As a teenager, Sera Hersham-Loftus expressed herself in two distinct ways. The first was in her clothes: Victorian camisoles mixed with spooky eyeliner for a Siouxsie Sioux meets Tess of the D’Urbervilles effect (this was the 1980s). Decorating was the other. “I was always painting my bedroom walls and moving the furniture around. I’d borrow my mother’s scarves and drape them over lampshades for a romantic effect.” All this was an escape from “the strict, depressing formality” of her all-girls’ school.
School was not for her – “I was the class joker; always answering back” – so she left at 15, relieved to be able to “earn my own money and feel independent”. Determination, combined with chutzpah, landed her a job at Sadler’s Wells in the set-design department. Despite no formal training, she discovered she had a knack for bringing spaces to life with paint, fabric and resourcefulness. When friends began to ask her to do up their houses “it was as if I was predestined to become an interior designer,” she says.
