with Tricia Guild, OBE. Founder & Creative Director of Designers Guild

Designers Guild has been setting interior design trends and dressing our homes for decades, since 1970, in fact, when Tricia Guild first founded the company. Creating romantically-inspired, evocative designs and wholesale furnishing fabrics, wall-coverings, upholstery and bed and bath collections – Designers Guild went from interior insiders’ word-of-mouth success to worldwide cult status, with Royal commissions and countless awards to their name. Combining creativity and innovation with the highest levels of quality of design, product, service, and people; Designers Guild proudly states: “We believe in quality of design, product and service combined with a committed and motivated team.”

Always with her eye on how to bring beauty, relaxation and balance to our homes, the next chapter for Designers Guild was creating a Home Fragrance collection. With a range of calming, reviving and immediately evocative scents, of course you’d expect the vessels to reflect the laid-back luxe style that made Designers Guild famous – each scented candle is available in either unique terrazzo ceramic holders crafted with natural coral shaded stones, or in stunning hand-blown emerald-green glass (also used for the reed diffusers).

We were delighted to catch up with Tricia for an exclusive interview to discover why scent is such an important consideration for creating the perfect ambience in your house, why she felt so inspired to create the range, and exactly how she likes to use fragrance as a final finishing touch…

“In my opinion, decorating a room and finding the perfect balance of colour, pattern and texture in your textiles and furnishings; finding the right sofa and chairs, the rugs etc. is only part of the picture. A beautiful interior needs atmosphere and to feel wonderful. Fragrance and flowers are the finishing touches of choice and to me a room is incomplete without them. Scenting your home can have a very real effect on your mood and you can change the fragrance to suit your moods and the seasons.

As with so much of my work, the inspiration behind the scents came from nature – the wonderful mellow scent of ripe figs that to me, just feels like summer. The herby freshness of a greenhouse that is full of home grown produce, the mossy green of a woodland walk, or the dewy freshness of cooling waterfalls, or the unmistakable scent of peonies and wisteria that are the epitome of romance.

It really is so difficult to choose between the six as I really do use all of them in different parts of the house and at different times. If I had to choose those I use most often, it would have to be Green Fig in living rooms and bedrooms and Waterfall, which I love in bathrooms. Green Fig is my go–to scent at home generally speaking and certainly in the winter, I like to layer it with Woodland Fern which feels more moody and rich, whereas in the summer I like to add the herby zing of Glasshouse with its tomato leaf freshness that feels inviting yet warm. In bathrooms and bedrooms, I like to use delicate floral notes…” 

To discover more about how Tricia Guild uses fragrance to set the mood of a room, and her expert advice on how to layer scents within your home to create your own signature, read part two of this interview in Room by Room with Tricia Guild.