House style: Suzy Hoodless

Suzy Hoodless has become a regular on House & Garden’s list of the top 100 interior designers since establishing her studio in London in 2000. She is known for mixing colour and texture, modern and vintage to create characterful interiors that reflect their owners’ personalities and give the feeling of having evolved over time. Hoodless has also designed landmark public spaces and homewares for brands including The Rug Company and Osborne & Little. She was part of the founding team of Wallpaper* magazine, which launched in 1996.

Where do you live?
I live in Ladbroke Grove, west London, in a stucco-fronted Victorian house with amazing proportions. We moved in with one tiny baby and now have three children. As with many of my projects, we ended up stripping out a lot of MDF to get back to the bones of the building, so that architecturally it felt right.

Do you have a signature design style?
We always start with research: what would the original interior architecture have been like? That creates a strong structure within which to rework the design. I’m also inspired by the client and their environment. So our style is always a mix – it just depends on the starting ingredients as to what that mix is. Many clients come to us understanding design, but they don’t necessarily know how to put it together. The process can be overwhelming. When we’ve finished, what I hope they’ll say is, “That’s exactly what I wanted – I just didn’t know I wanted it.”

What’s your design philosophy?
I know we’ve done a good job when I see a project and think, “I’d like to live here myself.” I have to love everything, but so does the client. Ultimately, it’s their home when we walk away.

Is there any art or furniture on your personal hit list?
I bought some Antony Gormley pieces for a client – I’d love to own some of his work, as well as Grayson Perry’s ceramics. I have quite contemporary tastes in art, and I love a wall that has a mix of oils, drawings, charcoal and sketches.

Do you have any original art or iconic furniture in your home?
I have an amazing Gerald Laing print of Brigitte Bardot. I saw it in a flat I tried to buy many years ago and fell in love with it. I never managed to buy the flat, but I did buy the print. I also have a beautiful Bridget Riley, one of her geometric, bold colour pieces. I had a little flurry several years ago – I bought a Julian Opie and a Tracey Emin, too. A lot of my furniture is Scandinavian and I have pieces by Carl Hansen, Fritz Hansen and Hans Wegner.

Any suppliers you can recommend?
I buy from Another Country in Marylebone – I love their furniture. And I’ve worked with twentytwentyone for 30 years. I also like going to those fairs where you turn up at 6.30 in the morning with a torch and find something wonderful in the back of a van. For fabrics, we could just use Pierre Frey and nothing else – it always has what we want. We often work with Christopher Farr and de Le Cuona, too.

Is there a dream project you’d love to take on?
I always say that my dream project is the next one: what you want is a client who gets what you do, with a budget that works to their vision.

What’s the strangest request a client has made?
There was one client I’d worked with for years, on houses in London, Barbados and Scotland. The next project stalled and we didn’t know quite how to move it on, so she said, “I’m going to give you a budget, but I don’t want to hear from you – I just want you to do it. The only thing I want is a gong, to call people for supper.” She’s extremely intelligent and for her this was a risk worth taking.

Any particular figures who have influenced you, design-wise?
My three former employers. First, Sue Crewe, who edited House & Garden. Second, the designer Tricia Guild. And third, Tyler Brûlé. I worked for him for five years at Wallpaper* magazine at a formative stage in my career, where I got to know suppliers, designers and manufacturers. Tyler has a very strong aesthetic.

And finally, what’s the one object you would save from a fire?
My Brigitte Bardot print – I love everything about it. It’s monochrome, with this geometric coral-pink circle over the top of her head. It sums up everything I love: it’s graphic, it’s beautiful, it has longevity. I never get bored of looking at it.

suzyhoodless.com