I sat down with designers who have created work for Kate Bush and Carrie Bradshaw – this is what they had to say about interior trends

The lines between interior design and lifestyle are constantly blurring: you can get inspiration for table linens from dresses, or use found objects as furniture. Embracing the universality of design is an expansive practice, and one that duo Timorous Beasties, AKA Paul Simmons and Alistair McAuley, has incorporated into their own studio; 35 years later, we're taking notes.

The Scotland-based designers met as students at the Glasgow School of Art, and joined forces to create work with a shared eclectic sensibility.

'Our stuff was a bit peculiar for the market at the time,' Paul explains of their anti-trend approach. 'There was no way we could have things manufactured, so we decided that's why we decided to print it ourselves.'

'We both studied textiles and specifically printed textiles,' Alistair says. We were interested in interiors mainly, but we do graphics for book covers and bottles of whiskey. We do tea towels and rugs, and lots of different things.'

Since their inception in 1990, they have designed a print that was featured on Carrie Bradshaw's dress in season 2 of ...And Just Like That, the inner front and back covers of Kate Bush’s programme for her Before The Dawn tour, and wallpapers that count Cara Delevigne and Guns & Roses bassist Duff McKagan among their fans. As they gear up for their 35th anniversary, their abstract-turned-illustrative designs are clearly more relevant than ever.

The duo explains that initially, they took inspiration from the outside world for their designs, experimenting with bucolic imagery and the ever-popular Toile de Jouy (which would become one of their most famous designs with the contemporary Glasgow Toile). While these illustrative prints are what they have become associated with, they often return to their archive for inspiration. 'A nice thing about having your own business is you choose from your own catalog,' Alistair tells us. 'There are things that you might have started a long time ago and didn't come to anything, then you can still refer back to them.'

They say that their Birds N Bees and Iguana prints are enduring sellers, but prints aside, it's their wallpapers themselves that continue to stand the test of time.

‘In terms of trends at the moment, the wallpaper trend is still very big,' Alistair says. 'I think everyone's seen the beauty of wallpaper in terms of using it in a way to really transform an interior without knocking down a wall and doing some drastic renovation for restaurants and hotels and everything.’

‘I see trends more in the way people use color,' Paul Simmons says of general design trends he's observed within the industry. 'We’ve had a kind of dark orange, terracotta color for a while, and obviously the color of this year is mocha, so I'm sure there'll be a resurgence of that kind of mocha, coffee latte sort of coloring. To be honest with you, it's great to see what's out there in the market, but we don't really follow trends as such. I think if you start following, then you're usually too late. Our work is maybe a harder sell, but it certainly stands out from a lot of the work out there.’

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