Blimey, where to even begin? It’s like walking into a spice market in Marrakech at midday—your eyes don’t know where to land first. That’s maximalism for you. It’s not just “more is more,” darling, it’s more is *everything*.
Right, textures. Think of that one friend who can’t resist touching everything in a shop. Maximalist decor is made for them. It’s the *crunch* of a vintage Kilim rug underfoot, layered right over a sleek, worn-in Persian one. It’s the cool, smooth slide of a velvet emerald-green sofa piled with about six cushions—and not matching ones, oh no. You’ve got rough, nubby linen next to silky tasselled trim next to something faux fur that you swear came from a 1970s disco.
I remember helping a client in Notting Hill last autumn, poor chap was terrified of colour. We ended up in a warehouse in Bermondsey, and I made him run his hands over a wall hanging made of wool roving. It was cloud-soft. “This,” I told him, “goes next to the lacquered Chinoiserie cabinet.” The look on his face! But it worked. The clash of that dry, polished wood against the fluffy, almost messy textile… it’s the friction that gives a room its buzz.
And colour? Don’t get me started. It’s not about picking a palette from a chart. It’s about mood, memory, pure joy. I once saw a loo in Brighton—a *loo*—papered in this wild, peacock-blue tropical print, and the towels were fuchsia. Felt like a party. That’s the spirit.
You know what really defines it, though? The personal clutter. The shelves heaving with travel trinkets, the walls a proper gallery of mismatched frames. It’s the polaroid from a Lisbon tram next to a gilded mirror from a Paris flea market. It’s alive. It tells a story, a bit rambling, with tangents, but a brilliant story nonetheless.
It’s not for the faint-hearted. My first flat? I went mad in the fabric shop on Goldhawk Road. Ended up with curtains that could’ve stunned a bull. Took me two years to realise I had to *balance* the riot, not just add to it. A dark, moody wall can make all those trinkets sing instead of shout.
So yeah, it’s a glorious, unapologetic mash-up. It’s the feeling you get when you finally wear that patterned jacket you were saving for a “special occasion.” Life’s the occasion, innit? Just dive in.
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