The British Invasion of U.S. Interior Design

From fashion to pop culture, America’s obsession with the U.K. lifestyle is skyrocketing. Perhaps the lavish sets on the Bridgerton TV show are sparking the wave of English design on U.S. soil because British home decor is also having a moment.

“More and more British designers are settling on American shores with their specific take on the British aesthetic,” says Rohan Blacker, founder of Pooky.com, a decorative-lighting source based in London. “And their American cousins are embracing the new design style.” 

Nicole Salvesen, of the London design studio Salvesen Graham, recalls a Colorado project that she and her team completed in 2022 for a British wife and an American husband.

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“Our British client wanted to inject a bit of British decoration into her Arts and Crafts home,” Salvesen recalls. “The layered, fabric-heavy nature of the interiors she grew up in felt important to her, having lived for a while in a more minimalist home in California.” The design ended up as a “wonderful collection of art and objects.” 

Courtnay Tartt Elias, principal and creative director at Creative Tonic, a design company in Houston, says “the British fascination is hitting everyone.” Tartt Elias especially loves the maximalist aspect of English rooms. “It all looks so good together,” she muses. “The patterns and colors and textures and mirrors and antiques. It’s over the top but in a cozy way, like an Elizabethan dress.”

America’s affinity for British interiors—whether it’s a country house decked out in “Cottage Core” or a chic pied à terre enveloped in a medley of patterns—has existed for years. But a growing admiration is undeniable. Tartt Elias believes that people hunkering down during the pandemic could be a reason for the upswing.

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“Maybe for the first time in a long time, Americans were home and realized that they didn’t want these sterile environments,” she says. “People want their homes to feel warm and cozy and lived in.” 

The Past Inspires the Present

The U.K. has illustrated its architectural and design prowess for centuries, influencing American homes through styles such as Georgian, Tudor, and Victorian. Furniture, fabrics, and accessories rooted in these same periods continue to grace interiors, conveying Britain’s colorful, creative past.

“I love the layered look while working with antiques or one-of-a-kind items,” says Maryland designer Kelley Proxmire of English period furniture. “These unique pieces often give the room a special, welcoming, homey look—perhaps a sense of family and history.”

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William Morris—the British textile designer, artist, and father of the Arts and Crafts movement—was perhaps one of the most influential figures in English design and decoration. Beginning in the 19th century, this period was one of reform, one intended to revamp decorative arts and nurture designers as craftspeople. His timeless patterns reflect vines, leaves, flowers, trees, and animals in English gardens. Venerable textile brand Sanderson & Co. produces William Morris’s archive-inspired work through Morris & Co. Besides textiles, the botanical patterns can be found on bedding, dinnerware, and other home goods.

Tartt Elias recently turned to Morris & Co.’s new outdoor line to rework her home’s exterior space. “I remain drawn to his interpretation of flora and fauna, whether in small or large patterns,” she explains. “How he repeats the patterns across a fabric or wallpaper is pure artistry.”

Fast forward to the 20th century, and numerous British designers influenced America’s home-decor scene. One is English design icon David Hicks, who brought his British eclecticism to the U.S., curating Manhattan apartments in the 1960s.

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“My greatest contribution as an interior designer has been to show people how to use bold color mixtures, how to use patterned carpets, how to light rooms, and how to mix old with new,” the late designer wrote in his 1968 book David Hicks—Living with Taste.

A tour de force in the design world, Hicks was the king of blending styles and periods, often incorporating a symphony of vivid colors, such as canary yellow, fiery orange, and fuchsia, alongside abstract motifs for a groovy-yet-glam aesthetic. 

“David Hicks’ bold color choices and use of geometric patterns in flooring have undoubtedly influenced American design, especially his Hicks’ Hexagon,” Tartt Elias says. “His use of color and mix of antique and modern furnishings, as well as patterned flooring, is quintessentially British. I love the deeply layered feeling his spaces invoke.”

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Defining British Design

Blacker says layering color, contrast, pattern, and texture in British design is a common theme.

“While it is impossible to pigeonhole British design in a single sentence, the general British aesthetic has always been to embrace pattern and print and to combine it in a warm, traditional environment,” he explains. The layers create a “personal, often eccentric and joyous interior.” 

New Jersey–based designer Sarah Storms, who references English style in her rooms, feels that British design “has a soulfulness” derived from a building’s age, history, and details. But there’s more to capturing the British look. 

“Typically, there are antiques or vintage pieces alongside a more contemporary item,” she says. “Worn-in leather, rich color palettes and textures, found through plaids and herringbones, echo the aesthetics of the traditional haberdashery. This richness is foundational in blending old and new aesthetics for a contemporary approach.”

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Hicks may have been a genius in mingling styles and periods. However, his spaces were incredibly livable, and that characteristic is universal in British interiors. His work also defied what’s thought of as the British design norm: rooms characterized by only traditional appointments such as chintz fabrics, floral patterns, and elegant antiques; or English country houses marked by paneled walls, skirted tables, and un-kitchens.

“Often, British design is thought to be more country in style, but it doesn’t have to be,” Salvesen says. The designer explains that most British homes have been added to, little by little, and like the houses, the decor rarely reflects just one period. “British design is very layered and feels collected over time.” 

Essentially English

Besides the bones, the furniture layout is the foundation of a room’s decor—and British designers seem to have mastered it. 

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“You know you belong and know where to sit,” says Illinois designer Elizabeth Drake. “Part of their success is due to the use of various chairs, not necessarily in pairs—incorporating a place to read, a place to converse, and a place to work at a table.” One can pull up a chair to a conversation group and quickly move the seating from one side of the space to another, tailoring a room for comfort.

Proxmire says brown furniture is “synonymous with British design,” and she intentionally incorporates it into her English-centric rooms. She’s also drawn to antique chinoiserie plates, frames, tables and trays, and larger furniture pieces, including chairs and benches, often dusting the room with one or two, sometimes with a modern edge. “These antiques are included judiciously, not filling the entire room,” she says. “An antique sofa covered in an updated fabric can be smashing.”

To step inside an English room, one might imagine that the interior design wasn’t strategically planned but unfolded spontaneously. “We are less symmetrical and matchy in our designs,” Salvesen says, in comparison to Americans. “There is often a piece of art, fabric or piece of furniture that is unexpected and throws the perfect nature of the design off to make it feel more authentic.” 

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While Americans have a reputation for seeking immediate gratification, customarily on a mission to finish a room on schedule, the Brits have a different approach. Along with partner Mary Graham, Salvesen says the duo avoids over-designing houses so their clients can introduce found items in the future.

British Accouterments

Any American who’s hired an interior designer likely has British accouterments in their home. US designers source furnishings, textiles, and decorative wares from English manufacturers, and some of the industry’s most treasured products originate in the U.K.

For instance, Storms is a fan of Abraham Moon & Sons and Cole & Son; Drake turns to Farrow & Ball and Lewis & Wood; and Proxmire purchases from Osborne & Little, Bennison Fabrics, and Vaughan Lighting. 

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Tartt Elias includes Morris & Co. fabrics and wallcoverings in her projects, and she also uses Nina Campbell, Colefax & Fowler, and Holland & Sherry, a fabric mill dating to 1836 and supplying couturiers and interior designers. 

“Even Restoration Hardware has partnered with Holland & Sherry,” she says of the wool-covered pillows now available through the California-based luxury brand. “Their background is in men’s suiting and tailoring—all of the things they’re doing are so hot right now.”

Additional British decor brands are making their way across the pond, too.

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Pooky.com recently launched its lighting and lampshade collection in the U.S. market, and Little Greene, a paint and wallcovering company based in North Wales, has joined the ranks. David Mottershead, founder and managing director of Little Greene, says the company prepared for two years before its American debut. 

“We exhibited extensively in the UK and Europe for many years, and there have been consistent requests from U.S. visitors about the availability of our products, along with the regular supply for projects managed by U.S. designers,” Mottershead says.

Similarly, as U.S. designers source furnishings and textiles from British vendors, English design studios market their brands to U.S. consumers. Salvesen Graham, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Kit Kemp, and other prominent British designers have left an imprint with their unique style, books and product lines. And Americans are going wild over it all. 

This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Mansion Global Experience Luxury.