Meet Our Next in Design Winners: Studio Enass

‘I want a space to feel like it has personality, a reflection of the client’s culture and background'

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Left: Interior designer Enass Mahmoud stands in a bright bedroom, leaning against a textured wood dresser with a sunburst rattan mirror above. Right: A modern dining room features a dark wood table, bold teal and green patterned chairs, and three cone-shaped pendant lights.
(Image credit: Uliana Grishina)
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London is home for interior designer and winner of our Next in Design 2025 award, Enass Mahmoud, but her projects reach far and wide – from a one-bedroom apartment in Victoria to a three-story townhouse in LA to a large-scale project she’s managing in the Middle East.

It’s an impressive trajectory for someone who founded her studio almost by accident. ‘I’d studied product design and always wanted to move into interiors,’ Enass says. ‘Then a client I met through social media asked me to design their suite at the O2. That same client then bought a five-bedroom house, and it just snowballed.’

A maximalist bedroom scene featuring a tall, green striped headboard against Chinoiserie-style wallpaper. The bed is layered with crisp white linens and vibrant orange velvet pillows, set next to a dark wood bedside chest.

(Image credit: Uliana Grishina)

What distinguishes Enass’s work is the sense of soul she brings to each space. ‘I want a space to feel like it has personality, a reflection of the client’s culture and background.’ That ethos is deeply rooted in her Sudanese upbringing. ‘Sudanese women wear beautiful, heavily patterned fabrics, and I grew up surrounded by them. That richness has been absorbed into my style.’

It’s why her projects confidently layer heritage prints and intricate wallpapers from brands such as Zoffany, Harlequin, and Liberty, combining dark tones with detailed patterns. ‘People worry about clashing, but when you layer patterns on a grounding element like the perfect neutral on the wall, it adds beauty and warmth,’ says Enass – a design philosophy that ensures her work resonates across cultures and continents.

3 Key Design Rules with Studio Enass

1. Create an Invisible Thread
My first rule when designing your home is to create an invisible thread. This allows the home to feel cohesive. That could be a color, a material, a pattern, a fabric – something that you can repeat in every single room so the home has a story, rather than feeling mismatched.

2. Have a Point of Reference
My second rule is to have a point of reference. Now I know it can be quite overwhelming when you are designing a space, but you need something to stick to. This could be something that you have seen in a magazine, a book, a piece of fabric, or an art piece that you love. This is going to be your inspiration when designing your home, and it stops you from going off track and buying the most random things that just don’t make sense together.

3. Make it yours
For my third rule, it’s really important to know that your home doesn’t have to be picture-perfect. It needs to feel lived in. It needs to have soul and character and personality – your personality. It just needs to be filled with things that make you happy, whether it’s items from family members or random things that you found in a market on holiday. Remember, don’t over-clutter and only put out things that you really, really love. That’s the most important rule.

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Pip Rich
Pip Rich

Pip Rich is an interiors journalist and editor with 20 years' experience, having written for all of the UK's biggest titles. Most recently, he was the Global Editor in Chief of our sister brand, Livingetc, where he now continues in a consulting role as Executive Editor. Before that, he was acting editor of Homes & Gardens, and has held staff positions at Sunday Times Style, ELLE Decoration, Red and Grazia. He has written three books – his most recent, A New Leaf, looked at the homes of architects who had decorated with house plants. Over his career, he has interviewed pretty much every interior designer working today, soaking up their knowledge and wisdom so as to become an expert himself.