Design Life: Sprinkle a little gold dust
I moved to Ireland from the UK where I was working as a TV director. I was looking for a new creative challenge and got talking to Sarah who I’d known from London. She had been working as an interior designer there and had just moved back. I was renovating our house in Portobello at the time and found I was going abroad for a lot of the more unusual items I liked.
We decided to open Dust as a way of bringing the kind of interiors pieces we loved to Ireland. I retrained as an interior designer and we haven’t looked back.
We chose the name Dust and branded it gold as we felt we were bringing in things to Ireland that were like gold dust. We had our first pop-up shop in the basement of my house in October 2014, with the store and our design studio launching in March 2015.
One of the things I love about Dust is that I’m doing different things every day. I could have a day of meetings and consultations or be knuckling down to create the design for a project. I could also be meeting potential suppliers for the shop or on-site seeing how a project is progressing.
We just finished up a house in Monkstown which was so enjoyable to work on. It was a full-scale renovation and extension — we were involved in every element of the design for the house from the ground up. It was a glamorous but fun aesthetic with the homeowners wanting to explore interesting lighting, fab wallpapers and pattern mixing.
There are also three children’s spaces which we had loads of fun designing. We love creating children’s spaces as they’re rooms in which homeowners are happy to really explore something different and unique.
We tailor our design work to our clients’ likes and needs, but my personal design style would be maximalist. I feel like life is for living and maximalism brings that principle into decoration. It’s about embracing life in all its technicolour and pattern.
I’m constantly inspired by new things. I’m absolutely loving the Memphis Group and the design that is coming out of Spain. The way the Memphis Group used colour blocking is so inspirational. Some of the furniture that came out of that period is so unique and feels ground-breaking even when you look at it today. I’m also a little obsessed with the work of Patricia Bustos and Nuria Alia — their aesthetics are saturated with ice cream colours and their designs are really brave.
The trend towards maximalism that is happening right now is obviously making me very happy. It’s really nice to see people embracing colour and pattern again after such a prolonged pared back, Scandi period.
I have the beautiful, old oak dining table from my parents’ house in England. I love having this piece of my childhood with me that I’m now using with my own family over here.
Kelly Wearstler and India Mahdavi are my two design heroes. They are both designers who take risks and create completely wow interiors. Kelly Wearstler’s signature would be pattern while India Mahdavi’s style would focus more on the use of colour, so I like them for different and similar things.
I would absolutely love to design a boutique hotel, that would be our dream project.
I’m always harping on about contrast. I think it’s the cornerstone of creating the elusive wow factor in your home. Contrasting colours, styles, patterns — whatever you choose, it’s the thing that creates impact and makes people stop and stare when they enter a room.
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