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‘If you just want to make money, go buy property: if you want a happy life in business, make relationships.’ 

Simon Brown, Senior lecturer at Harvard Business School

I’ve been in business for 9 years now, and when I started I had the impression that it was going to be about driving deals, ‘leveraging best practice’, ‘establishing core competencies’ and ‘thinking outside the box’. 

Serious, business- like activities that would carry me through the grown-up world of business as I strode about in my padded-shoulder suit and fierce red lipstick. A bit like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.

I made this wallpaper because I loved the idea of making shadow puppets. 

I remember playing happily with nothing but my tiny hands and an illicit torch after lights out. 

There is something magical about being able to conjure an elephant or an eagle from light and shadows.

‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ 

This was William Morris’ approach to design and I often return to it when I’m thinking about making my home lovelier or simply decluttering. It’s so easy to follow.

Second in our series of #WallpaperWednesday blogs about iconic wallpapers.

Timorous Beasties founders Ali McAuley and Paul Simmons have some pretty high-brow ambitions for their designs. ‘They are devoted to how…a universal connection between art, nature and society…impacts as pattern design in our daily experience of furnished spaces.’

Yes I’m sure. But I like them best when they surprise a laugh.  

Orla Kiely’s rounded leaf pattern, Stem, is so popular it functions as a trade mark. 

It can be found on wares from notebooks to mugs to cushions.  It even featured on a Citroen car!

So why did her design become such a classic? 

Silk. Silky. Silken.

We use the words to describe everything from chocolate to shampoo to a persuasive tone of voice. 

It’s a wonderfully sensuous description whether applying to touch, taste, sight or hearing. It conjures up images of something smooth, lustrous, soft, fine, flowing, touchable, luxurious.

Everything that silk is.  

Well, actually, not everything ...

Which are the Good, the Bad or the Ugly?

I ask because sometimes it’s impossible to know what you want until you see what you don’t…

There are loads of exciting inspirational design fairs from the vast and venerable Ideal Homes (now in its 110^th year) to the dinky Houzz of 2018 which was held in a single house in Soho. 

This week is a favourite of mine – Clerkenwell Design Week. 

It covers everything from furniture to lighting and textiles to accessories and is set in an area with more creative businesses per square mile than anywhere in the world (plus a lot of trendy coffee shops and foodie hubs).

Just one thing to say this week: Linen.

You may have noticed a nationwide campaign in April called I Love Linen. 

I spotted it at Jigsaw, but it is supported by myriad retailers and designers from Vivienne Westwood to John Lewis. Ethics, quality and sustainability are at the heart of the campaign and I, for one, am thrilled to cheer it on. 

If you missed it there’s a great site you can visit: I Love Linen

I’ve made thirteen wallpaper designs since we launched in 2009.

Dragons and dinosaurs for my boys when they were little, planes and robots for the aerophiles and technophiles, adventurous girls for the little women, stripes and jigsaw pieces in response to requests for something more abstract.  

But this is the only one I made just for me.