed is a private place to let the proverbial hair down and indulge after the accomplishment of performance. A space to share with friends or family, to celebrate or wind down. This is the second client.

Of course there’s all the practical requirements too: space to change, an equally lovely bathroom, a make-up station, somewhere for the snacks and bubbly.

What made the stand-out space. Without giving too much away in case you’ve not caught up yet, the stand out space managed to marry the needs of both of the above mentioned ‘clients’. The room enabled privacy if required, and yet also had an acutely luxurious feel. The colours too ‘held’ you well, to borrow Sophie’s phrase. It was a space in which you could start by feeling safe, not exposed, and then move on to feeling comforted afterwards.

Plus, when design really starts to sing it’s because there is a marriage of the hard and the soft, the architectural and the decorative, the dark and the light. There is something unexpected, but also the reassurance of the necessary. It’s a delicate dance that rests not on the shoulders of any one particular style, that’s never the point, it’s the dance between the elements that makes the mood. If an element is missing, for example textural softness, you feel the lack no matter how accomplished the rest.

Interior Design Masters Special Subscription Offer!

Subscribe before the end of Season 5 (redeem by Sunday 5 May) and get instant access to all the behind the scenes pictures, my Wardrobe Notes, gossip about the guest judges, in addition to every other post for a full year! You’ll discover that I write about much more than just design…

PS For my fast-track, How to Become an Interior Designer ‘course’ see my notes on Season 4, back a year, right here on Substack (which will be behind the paywall unless you’re a subscriber). You can find quick links to every S4 episode via my website here.

Behind the scenes

I first ‘met’ Sophie when she invited me to be on her podcast, Spinning Plates, I think about two years ago. the premise of her show is the challenge of navigating parenting alongside a career. At the time she approached me, I was having a tricky personal moment with one of my own parents and didn't feel able to talk about it. But, because it was such a big thing, it would have felt extremely inauthentic to me if I’d joined her and simply not mentioned it. So after making and cancelling a few proposed dates, we eventually agreed to postpone with a vague sense of we’ll do it some time.

Interior Design Masters Episode 7 The Semi Final

Jump forward a year and we were in the throes of planning this series. When the production team announced that they’d bagged the possibility of dressing rooms at Wembley for a challenge, I knew just who to ask to join me as guest judge. It was so lovely to be able to get back in touch and say hey, I have a counter offer for you! Happily she said yes, and the rest you saw, or will see, on screen.

Here’s a few things I didn't know about Sophie before we met that I know she won’t mind me sharing… she’s tall (on location day I really regretted slobbing it in my trainers, I felt positively teeny, and I’m very not short)! She has a wicked laugh, which comes easily, and makes you laugh too. She re-introduced me to the word ‘handsome’ as an adjective for a space — isn’t it wonderful, a ‘handsome’ space is quite a particular space. I fully intend to steal this. Her home is an absolute cornucopia of glorious memorabilia that adorns every surface and tells many stories. It is absolutely wonderful. And she really does ask for gherkins backstage at her gigs.

PS I finally did the podcast, we had a wonderfully open conversation that roamed freely around many subjects, and you can listen in here.

Wardrobe Notes

On location: blue cashmere coat from The Fold London, worn with an ancient Philip Lim top and equally elderly S’Max Mara cropped trousers. Pearl drop earrings, I bought from The British Museum for just £50. They’re part of its in-house range, inspired by the museum’s collection. Or maybe Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring painting. Certainly that’s what inspired me to buy them.

In the studio: Dress by The Fold London (can you tell I’m loving their stuff!); black patent classic belt from YSL; black patent Mary Janes from Rupert Sanderson. Vintage gold and jet hoop earrings from a shop that no longer exists, sadly.