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INTERIORS

Rich chic: how to get that luxury interiors look on a budget

The rules of quiet luxe interiors — and where on the high street to shop the trend

Serving stealth wealth are John Lewis’s textured jute rug, £280, and rattan bed frame, £729, johnlewis.com
Serving stealth wealth are John Lewis’s textured jute rug, £280, and rattan bed frame, £729, johnlewis.com
The Sunday Times

Fancy a lavish look on a cost of living crisis budget? You are in luck. Rich chic has taken over the high street. Call it quiet opulence or Succession style (cf the curvy sofas and silvery rugs of Kendall Roy’s penthouse), it features a rigidly restricted neutral palette, simple shapes, natural materials and tactile surfaces — and makes your interiors look and feel a million dollars.

Easily unnerved by colour and pattern? Welcome to your comfort zone. Here is a deeply soothing safe space out of reach of those pesky maximalists. If you love the look, you are not alone. The hashtag #quietluxury has amassed more than 120 million views on TikTok. Google Trends shows that searches for the term were up 250 per cent in May. Famous fans include the siren of stealth wealth Gwyneth Paltrow, who collaborated with the US superstylist Colin King on an Architectural Digest shoot to create a vibe of sensual tranquillity in her home.

There’s no need to cross the Atlantic to get rich-chic inspo. Should you need a manual King’s new book, Arranging Things, published by Rizzoli, is a masterclass in creating profoundly peaceful spaces in this chromophobic style. There’s a wealth of inexpensive buys with the same aesthetic in stores from H&M to Homebase, John Lewis to Mango. The latest and loveliest of the quiet-luxe collections was launched last week, when Zara Home unveiled a second collaboration with Vincent Van Duysen — a tactile range in materials including white leather, taupe linen, oak, ash, limestone and jute.

Creamy neutral paint colours are back — just don’t call it magnolia

Haven’t heard of VVD? Let me assure you that the Belgian architect-designer is a very big deal indeed. He was discovered by Ilse Crawford when she was the editor of Elle Decoration, and his influential “minimalism with soul” attracted big-budget clients, from Calvin Klein and Aesop to Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Now he is relishing the democratisation of his take on luxury.

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“It feels like reaching out to the world and preaching my gospel and my art of living, that is how working with Zara Home feels. Their global reach is quite extraordinary to me. There is a sense of calmness and pureness in their work also with the use of natural materials. This resonates with my values that in turn enhance and complement theirs.” Amen to that.

Elsewhere in the spring/summer 2023 ranges the trend for opulent simplicity continues. Highlights of La Redoute’s interiors offering are the cream linen curtains and bouclé seats. Habitat — better known for its colourful retro homeware — is having a quietly luxurious moment. The brand’s speckled stoneware dinner sets, conical ceramic table lamps and sets of perfectly plain white bed linen are all key ingredients of a rich-chic scheme. Andrew Tanner, its head of design, says the important sense this season is touch. “Textures are a powerful tool when it comes to creating a sense of opulence and luxury in interior design. Comforting tactility has taken over from chrome surfaces.”

So finishes are matt, not shiny, and fabrics are plain, not patterned. In British homes, where chintzy print and clutter come as standard, this point-blank refusal to prettify feels revolutionary. I say fake it until we make it. Let’s box up the bric-a-brac, paint over the floral feature wall — and prepare to look absolutely loaded.

Rules of rich chic

● Declutter. Now do it again, properly
● You can add objets (not objects)
● This is stealth wealth. Logos are no-go
● Aim for timeless, avoid Mad Men-style retro
● Matt is good, shiny bad
● Curves are in, straight lines out
● Your palette is as neutral as Switzerland
● No pops of colour. None
● Press pause on pattern
● Avoid florals as you would carbs
● It’s not a sofa, it’s a “piece”
● The vibe should be calm as a spa by Peter Zumthor
● Ornaments are a crime (to misquote the architect Adolf Loos) but ugly ceramics can be art
● Do say: the dinner plates are Pawson you know
● Don’t say: what this room needs is a nice feature wall

The prince of minimalism John Pawson has designed a little-known line for When Objects Work. Prices for his elegant, tactile homeware start at £21 for a stoneware goblet, hauslondon.com

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The second instalment of the Zara Home x Vincent Van Duysen collaboration does not disappoint. The award-winning architect-designer’s new range hits the high street this week, with tables, chairs, sofas, ceramics and textiles. From £17.99 for a bowl, zara.com

The place to buy quiet-luxe home accessories, When Objects Work is the Belgian homeware brand launched by Beatrice Delafontaine that specialises in objects conceived by leading designers and architects whose works share a preoccupation with simple form, immaculate function and a timeless idiom. Contributing designers include John Pawson and Vincent Van Duysen, whenobjectswork.com

Rich chic for under a tenner. Mango has a summer home collection called An Exceptional Retreat, featuring duvet covers, cushion covers, tableware and towels, and plain cotton cushion covers from £8.99, shop.mango.com

The White Company has long been a reliable British purveyor of quiet luxe. The Marely vase, a moulded clay vase with a matt texture, costs £28, thewhitecompany.com

The White Company’s Evesham table. Hand-woven from seagrass, £395, thewhitecompany.com

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Texture plus taupe equals quiet luxe. The White Company’s Lilington moulded ceramic bud vase has a speckly matt finish, £15, thewhitecompany.com

Remember the quiet luxe mantra: materials matter above all. Marble pestle and mortar from H&M, £24.99, hm.com

Habitat’s conical ceramic table lamp, £55, sainsburys.co.uk

Radiant in rattan, a textbook rich-chic material, is Habitat’s Luiss lamp, £43, habitat.co.uk

The Barker and Stonehouse Tufted Curve cushion offers opulent texture for £29, barkerandstonehouse.co.uk

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Homebase’s tub armchair, £275 at homebase.co.uk, is a near dupe of Soho Home’s coveted rich-chic Garret armchair, which costs £1,695

This vessel has two key rich-chic characteristics: it’s cream and curvy. The Round vase, from Barker and Stonehouse, is £29, barkerandstonehouse.co.uk

Oka’s Taino chair is a dead ringer for the Brodgar Occasional Chair by the New Craftsmen — a stealth wealth staple — at a fraction of the cost, £275, oka.com

Borderline ugly ceramics in earthy colours are a crucial element of the rich-chic look. Graham & Green’s terracotta Abstract twin vase, £49, grahamandgreen.co.uk

Meet Clemance, Graham & Green’s sculptural table lamp, £85, grahamandgreen.co.uk

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Texture for days for under a nifty. The Ibiza bamboo shade, £49, homebase.co.uk

It’s speckled, ecru and lightly textured — the Kuza ceramic vase from La Redoute ticks three quiet-luxe boxes, £18.20, laredoute.co.uk

Oka’s Safi rug serves sumptuous texture with a black and neutral palette, £1,595, oka.com

Abigail Ahern’s Elian recycled-glass table lamp with raffia shade, £149, freemans.com

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