“Every space needs to be brought to life.” Interior designer Alice Crawley’s decorating motto is emblazoned upon her website, but it almost needn’t be. Take a glance at the schemes she’s devised for houses in both London and eastern Asia – where she lived for 14 years – and you’ll see it writ large in her patterns, prints and textures, her interest in artisan crafts and extraordinary one-offs.
Drawing on her background in fashion (Alice worked at Evisu in Hong Kong before founding her own brand, Wondaland), she has a particular fondness for fabrics. The defining flavour of her decorating is, however, its east-meets-west approach: think classic chintz upholstery on bamboo furniture, smart lacquered finishes, chinoiserie walls and carefully chosen antiques from around the world. And where better to see all this in action than in her own home in Notting Hill, where she, her husband and her three children live amid a flurry of swatches and sumptuous trims.
Alice, we learned when quizzing her on her Home Comforts, is a ceaseless decorator. When she’s not coming up with clever ideas for a new kitchen window seat, she’s thinking about lampshades for an upstairs bedroom. No wonder she hasn’t found the time to start planting her herb garden yet….
