You have nothing to fear but fear itself”, the crux of being a designer. To design well is to be unabashed about what you like in the various spheres that make up a complete interior. The Journey begins with reading and travelling to well documented homes with a legacy of architecture and the decorative arts, museums and then to see where design has come to today.Through this journey take the elements, colours, textures, furniture, art, objet d art that make you come alive and fine tune that intuition that will be your key to talent. With time, you will begin to edit your interiors which means to take and delete what is needed to make a complete look come to life thematically and this will become better with time and as we see more and more of life. Life and the sacrifices we make as human beings that make us good will make this editing better. To build a strong interior never forget the power of “less is more”, an interior does not have to have everything or every corner to be full with any element but it needs to be symmetrical and balanced with a strong layout, thematically connected furniture, with the next layer of lighting and objet d’ art carefully chosen to go with the furniture and then the colours which are in tune with each other in hue and tone or even contrast each other, but at the root lies the architecture of the room and the walls that should be decorated with classical mouldings and panelling. Always use rich veneers beautifully polished , carved teak with gold leaf and brass or ormolu mounts ,subtle hues of aqua, ivory, lemon , sage green, peach, burgundy, navy with well stitched cushions and beautifully draped curtains. A room should  make you feel like you are listening to symphony with everything in tune.

About Author


Shaunali Nanda obtained her Degree in English Literature and continued to Sotheby’s for her Master’s in the History of Decorative Art. After which she was the lead researcher on the Magnificent Mughal Jewels sale at Christie’s. She returned to India and set up the furnishing and lifestyle retail arm for the family business, Shaunali continued to write and set up the first column for reviewing Christie’s sales in the Economic Times.

Shaunali then combined her experience and study in Decorative Art, History and Jewellery, which led to roles at Van Cleef and Arpels as Manager store planning and visual  design. She then became the Manager for North America for Hermes for Visual Design, which carried her through to Tiffany for store design and visual merchandising, with individual projects at Chanel and Bulgari.

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