{"id":54712,"date":"2025-08-08T14:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54712\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T14:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:42:21","slug":"the-legacy-of-londons-most-glamorous-interior-designer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54712\/","title":{"rendered":"The legacy of London\u2019s most glamorous interior designer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legacy of London\u2019s most glamorous interior designer <\/p>\n

, The Sunday Times<\/p>\n

Iconic is a word that\u2019s often overused in the realms of architecture and design, but when it comes to the work of David Collins Studio, it\u2019s hard to argue otherwise. Renowned for its ability to create glamorous yet inviting spaces that people want to be in and be seen in \u2014 from Claridge\u2019s to Cecconi\u2019s, the Wolseley to Bob Bob Ricard \u2014 David Collins Studio has masterminded some of the most influential and talked-about interiors of the past four decades.<\/p>\n

This is in part due to the collaborations the studio has cultivated over the years, starting with its longstanding partnership with Marco Pierre White, which began in 1988. Often regarded as the first modern celebrity chef, White had seen La Tante Claire \u2014 a project the studio had completed for his former boss and mentor, the renowned chef Pierre Koffmann<\/a> \u2014 and wanted some of the same. \u201cThe first restaurant I worked on with David was Harvey\u2019s on Wandsworth Common, which belonged to Marco,\u201d says David Collins Studio\u2019s CEO, Iain Watson, who, having bonded with Collins in a bar because they were both wearing the same rare Dries Van Noten jacket, joined the business that same year. \u201cAt that time Marco was in his White Heat era and was the poster boy for British cooking. No one else was doing fine dining at that scale, and most certainly not at that level.\u201d A string of MPW restaurants including Mirabelle, Quo Vadis and the Canteen (with Michael Caine) followed, cementing the studio\u2019s presence in the capital\u2019s dynamic restaurant scene.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001012291986\"<\/p>\n

Mirabelle, one of the restaurants David Collins Studio designed for Marco Pierre White<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Collins<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

In 1998, the studio embarked on one of its most famous projects: transforming Claridge\u2019s Bar from a run-down smorgasbord restaurant into a true destination hotel bar in London, with red crocodile-print leather furniture, art deco styling, and its own entrance on Davies Street. Soon fashion editors, designers, celebrities and models (such as Kate Moss, who remains a fan) made it their stomping ground. \u201cIt was seductive and glamorous, but you could go in dressed up or dressed down,\u201d says the chief creative officer Simon Rawlings, who joined the studio that year. \u201cAnd it pulled in people who weren\u2019t staying at the hotel, which didn\u2019t really happen back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

The modernisation of Claridge\u2019s<\/a> sister properties, the Berkeley and the Connaught, soon followed. \u201cIt was London\u2019s answer to what was happening with the Schrager hotels in New York, where there was a real lobby scene,\u201d Rawlings continues. \u201cA cool bar and an amazing restaurant with high-profile chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Angela Hartnett and Marcus Wareing became a formula that gave these historic, quite stuffy grande-dame hotels a completely new lease of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Champagne<\/p>\n

Bob Bob Ricard\u2019s famous \u201cpress for champagne\u201d button<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The studio\u2019s first collaboration with the restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the powerhouse duo behind the Ivy and Le Caprice, in the late Nineties was the redesign of J Sheekey, one of London\u2019s oldest fish restaurants. The antithesis of some of the showier dining options of the time, with its interconnected rooms and intimate booths, J Sheekey was a runaway success. This paved the way for Colbert, the Delaunay, Brasserie Z\u00e9del and, of course, the Wolseley, which redefined breakfast culture across the city.<\/p>\n

Built in 1921 as a car showroom for Wolseley Motors, the cavernous space was then a bank and later a Chinese restaurant before David Collins Studio was charged with its reinvention. \u201cIt was huge and it was daunting, but it had good bones and wonderful details like the starburst floors, panels of chinoiserie and the bank teller\u2019s counter that we reinstated,\u201d Rawlings says. \u201cChris and Jeremy had a vision that it could be like the grand caf\u00e9s in Vienna, so we flew over to study how people sat and how food and even newspapers were presented. I was fascinated by how an espresso arrived on a little silver tray with a glass of water. Back then nobody was going out for breakfast unless it was in a hotel. At the Wolseley the idea of breakfast in a caf\u00e9 became a lifestyle choice, not just a meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Bring back Eighties excess! The Ivy impresario making dining fun again<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Connaught<\/p>\n

David Collins Studio designed the Connaught hotel\u2019s bar<\/p>\n

DYLAN THOMAS<\/p>\n

\"Kate<\/p>\n

From left: Kate Moss; Tom Ford, who was a friend and client of David Collins<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Bob Bob Ricard\u2019s extravagant interior<\/p>\n

PAUL WINCH-FURNESS<\/p>\n

In tandem with these landmark restaurants, there was a clutch of projects for luxury fashion brands, including Vivienne Westwood<\/a>, for whom they devised five Anglomania stores across Japan (opened in a whirlwind six months), plus a Vivienne Westwood flagship in New York. \u201cThe clothes were lined with fabric printed to look like hair and we wanted the floor to be the same,\u201d Watson remembers. \u201cIt was tricky, as the internet wasn\u2019t advanced back then. Instead, you had a little black book and you\u2019d develop things from nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012 came stores for another British fashion house, Alexander McQueen (the designer had been a good friend of Watson\u2019s), after they were introduced to Sarah Burton, then at the helm. A complex scheme for flagship stores in London, Paris, Tokyo and New York was developed, and then a simplified concept adapted for each location was rolled out across sites worldwide. \u201cWe designed panels that, from a distance, looked quite traditional, but close up they revealed iconic McQueen motifs \u2014 flowers, insects and butterflies,\u201d Rawlings says. \u201cThe mock-ups were moulded in Dalston, but they were made so that they could be reproduced by local artisans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Interior<\/p>\n

The studio\u2019s interiors for the London restaurant Locanda Locatelli<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/p>\n

The Blue Bar at the Berkeley hotel<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001012291988\"<\/p>\n

Alexander McQueen\u2019s Savile Row store<\/p>\n

This is, of course, a mere snapshot of a vast body of work that also encompasses residential projects for prestigious luxury developers and private clients (including Madonna and Tom Ford, both of whom were friends of Collins), and nightclubs such as Kabaret\u2019s Prophecy (formerly Murray\u2019s Cabaret Club, where Christine Keeler famously worked as a showgirl in the 1960s), frequented by celebrities including Paris Hilton, who danced on the leather banquettes in her stilettos. Nearby, Bob Bob Ricard, with its extravagant styling, railway-carriage-style booths and infamous \u201cPress for champagne\u201d button, remains an enduring favourite, and next time you pop into a Caf\u00e9 Rouge, remember that David Collins Studio was responsible for the design of its more than 100 branches, decorated with carefully sourced, authentic French artefacts, when the chain introduced the relaxed bistro concept to the UK.<\/p>\n

Though Collins himself died in 2013, prompting a wave of tributes, his legacy lives on with the 60-strong team led by Watson and Rawlings that continues to inspire and innovate. \u201cWe\u2019ve been incredibly lucky over the years \u2014 every brief has been very different, which has pushed us and challenged us creatively,\u201d Rawlings says. \u201cWe design experiences that are layered, lived in and lasting. And when you think it\u2019s just another restaurant? It really never is.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

August 07 2025, 11.00pm<\/p>\n

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\"Martin<\/a><\/p>\n

August 07 2025, 5.00am<\/p>\n

Interview by Dan Moore<\/p>\n

\"Why<\/a><\/p>\n

August 06 2025, 12.00pm<\/p>\n

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\"UK<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Forget<\/a><\/p>\n

August 07 2025, 11.00pm<\/p>\n

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\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

August 08 2025, 5.00am<\/p>\n

Wayne Perrey<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legacy of London\u2019s most glamorous interior designer , The Sunday Times Iconic is a word that\u2019s often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-54712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}