I spend a lot of my working life alongside interior designers. They're the people who invite me into a scheme when the walls are painted, the furniture is chosen and a room needs its final layer of life. So I pay close attention to the designers who do it brilliantly.
These are five women working here in the UK whose rooms I return to again and again on Instagram. Each has her own way of seeing a space, and each has taught me something about how flowers and greenery should sit within it.
1. Nicola Harding
@nicolahardingandco · nicolaharding.com
Nicola Harding's rooms feel collected over a lifetime. She layers colour, pattern and texture, mixes vintage pieces with new ones, and lights her spaces with lamps and wall lights to create warmth in the evening. She's known for adapting her palettes to the natural light of each room, and her hotel work, including the Beaverbrook Town House in London, shows how a hospitality space can feel as personal as a home.
What I love: her confidence with colour. Nothing in her rooms looks bought as a set, and that's exactly how I like flowers to feel too: chosen for that corner, in colours that belong to that room.
2. Rita Konig
Rita Konig champions rooms that are relaxed, lived in and gently undone. She mixes antiques and inherited furniture with crisp new pieces, and she cares more about whether something works in a room than whether it's perfect. After years writing for magazines in London and New York, she now designs from her home in the Durham Dales and teaches her approach online.
What I love: her rooms are built for living. She reminds me that the best arrangement is one that looks as though it's always been there, sitting happily on a side table among books and lamps.
3. Rachel Chudley
@rachelchudley · rachelchudley.com
Rachel Chudley studied art history at the Courtauld, and it shows. Her London studio creates painterly, personal and eclectic interiors, full of bold colour, artistic references and a sense of fun. She studies the light and the view from each room before choosing colours, and she relishes unusual spaces that push her to be inventive.
What I love: her fearlessness. Pink walls, burgundy marble, unexpected shapes. Her work gives me the courage to suggest the bolder colourway when a client is hovering between two.
4. Emma Sims-Hilditch
@emma_sims_hilditch · studio @simshilditch · simshilditch.com
Emma Sims-Hilditch brought a fresh, modern eye to the English country house. From her studio in a restored former pub in the Cotswolds, her team designs homes that are elegant yet comfortable, rooted in the landscape around them, with quality at the heart of every choice.
What I love: the way her rooms connect to the garden beyond the window. Soft greens, natural textures and a quiet sense of luxury. It's the setting where a generous arrangement of garden roses or hydrangeas feels completely at home.
5. Natalia Miyar
@nataliamiyar · nataliamiyar.com
Natalia Miyar grew up in Miami and now leads her atelier in London, designing luxury homes and hospitality spaces, including The Twenty Two hotel on Grosvenor Square. Her interiors pair soft fabrics like velvet and linen with polished brass and aged wood, and she keeps her palettes calm so that art and treasured objects take centre stage.
What I love: her editing. Every object in her rooms has earned its place. That restraint is a lesson for anyone designing florals: one beautifully considered piece can do more than ten.
What I've learned from them
Following these designers has shaped the way I work. Flowers should belong to a room's colours and light. They should look settled, as though they've always lived there. And sometimes the bravest choice is the boldest colour, while other times it's a single, perfect stem.
If you're an interior designer looking for a faux floral partner to finish your schemes, I'd love to work with you. Take a look at how I work with interior designers, or start your project.
Sharon Demmery
Founder & designer, Demmerys Faux Floral Studio
