Last night, Lia Gold was named the winner of Interior Design Masters series 7. This year, the ultimate prize for the winner was the chance to design a homeware collection with Next. I got an early look at Lia’s Next range set to drop online later today – and it’s not what I expected.
Throughout this series, Lia has become known for her love of florals, botanicals and her biophilic design ideas – both as prints and patterns, as well as in their physical form as every space she’s designed (including her own home) features a dried flower display. And yet, there are no flowers in sight in the Lia Gold x Next range, despite my previous expectations of flowers galore.
Instead, Lia chose to focus on her Italian heritage and her love of food when designing this 26-piece collection, which includes everything from tableware to bedroom and living room lighting - and with the M&S lamp sale currently on, I'm very much thinking about lighting right now - and an array of soft furnishings, with prices starting at just £16.
‘I felt like there's quite a lot of florals out there and I’ve learned where to rein the florals in as we progressed on the show,’ Lia explained when I caught up with her this week. ‘And I really wanted to experiment with my other love - and I guess inspiration - which came from food. My Italian heritage started to play quite a big role in the collection.’
Lia goes on to explain that the Next collection also references the first challenge the contestants were faced with in this season of the BBC show, which was to transform a beach hut – this is where Lia really leaned into her Italian background, and she felt it was ‘a really important design in terms of the story’.
What to expect from the range
Aside from her passion for florals and botanicals, Lia has also become known for being very good at designing spaces where people would love to gather – usually involving a dining table or a kitchen island. So it’s no surprise that beautiful tableware and decor that can be used for tablescaping are a big part of her collection for Next.
‘I am Scottish Italian, and I always say the Scots bring the party and Italians bring the food,’ Lia says. ‘Growing up we always had big parties and big dinners, that was just really normal. People coming together around a table was something I grew up with and it always brought me so much joy. So fostering a space where people want to gather is something that's very key in all of my designs.’
In the collection, you can find everything from tomatoes and chilli peppers to pasta shapes and even some slogan designs in Italian here and there – all of which is very different from the last Interior Design Masters winner, John Cooper's collection for John Lewis.
But there are also larger, thicker stripes (which are currently a big home decor trend) seen on the likes of bed linen and cushions, as well as gingham and olive leaf motifs that run throughout the collection, all within a very cohesive colour palette of red, blue, green and white – a very Mediterranean colour scheme.
‘I used to go to Italy every year to see my nonna in Naples. She's the one that taught me how important family is and how important food is. I love hosting, I host all the time. And the collection at Next is such an amazing opportunity to do lots of tableware and tablescaping items. And I really wanted to make a collection that people could pick and choose pieces from, but be really inspired to cook as well,’ she says.
Lia’s top picks from the collection
I asked Lia to share her top three picks from the range – she gave me four, and I've added a couple on top, all of which will become available later today.
'The vase is number one because it's just so fun and joyful,' Lia says. 'It doesn't even need to be styled with anything in it. Even on its own on a shelf it's such a hero piece, and it's really beautifully made. I think the team have done an amazing job on the craftsmanship of that vase.'
'I think rugs really change rooms, especially for renters who maybe can't add colour to walls,' Lia explains. 'I wanted to make a rug that was really bright, fun and that would really transform any space. The gingham rug is such an amazing palette and the wool tuft is so beautifully made, and it looks really high quality.'
'I love the plates,' Lia says. 'There's one with ravioli, and then the other one says "Pancia Felice", which means happy tummy. You don't need to have a full set of crockery anymore. I think mix and match is actually really fun and a really easy way to create a really interesting table. So I wanted those plates to be a cute accessory.'
'When we were designing the double-fringe ceiling light, they were saying that the standard lighting was around 34 centimeters. And I was like bigger! Bigger is better in this situation. It's also lined on the inside. and I find a lot of lights aren't like they kind of forget about the inside,' Lia says.
There are several cushion designs in Lia's collection for Next. But this one might be my favourite for the striped pattern, the on-trend colour combo of soft blue and red, as well as the cute 'Ciao!' embroidery.
‘The stripe design has a very soft rick rack line around the edges which is taken from a pasta shape called mafalda,’ Lia reveals. There's a matching cushion but I especially enjoy this pattern on the throw which for £45 is a bargain in my books.
With Lia’s interior design studio and supper club set to launch soon, I can’t wait to see what else she has in store – a collection of cookware is apparently high up on her wish/to-do list. ‘I really want to design a range of cookware. I think pots and pans are so boring but you use them every day. So I would like to experiment with the shapes of pots and pans.’ Watch this space!
