The luxury interior design directory: who to go to for bespoke decor in 2023

Each home is as individual as its owner, and nothing elevates an interior as much as tailored designs in custom colours and patterns, whether that means joinery that precisely suits the alcove by the chimneypiece or a shade of paint that brings the living room to life in the evening light. Apart from the pleasure of having something beautiful to look at every day, and pass down the generations, when you buy bespoke there is the enjoyment of sharing a creative journey with a skilled maker.

Online resources to start with are the Crafts Council directory (craftscouncil.org.uk/directory) and the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) members list (qest.org.uk/directory). The latter fosters new talent from embroiderers to silversmiths and offers training in traditional craft skills. Best for more directional contemporary design is Cockpit, which has a roster of outstanding emerging and established London makers based at its Deptford and Bloomsbury studios (cockpitstudios.org). A useful book on the subject is Craft Britain: Why Making Matters by David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, and Helen Chislett (OH Editions), which celebrates British artisans, from weavers to paper marblers and makers of traditional rush seating.

David Harber — outdoor sculptureDoes your parterre need an armillary sphere? Is the deer park lacking a sculpture? David Harber is the specialist who can help. He began as a sundial designer before branching into sculpture and water features, and uses a rich palette of materials, from pebbles picked from riverbeds in China to 24-carat gold, iron, bronze, slate and steel. Harber has supplied Oxford colleges and Middle Eastern palaces with spectacular outdoor artworks, as well as celebrity clients including Dame Judi Dench and Jeremy Irons. Bespoke projects cost from £10,000 to £100,000, depending on the scale, materials and location. Among his most spectacular recent commissions is Ortus, a sculpture for a private island off the south coast of England, a 3.25m circle of verdigris copper and marine-grade stainless steel that frames the rising sun each morning (about £100,000 for similar pieces, davidharber.co.uk). Harber, who is currently celebrating three decades of his craft, recently discovered that he has an Elizabethan astronomer and sundial-maker ancestor, John Blagrave. The designer’s career making celestial spheres must have been written in the stars.

Soane Britain — rattanWhen the hotelier Sam de Teran wanted the finest contemporary rattan furniture to furnish her hotel, Cobblers Cove in Barbados, she went to Soane Britain and placed an order for Scallop hanging lights, Carousel chairs, a Ripple ottoman, bookcases and day beds. Soane’s co-founder Lulu Lytle, renowned for her support of UK crafts, was responsible for rescuing the last British rattan workshop from closing down in 2010, buying up the machinery and employing the skilled artisans to create her own sophisticated designs. Each piece is put together using several traditional skills. The Carousel chair, for instance, starts with a steam-bent cane frame that the maker then wraps, adding decorative rattan detail around the back. Lytle is tight-lipped about celebrity fans (the most recent becoming uncomfortably notorious for the controversial redecoration of Downing Street using Soane wallpaper), but is proud to remember how much King Charles III enjoyed his visit to the rattan workshop in 2020 when he tried his hand at weaving. Carousel Chairs, as seen at Cobblers Cove, £3,100, soane.co.uk

Splinterworks — pool slidesSplinterworks is a British design studio that supplies custom pool slides worldwide — if your garden is too tricky for a crane to access, it can deliver your giant pool accessory by helicopter. The co-founders Miles Hartwell and Matt Withington specialise in beautiful polished stainless-steel chutes, starting at £55,000, with water-cooling systems in the slides and metal handrails. Their clients are often art collectors — one has Slim Aarons photographs of pool parties on his walls and a Splinterworks slide sculpture by the pool. Top-of-the-range options include the Waha, inspired by a barrel wave, from £86,000. The newest arrival, splashing down in time for the summer, is a slot-together model called Downtime that comes in any colour of the rainbow (£35,000 including UK delivery). splinterworks.com

Allyson McDermott — wallcoveringsIn need of opulent custom wallcoverings for your historic house? There’s only one person to turn to: Allyson McDermott. The former head of Sotheby’s Conservation Studio, McDermott is a conservator, historian, interior designer and artist/maker, who has worked on the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and the Palace of Westminster, as well as royal palaces and private homes across the globe. Her design genius lies in combining archive patterns with contemporary colourways, reimagining iconic prints for 21st-century interiors, and the mastery of luxurious finishes such as gilding or flocking. Custom wallcoverings start at £650 per sq m, allysonmcdermott.com

Callum Partridge — metalA rising star of metalwork, Callum Partridge set up his workshop in Stroud in 2020 to create beautiful functional objects using centuries-old skills, for instance hand-raising silver, where a hollow form is made from a sheet of metal with hammers. His repertoire includes candlesticks (from £1,800), beakers, trays and boxes in silver, brass, nickel, bronze and titanium, a series of steel lamps and a new sidetable made from steel and brass (£6,000), created for Charles Burnand Gallery. Decorative patination is Partridge’s signature technique: “I clean the metal and then apply heat, which with steel creates a hard layer on the top in a black or rich blue colour. No chemicals are involved. Getting the best out of the material is the goal, allowing the natural colour of the metal to come through. My intention with material is to use it like a painter uses a palette.” charlesburnand.com

Felicity Irons — weavingThe rush weaver behind Rush Matters, Felicity Irons, spends summer punting on the Great Ouse in Bedfordshire, harvesting English freshwater bulrush with a scythe. When she has dried the rushes in the barn next to her workshop she makes carpets, rugs and runners to measure. Irons is one of the last rush weavers in the country, and clients are often owners of historic houses: she has worked for Jasper Conran, made matting for the Dorset home of Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, and created wall hangings for Château d’Azay-le-Rideau, Indre-et-Loire. The material is also popular with fans of 21st-century design such as the owner of a remarkable contemporary house designed by Daniel Libeskind in Connecticut. Showcased at events such as Collect and in galleries including Sarah Myerscough, Irons’s beautiful handwoven mats and baskets are somewhere between practical household accessories and craft exhibits. Rush floor matting, also called apple matting, which is plaited by hand into lengths then sewn together with jute twine, starts at £200 per sq m. rushmatters.co.uk

Beardmore — ironmongeryIf you have visited Richard Caring’s latest restaurant, Bacchanalia in Mayfair, travelled on the Orient Express or spent time in the powder rooms in Annabel’s club, you may be familiar with this British maker’s bespoke handles. Beardmore’s custom architectural ironmongery — knobs and handles created using the lost wax technique — are all made in its foundry on the Sussex coast. Forms are translated into reality by Mark Stickells, Beardmore’s pattern maker. Stickells formerly worked as a modelmaker in the jewellery industry, and the only limit to his design is the client’s imagination. He produces a set of drawings to give a clear idea of what the final product will look like. Once these are approved he makes a 3D master pattern from which a silicon mould is made and filled with wax, then the molten metal is poured in, following a method that has barely changed since the Bronze Age. Examples of Stickells’s virtuoso work in private homes include a carp door knocker, commissioned by a client who caught a huge fish on a trip to Thailand and wanted a daily reminder of his triumph, and door furniture ordered by a man who so adored the handles on his American 1940s classic car that he put replicas inside his home. Bespoke models start at about £2,000, beardmore.co.uk

Natasha Hulse — fabricsThe bespoke fabric artist Natasha Hulse specialises in embroidered appliqué artworks, with motifs drawn from the natural world. Headboards, screens and lampshades are usually made for interior designers including Alexandra Tolstoy and Kit Kemp, who commissioned Hulse to design a Tree of Life headboard for a bedroom in one of the Firmdale Hotels. She has also designed extravagant floral headrests for Savoir beds. Her latest custom headboards, created in collaboration with Lorfords Contemporary, make use of salvaged fabric, often heirloom pieces that have been in a family for generations and may have sun or moth damage, which the designer reworks to create treasured pieces of textile art. Lorfords Contemporary x Natasha Hulse headboards, £9,600, natashahulse.com, lorfords.com

Silverlining — furnitureSilverlining is renowned for creating design-art furniture showcasing rare veneers, precious metals and fine hides, mixing traditional maker’s skills with contemporary practices to produce what the founder Mark Boddington calls “21st-century craftsmanship”. Among the most remarkable materials used are 3,000–year–old bog oak and leather salvaged from a ship that sank in 1786. The workshop is commissioned to create work for palaces, private jets and superyachts, and famous fans include Madonna, Tom Ford, Kevin Costner and the late David Bowie. A standout creation is the Urushi breakfast table (from £100,000), topped with 12 layers of red urushi lacquer, applied over six months. The 12,000-year-old technique involves gathering sap from the urushi tree, which can be harvested only by specialists, as in its raw form it is poisonous to the touch. silverliningfurniture.com

Hugh and Howard Miller — custom kitchensThe brothers Hugh, a master woodworker, and Howard, an architect and landscape designer, create custom kitchens in crafted wood (from £35,000). Each interior is designed from scratch and made with innovative details and unusual materials that reflect the tastes and personality of the client. A sense of experimentation and fun runs through the duo’s projects: a recently completed mid-century-inspired kitchen featured a record player set into the worktop. They produce suites of furniture to commission — including a collection of 30 items to furnish a private yacht — as well as one-off pieces, such as a mammoth oak dining table extending to 3.7m in length, using a unique sliding mechanism designed in-house by the brothers (similar items from £35,000). Among their favourite custom creations was a Peter Pan-themed games table, designed in collaboration with Studio Ashby, for the house formerly owned by JM Barrie, featuring characters from the story inlaid into the sides of each drawer. hmillerbros.co.uk

Cassandra Ellis — paintCassandra Ellis has designed one of the most sublime paint cards in the business. Fans of her serene palette can choose from one of 90 off-the-peg colours or go bespoke. Her custom colour service is not for doing up the new nursery or matching the curtains — it’s for private clients, interior designers and galleries who want their colour palette to tell a story. “I love it when people come to me with a whole story and we can combine our creativity,” she says. “For example, if I was working on a house just off Clapham Common; the theme might be the painting of Clapham Common by Turner. Then I would devise colours that reflect the feeling of the artwork, the story of why he painted that. I would keep going into the Turner wing of Tate Britain and look at his sketchbooks.” This winter she is making a custom colour for Cox London’s takeover of a room in Somerset House for Collect 2023 and is working with the Whitechapel Gallery, putting together a palette for its February exhibition, Action/Gesture/ Paint. Custom service starts at £1,000, atelierellis.co.uk

Cressida Jamieson — embroidery“I really like being challenged with new fabrics and designs. I like to think that I can embroider onto almost anything,” says Cressida Jamieson, whose bespoke work, available from cressidajamieson.com, features botanical motifs, song lyrics, dates and monograms on items including first clothes for newborns, wedding dresses, curtains and quilts. “It is one of the things I love most about what I do — that every commission is different. I embroider onto fabrics from cotton to silk, wool to bouclé and Christmas velvets.” Cressida’s new made-to-order collaboration with East London Cloth allows buyers to add house numbers, names and significant dates to their café curtains, frilled pillowcases and table linen. Prices for Cressida’s embroidery start at £33 for her Family Linens napkins, eastlondoncloth.co.uk.

Rupert Bevan — mirrored furniture and wallpaperA master of the decorative mirror, Rupert Bevan creates bespoke furniture and looking glasses, made to order in his Shropshire workshops. Custom feature walls and pieces of furniture are handmade using traditional techniques, and his work for leading interior designers and their international clientele is in demand for glamorous hotels and restaurants. The star of Bevan’s repertoire is the Miami cocktail cabinet, an art deco-inspired bar with an antiqued-mirror exterior and dark-stained, oiled and waxed walnut interior, originally designed for Soho House Miami and now available for custom order (from £23,940, rupertbevan.com). Or take a look at his marble wallpaper designs, £98 per roll, which can also be customised (rupertbevan.com/wallpaper).

Sussy Cazalet — rugs and wall hangingsThe designer/artist Sussy Cazalet creates custom rugs and wall hangings, and each woven work of art takes its lead from a specific interior and the mood its inhabitant prefers. “Some people want elegance and tranquillity while others want a sense of wild abandon,” she says. “This is what keeps my work interesting. Each creation is unique.” Designs start as pencil sketches or watercolours and clients respond to her handdrawn, collaged ideas, becoming actively involved in the creative process. Cazalet is working with de Gournay on a wall covering and has recently created a rug for the Mayfair jeweller Jessica McCormack. “I have also designed a four-piece collection of woven silk and wool hangings for the founder of Camden’s live-music venue Koko [Olly Bengough]. They hang on the stairwell of the members’ area and are designed to evoke each floor, the music and the energy.” Custom work starts at about £10,000. Cazalet’s new collection for Pinch features graphic flatweaves in muted earthy colours, woven in New Zealand wool and Indian raw silk (flatweave rugs from £510, pinchdesign.com).

Out of the Valley — bespoke saunasOut of the Valley saunas are little bespoke buildings by the designer Rupert McKelvie, who trained in boat building and has a passion for wooden architecture. Sustainability is top of his agenda, so they are made from all-natural materials and insulated with sheep’s wool. McKelvie started the business when he built an off-grid cabin in Devon and subsequently found himself making beautifully crafted micro-buildings for high-profile clients in music and media. The most recent addition to the OOTV family is a sauna range, and the newest models, launched this autumn, are Forest, Mountain, Fjord and Hive. They can be clad to the taste of each customer in black larch, cedar, Douglas fir or oak, and internally panelled with aspen, cedar or thermos alder — heat-treated timber that becomes a dark, rich brown colour. Popular additions include a cold-water outdoor shower or plunge pool. McKelvie says: “Satellite spaces within big properties are becoming very popular, and cabins and saunas create places to commune more closely with the natural world. Quite a lot of these projects are for people who are rewilding and you can really feel like you are immersed in nature. We often put them on the edge of a lake.” From £22,000, outofthevalley.co.uk

Hum London — handpainted lampshadesHermione Gee of Hum London handpaints plain cotton lampshades for wall sconces, table lamps and pendants. She and her sister Ellie founded Hum when they were unable to buy shades that would suit her own home, and now they create custom colourways and new designs for their clients’ decorative schemes. This might mean matching a colour or creating a pattern that complements a detail in an artwork. Favourite motifs include gingham, leopard print and painterly swirls, and bespoke lampshades start from £150 (humlondon.com). Hermione’s most memorable commission was for the interior designers Barlow & Barlow: “The space was being filled to the brim with beautiful pink and aubergine tones, so I painted a pair of lampshades with a flowing, plum-coloured wave design. From a distance they looked like big swirling lines but when looking more closely you can see the shapes were actually made up of tiny leopard-print detailing. I love this playful element, when there is more to something than first meets the eye.”

Cox London — lighting Inspired by nature, designed by artists and made by skilled artisan metalworkers, Cox London’s lighting treads the line between art and design. The studio, founded by the sculptors Chris and Nicola Cox, specialises in hand-forged metalwork sconces and chandeliers tailored in size, shape and finish to suit the interiors for which they are intended. Cox has a genius for botanical forms, and clients can visit the workshops by appointment to watch Chris sketch a bespoke version of the Floral Wall Light (£5,156) or May Pendant (£35,400), and later see the iron and brass foliage being forged. Beloved of hot-ticket interior designers such as Sophie Ashby and Rachel Chudley, Cox London also has fans among eminent art collectors. “A few years ago, we made a pair of Serpent Tables for the private apartments of Chatsworth House,” says Nicola Cox. “The Duke of Devonshire became very enthusiastic about what we were doing and very kindly bought a pair of Siren Chairs, a pair of Voyager Chairs and a pair of Gunnera Tables. The pieces were destined for the private collection and were included in a recent exhibition called Living with Art We Love.”

Bennison Fabrics — handprinted fabricsThe illustrious English fabric label founded by the antique dealer and decorator Geoffrey Bennison creates handprinted fabrics based on 18th and 19th-century English and French originals in his archive, as well as specially commissioned patterns. Bennison crafted fabrics and interiors for stars and socialites, from a French country house for Baron David de Rothschild to a London bachelor pad for the actor Terence Stamp. Now his romantic English country house-style sprigs, florals and chinoiserie patterns, printed in small batches on linen or silk, or as wallpapers, are loved by renowned interior designers including Veere Grenney. Gillian Newberry, Bennison’s protégée and now the owner of the brand, says: “Bennison offers a bespoke custom colouring service with a choice of two or three strike-offs. We can change several colours or just one colour in a design, print it on beige or oyster linen or silk, and strengthen or reduce all the colours as requested.” The brand’s classic Roses print, reinvented in shocking lipstick pink on oyster, is a popular commission, which Newberry herself chose for her bedroom sofa in her house in Mallorca (from £295 per metre), bennisonfabrics.com.

Bill Amberg — leatherIn his 30 years as the nation’s foremost leather virtuoso, Bill Amberg has designed bespoke saddlery, bookbinding, leather floors and ceilings, as well as leather interiors for a Series 1 Jaguar E-Type. His most spectacular commissions were a set of double-sided leather curtains, more than five metres long and four metres high, for the triforium of Westminster Abbey, red leather wall panels with handstitched detailing for a Notting Hill house originally designed for Anish Kapoor, and a staircase with treads covered in vegetable-tanned leather for an industrial designer’s London apartment (order yours with leatherwork from £650 per tread). These architectural features are intended to last lifetimes and to improve with age as they develop the patina of daily use, become darkened where they are touched and bleached from sunlight. Amberg’s focus is on the sustainability and longevity of his work. His latest leather seats, made from the hide of longhorn cattle on the Knepp estate (the rewilding project in West Sussex), with ash frames from its ash dieback clearance, are an exemplar of environmentally friendly craft (£840, billamberg.com).

Aiveen Daly — upholsteryAiveen Daly has run a successful textile artistry house for the past 16 years, designing and making almost exclusively bespoke pieces for a clientele of interior designers and architects, Hollywood A-listers and royalty. She has worked with Paul Smith, Rupert Sanderson and Ralph & Russo, as well as well-known hotels such as the Corinthia London and the Langham Hong Kong. Daly is renowned for her complex fabric manipulation techniques, and her work ranges from textile art for walls and ceilings to cushions, chairs and beds. Her most recent project was a series of large pieces created for The House of Walpole, the Northacre apartment opposite Buckingham Palace. Prices for a bespoke headboard start from £10,000 and smaller items such as cushions from £1,000, aiveendaly.com.

Laurie Timpson — knivesKnives by Laurie Timpson, founder of Savernake, are used by professional chefs including Tom Kerridge, Tom Aikens, Jasmine Hemsley, Margot Henderson, Mark Sargeant and Jamie Oliver. Timpson designs and makes his products in a converted sawmill on the edge of the Savernake Forest, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, focusing on creating the best for specific tasks, combining performance with striking design. The knives are lightweight, with a signature concave blade, crafted to fit an individual grip and cutting style. Clients are invited to choose a type of blade that suits their needs, from a vegetable paring knife to a santoku, Field Utility for gamekeepers or the fisherman’s knife, called the Trout, and then pick a handle material that appeals, with options including English walnut, horse chestnut and English yew. The process starts with a conversation — what kind of cooking they enjoy and how they work, which materials they prefer. Then there is a sketch, a computer rendering and a mock-up to see if dimensions feel correct and the handle is comfortable. A prototype is made, which the client uses for a week to provide accurate feedback. Only then is the final version produced. A bespoke cheese knife with English walnut handle starts from £1,100, savernakeknives.co.uk.

Fee Greening — illustrations Specialising in dip pen and ink, Fee Greening is an illustrator whose hand-drawn work is inspired by folklore, medieval illuminated manuscripts and gothic art. She collaborates with tastemakers such as Sarah Watson of Balineum, for whom she designed a tile range, and Kate Hawkins of CommonRoom, for whom she created a wallpaper collection, and she has also designed a cashmere range of throws and cushions with Saved NY. Most of Fee’s illustrations have been custom commissions for an impressive list of clients, including Alex Eagle, Alexa Chung, Aerin Lauder, Fortnum & Mason, Gucci, Hermès and Liberty. “I only take on commissions where the theme fits with my mystical aesthetic,” she says. “But I am happy to tailor the piece to match specific colour palettes and add in little personal ‘Easter eggs’. Last year, for example, I worked on a series of murals in a beautiful medieval longhouse where I painted fantastical woodland animals in secret spots around the building for the clients’ children to find.” feegreening.co.uk