The luxury interior design directory: who to go to for bespoke decor in 2024

Meet the makers

For custom speakers: Shivas Howard-Brown

Shivas Howard-Brown bespoke speakers

Friendly Pressure, the audio brand set up by Shivas Howard-Brown, restores and revives vintage speakers and creates custom ones. The project sprang from the designer’s early love of vinyl, acquired growing up in a musical Jamaican/Indian household in 80s/90s London. His earliest memories of music are his singer/songwriter father’s band rehearsing and “Dad’s speakers blasting the likes of Wookie and Marvin Gaye, with family and friends flooding in through the front door and neighbours congregating over the back fences”. His aunt was a pirate radio DJ who gave him 800 of her American import records when she no longer had space to store them. “The sentimental value they have outweighs the pull of digital music,” he says. And so he made it his mission “to create a deeper connection between you and the power of sound”. He calls his bespoke floor-standing speakers with their handpainted cabinets “Full Colour Stereo”. “Every speaker we create is personalised and tailored to your preferences. We understand that one size does not fit all. Thus, our designs harmonise your unique visual and sonic aspirations.” Commercial clients include Six Senses Ibiza and private buyers range from art directors to musicians such as Obongjayar and the DJ and record producer Seth Troxler. Bespoke FP 398 loudspeakers start at £16,500, @friendly.pressure/

For bronze sculpture: David Williams-Ellis

Bronze ram by David Williams-Ellis

David Williams-Ellis’s sculpted figures, from footballers to eagles, are celebrated for their sense of movement and vitality. His creations are found in the loveliest private gardens in the UK, including Bruern Abbey, home to Lord Glendonbrook and Martin Ritchie. Bryan Ferry and the Duke of Westminster are fans. His latest public art piece, at the Etihad Stadium, will be familiar to Manchester City supporters. And, being the father-in-law of Princess Beatrice, Williams-Ellis’s work includes royal commissions: his stepson, Edo Mapelli Mozzi, gave Beatrice a 45cm-tall bronze of Queen Elizabeth in 2019. He also gifted one to the late Queen for her own collection. This spectacular ram, above, was commissioned for a private garden in Oxfordshire and can be recast for £178,000, @davidwilliamsellis or dwe.com

For outdoor sculpture: David Harber

David Harber Ortus sculpture on Green Island, Poole, Dorset

MARK BOLTON PHOTOGRAPHY

Does 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.

For rattan: Soane Britain

Rattan chairs by Soane Britain at Cobblers Cove hotel, Barbados

When 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

For pool slides: Splinterworks

The Splinterworks co-founders Miles Hartwell and Matt Withington

Splinterworks 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

For wallcoverings: Allyson McDermott

Pomegranate wallcovering in Celestial Blue by Allyson McDermott

ALLYSON MCDERMOTT

In 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

For metalwork: Callum Partridge

Callum Partridge

A 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

Jess Wheeler

Jess Wheeler

In her workshop at the edge of Snowdonia, the designer and artist Jess Wheeler makes decorative lighting inspired by leaves, using sheet metal and wire and a soldering torch, or cast at the local foundry using the lost-wax technique. Since she launched her studio in 2021, her work has been commissioned by Claridge’s, Fortnum & Mason, Alex Eagle, Côte de Folk and Kitten Grayson. Wheeler is designing a chandelier for the de Gournay showroom in San Francisco. The former florist has developed a modular formula to create a new collection of branch chandeliers, which can be commissioned to any size or shape and easily transported. “The frame can be covered in any handmade metal flowers using different patinations to create bespoke finishes,” she says. From £345 for a brass ivy sconce, jesswheeler.com

For weaving: Felicity Irons

Felicity Irons rush floor matting

NIKOLAS KOENIG

The 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

For ironmongery: Beardmore

Creating a pattern at the Beardmore foundry

If 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

For fabrics: Natasha Hulse

Tree of Life headboard by Natasha Hulse for Firmdale Hotels

SIMON BROWN

The 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

For furniture: Silverlining

Fractal Games table by Silverlining

Silverlining 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

For metal furniture: Novocastrian

A Novocastrian coffee table in production

Founded by Richy Almond and his younger brother Paul, descendants of Tyneside shipbuilders, the mission of Novocastrian is to keep the metalworking traditions of northeast England alive. The studio collaborates with some of the most high-profile names in design, creating metal furniture and lighting for clients including Faye Toogood, Burberry and David Collins Studio. A solid brass Rib coffee table, made for the interior designer Taylor Howes in 2022, has been among Novocastrian’s standout commissions. Hand-finished in layers of etched, sculpted and patinated solid brass, the Rib was inspired by the structures of the great ships built on the rivers Tyne and Wear in the 20th century. Today, it would cost about £25,000 to custom-make a similar piece, novocastrian.co

For custom kitchens: Hugh and Howard Miller

A custom kitchen by Hugh and Howard Miller

The 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

For paint: Cassandra Ellis

Cassandra Ellis specialises in custom colours

MARTIN MORRELL

Cassandra 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

For decorative painting: Queenie Ingrams

Queenie Ingrams at work

Queenie Ingrams trained at Van Der Kelen, a Belgian college specialising in traditional techniques of decorative painting. Her repertoire runs from marbling (in oil and acrylic) to wood grain — the kind of paint effects historically used to create a trompe l’oeil work in stately homes and churches — but, she says, “Murals are my greatest joy and range from abstract and obscure to delicate and extremely detailed.” The former actress works closely with interior designers and private clients “to bring their vision to life and leave them with something they will enjoy for ever”.

She adds gilding using various types of gold leaf: “I try to incorporate this into murals wherever possible as a flicker of opulence.” Clients include the art director and stylist Max Hurd, interior designer Rachel Chudley, and Selfridges, which commissioned Ingrams to design the Christmas baubles in its window for Christmas 2023. The rate for the murals varies depending on levels of detail and materials needed, but most can be completed in a week, costing between £1,500 and £6,000, @queenie.paints

For embroidery: Cressida Jamieson

“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.

For mirrored furniture and wallpaper: Rupert Bevan

Furniture by Rupert Bevan

A 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).

For rugs and wall hangings: Sussy Cazalet

Rugs by Sussy Cazalet

KRISTY NOBLE PHOTOGRAPHY

The 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).

For bespoke saunas: Out of the Valley

Out of the Valley’s Forest Sauna

Out 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

For handpainted lampshades: Hum London

Hermione 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.”

For lighting: Cox London

Nicola and Chris Cox of Cox London

ALUN CALLENDER

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.”

For handprinted fabrics: Bennison Fabrics

Bennison Fabrics designs at Gillian Newberry’s home in Mallorca

KEN SPARKES/BENNISON FABRICS

The 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.

For leather: Bill Amberg

In 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).

For upholstery: Aiveen Daly

Bespoke Daly Dragonfly headboard by Aiveen Daly

TARANWILKHU.COM

Aiveen 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.

Lorfords Contemporary

Lorfords Contemporary

Nasia de la Haye is the MD and lead designer of Lorfords Contemporary, sister company of the Cotswolds institution Lorfords Antiques. It was founded in 2015 when Marco Pierre White asked for help furnishing one of his hotel projects, the English House in Singapore. Almost a decade on, the workshop now numbers ten specialists in traditional upholstery. They work in sustainable luxury materials, mainly serving interior designers — professional clients include Rita Konig, David Linley, Sims Hilditch, Salvesen Graham, Maddux Creative, Studio Indigo and Penny Morrison. Private clients engage the lead upholsterer Andy Witcher to revive their antique furniture or commission custom sofas, armchairs, ottomans or headboards. Though they can pick any fabric that takes their fancy, many clients prefer to choose from Lorfords’ Vintage Cloth collection — antique linens and hemp repurposed using natural dyes in a local workshop. Prices from £5,040 for a custom armchair, up to £12,060 for sofas, lorfords.com

For knives: Laurie Timpson

Savernake cheese knife

Knives 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.

For illustrations: Fee Greening

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