IDM 5 Episode Four
Off to Wales we went, where the designers worked in pairs to overhaul three different restaurants. Or did they?
In this challenge the designers get to present their ideas directly to the clients. My advice to them was to invite the café owners to paint a broad picture of how they wanted their space to feel and function, and try not to get too bogged down in details.
The designers job is to give them what they don’t know they needed, or wanted. Which is of course easy to say, harder to do. It’s not about bulldozing the client into submission, but delivering on the requirements, while exceeding expectations for how it looks. Guest judge Nisha Katona, founder and CEO of the Mowgli Street Food chain, was also on hand to set me straight about anything very sector specific for a successful eaterie.
Working in pairs at this stage is also intense. Each designer has now revealed their clear strengths and weaknesses, so they need to play this to their advantage. How to bring their skills and talents together without compromise or fisty cuffs at dawn!
Key Challenge points: the clients variously asked for industrial chic, a home-from-home, and said they liked both Scandinavian and Australian interiors. What’s does this all mean? Our designers need to ask a lot of questions to unravel the feel the café owners are really after, and not just go along with their own stories based on what they think a description means.
It’s all about, as was ever the case, excellent communication, alongside owning, and having the humility to learn from, your mistakes. Because, no matter how sharp the talent, this is the only way to improve. Quite aside from which, these designers are at the very beginning of their interior design journey, so errors are par for the course.
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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.
IDM Alumni
Season 3 saw Banjo Beale, a cheesemaker living on the Isle of Mull, amble nonchalantly into our studio. And what a blast of wonder he was! I think I’ve rarely met someone who designed so instinctively, was so eager to learn, yet also such a gentle pleasure to be around. He was also completely authentic and genuine to his core, again, not something you come across every day.
Since he won the show, he’s been the justly deserved star of his own spin-off TV show Designing the Hebrides (BAFTA-award-winning no less and already commissioned for a second series), he’s written a beautiful book — Wild Ilse Style — released in October 2023, which “champions design that doesn't cost the earth and celebrates style from the British Isles to the Antipodes.”
To create his Interior Design Masters prize winning space, Winnow at Watergate Bay in Cornwall, Banjo employed to great effect his now trademark mix of antique, vintage and upcycled furniture alongside recycled and natural fabrics. The Beach Retreats property was transformed into a light-filled, warm and inviting coastal haven with sustainability at its core, tells a story of “the wild Atlantic ocean, surrounding rugged cliffs and the colourful characters that inhabit it”.
Behind the Scenes
I think I’m right in saying that Nisha Katona has joined me as a guest judge for restaurants in every season so far. I think we look like we could be siblings, and we
definitely had more of a giggle this time on a day when the Welsh weather refused to relent and rain threatened frizz all day. She also has the most-stylish trainers ever.
But did you know, before she became a restaurateur, she was a child protection barrister for 20 years! Quite a pivot. Now MBE no less, and author of six cookbooks: Pimp My Rice; The Spice Tree; The Mowgli Street Food: Authentic Indian Street Food; The 30-Minute Mowgli; Meat Free Mowgli and Bold.
Her brain seems to whirr at 100mph, she’s juggling being a mum, wife and business leader, all while turning on the expertise for us (literally, at one point there was some sort of home emergency involving the family dog and she was On It, back of the taxi calling vets, placating children, sorting childcare) and still smiling. I’d have dissolved.
But hey, I see this often in female leaders. They just deal. No flapping. Just solutions, and move on. Men too for sure, but somehow I feel women seem to pull it off with more compassion. They care at the same time as making things happen. Of course these are sweeping statements but they apply to Nisha.
PS the food in her restaurants is amazing! I had lunch with a group of friends in the newly opened Brighton branch shortly after we’d filmed. Delicious.
Wardrobe Notes
On location: Green raincoat from Dressmith in Brighton, a brilliant teeny boutique, the passion project of Jane de Lacey. Navy jacket and tee-shirt from there too. Jeans: sustainable cotton jeans from Albaray as previously.
In the studio: Navy jumpsuit by Stella McCartney. Or possibly The Fold London! I can’t remember. I really should take notes as we go. Apols. Coat/jacket: Oscar del la Renta from Yoox (pretty sure I wore this for the opener of Season 3?!). Gold shoes: Rupert Sanderson. I do love a gold shoe, and have quite a few!
