Runway realness: How fashion design is infiltrating the home

It seems the sartorial eye finds a comfortable home in fashion and interior design alike, dressing and undressing, styling and refining rooms and wardrobes with ease. This year, fashion designers, both current and former, have been turning their hands to home design with the couture aplomb one might expect, creating homeware collections to bring a fashion-forward approach to interiors.

One such example is the capsule collection of homeware from interior designer Matthew Williamson in collaboration with John Lewis, new for SS22. Cushions, bedding, throws, lamps, mirrors and towels comprise the line, bursting at the seams with leopard, ikat and peacock prints that have long been markers of the Matthew Williamson brand ever since his fashion days.

His ways with colour and pattern were first demonstrated on global runways and are now available in smaller editions to take home and enjoy on your sofa or your bedside table, elevating the home in much the same way as his dresses brightened our wardrobes.

Henry Holland’s new ceramics collection for Liberty is also a nod to his fashion background with its zeitgeist-y, warped checkerboard patterns in blues, greens and chocolate browns. The designer-come-ceramicist has been creating garments and pieces for the home for the last 15 years, most notably with his label House Of Holland and recently launched Henry Holland Studio.

In 2021, Henry started taking ceramics lessons, falling in love with the soothing making process and embracing the step away from fashion and its fast-paced allure.

Another tableware collection from the hands of a fashion designer is the product of a collaboration between Alessandra Facchinetti and Editions Milano, the “Made in Italy” brand known for celebrating the best of the country’s historic culture of craft.

Facchinetti has helmed design departments at Gucci, Valentino, Miu Miu and Tod’s and has recently expanded her practice to the theatre, where she has designed costumes for the St Gallen Opera Theatre in Switzerland. With Editions Milano, she has created an elevated breakfast set, Circle, inspired by the beauty of geometry, disrupting the way we interact with everyday objects and encouraging customers to savour everyday rituals.

Next up is a fabric collection from the design behind the Instagram-famous Studio Chair. This month, Buchanan Studio is debuting its first-ever fabric collection, which is inspired by creative director Angus Buchanan’s background in fashion. A tangle of checkerboards, stripes, florals and velvets, the collection is good enough to wear or to reupholster your favourite armchair.

Finally, a rug collection from Nordic Knots and US fashion and lifestyle company Arje explores the concept of the home as a place of belonging. The designs, Face and Family, bring together the warmth of the Mediterranean aesthetic as perfected by Arje’s founders, Bessie Afnaim Corral and Oliver Corral, who hail from the UK and Spain respectively, and the spare minimalism of Nordic style, as interpreted by Fabian Berglund and Liza Laserow from Nordic Knots.