‘You can have all the cool modern stuff, but everyone wants a cosy room’
The designer Violet Dent is reflecting on her approach to the interiors of her London flat: a blend of faded English florals, pretty pink stripes and an unashamed love of stuff. “I don’t think a house is ever really finished,” she says. “And I think layering and layering is what makes decorating so exciting. It’s a constant work in progress.”
Creativity is in Violet’s DNA: her mother, Brigette Buchanan, is a fashion and interior designer who co-founded the fashion and textiles company Cabbages & Roses with the late Christina Strutt in 2000; her brother, Angus Buchanan, is co-founder with his wife, Charlotte, of the super-fashionable interior design company Buchanan Studio; and her godmother is Lucinda Chambers, formerly fashion director of Vogue, who founded the fashion brand Colville and the shopping platform Collagerie.
Violet learnt everything she knows about decorating, she says, from her mother and from working with Christina at the first Cabbages & Roses shop on Langton Street in Chelsea, west London, where she was a shop girl from the age of 18, in between training to be a make-up artist. “I love arranging stuff and moving things around, so I would merchandise the shop and Christina always liked the way I did it,” she recalls.
“When the company started to grow and Christina needed a design assistant, she asked if I’d do that one day a week, instead of working in the shop. So I didn’t have any formal design training, I learnt it from her. It got to the point where I had to make a decision – she said: ‘I need you full-time, or you do make-up full-time’. And I loved Cabbages so much more than I loved doing make-up.”
Violet became assistant designer, then head of design at the company and worked there for about 10 years, when its headquarters was moved to Somerset and she left to become a freelance creative consultant. But she continued to work with Christina designing fabric collections, and just before Christina died from cancer, in November last year, she and her daughter Kate, who now owns Cabbages & Roses, asked Violet to take over as creative director. “Of course I said yes,” says Violet.
“When Christina was diagnosed, she was amazing. We were working on the summer 2023 collection, and she said: ‘We’ve got to be quick. I’ve got all these things I need to do.’ This winter’s collection was the first one I designed without her, but she was in the room when I was choosing the fabrics, so it’s still got her in it – it will always have her in it.”
Violet attributes the popularity of the brand, both in the UK and America, to its gentle, appealing aesthetic. “I love that it’s family-owned, and I love how nostalgic it feels,” she says. “We’ve got such a huge archive of patterns and they’re so timeless. It’s really English, but it can go in any house. It’s a look that never gets old, because it’s cosy. You can have all the cool modern stuff, but in the end, people are always going to be drawn to a room that looks cosy.”
Violet’s home is an example of just such an English, nostalgic look. Her predilection for rooting around flea markets and antique shops is evident in the objects arranged on the shelves, the vintage baskets and trays dotted around that hold everything from fabric samples and kitchenware to children’s toys, and the pictures that line the walls.
Cabbages & Roses fabrics are, of course, much in evidence, too, particularly the three-inch stripe on white linen: “It’s my favourite fabric of all time; I love it,” says Violet. “It’s just the best stripe. As it ages and fades, it just gets better. I wash the cushion covers all the time and they’re nicer with every wash. I always like things when they’ve faded a bit; everything looks better after it’s been in the sun.”
When Violet and her husband first moved into the flat about seven years ago, it was sorely in need of an update. They gutted it, replaced the kitchen, and updated the bathrooms: there were originally two bathrooms on the same floor, so they converted one into a laundry room. A few years later, after their daughter Dolly (now three) was born, they also converted the loft to add a second bedroom and bathroom upstairs.
“At first, I just painted everything white; we were on such a shoestring that we did the bare minimum,” says Violet. “We had rented for so long that I was completely used to decorating just with white, so it was basically a white box; it didn’t occur to me to use colour. Then in time I started to introduce some colours, such as the yellow striped Farrow & Ball wallpaper in Dolly’s room.”
Not everything went according to plan, however: “I painted the hallway green, but then I hated it; it felt so dark. At first I thought, ‘What have I done?’ It was so much paint. Then I realised I just had to bite the bullet and have it redone in a pale plaster pink, which is much better.”
It may not be the biggest space, but Violet has maximised every inch of it and left no part of it undecorated: her tip when decorating a small space is to stick mainly to one colour (here, pink): “It feels more neutral and calm if you keep to one tone, one colour base.”
That’s not to say that limiting herself to a restrained palette has curtailed her creativity: her love of collecting, arranging and moving things around keeps the interior of the flat looking fresh. “It’s changed so many times; it’s constantly changing,” she says. “I work from home, so if I need to clear my head I just end up rearranging things. I think it’s nice to keep adding. It will never be ‘done’.”
Violet Dent’s tips for a modern nostalgic look
I like to keep similar colours together – here, it’s mainly pink, yellow and rattan – because I have so much stuff. If I had a big house I would definitely allow things more room to breathe, but because I love to collect things and I have a small space, everything’s crammed together, and it all looks a bit calmer and less overwhelming when you keep to the same colour base.
If you want to have some floral patterns in your home but you’re a bit scared to do a whole sofa, for example, bring in some floral accents: a cushion, or a quilt folded over an arm of the sofa, or even just a tea towel or oven glove. Remember that if you love the things in your home, they will all work together.
Mix floral fabrics with stripes. Christina always said if you have a floral you must also have a stripe. It cuts through the prettiness. If she was doing a floral curtain or blind, she would always use a striped fabric on the back. Checks work well mixed with florals too.
Colours and patterns that are slightly faded and washed out are easier to mix together as they won’t jar, unlike stronger, brighter colours. The quality of colours is so important – I think they should mirror what you get in nature. An unnatural colour is just never going to look nice.
If you have a small space, don’t be scared of having big pieces of furniture. In my sitting room, I started with the sofa: I wanted a really big, comfortable sofa, so everything else followed on from that. In a small room, the bigger the furniture in it, the bigger the room feels. I like to cram a room full of furniture – it will always feel bigger when it has lots of things in it than when it’s empty.
I frame really random things: something from a book, a postcard, a swatch of fabric. If something’s pretty, I can’t throw it away; it goes on the fridge or it goes in a frame. I’m always collecting pictures and I just hang them as I go; I never use a measuring tape, it’s so much easier by eye. Just hold up the picture, find the string, and bang in the nail.
I like hanging plates as well. If you want a seamless look, you can find the old-fashioned invisible plate hangers on Amazon, but they do take a bit of work. In the kitchen I’ve used wire plate hangers which are much easier to use and look a little more casual.
Remember that everyone makes mistakes – painting the hallway green was one of mine. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to live with it; just let it go and move on. I’ve realised the flat is never going to be finished and that’s the fun of it; it’s a work in progress.
More from Violet’s flat...
