Get Inspired
What We Learned About the Future of Interiors.
10 min read
Cult head to the Design Centre London for the WOW!house 2026.
It’s Chelsea Harbour on a summer’s afternoon. The heatwave is in full swing, but we’re here to seek shelter…and even more design inspiration. Beginning with a talk on Curating Interiors to a show house that stopped us in our tracks, WOW!house 2026 didn’t disappoint.
Material-led, lived-in homes
Material-led, lived-in homes
Material-led, lived-in homes
Material-led, lived-in homes
What WOW!house 2026 confirmed is something we've been saying all year: interiors are becoming more personal, more material-led, and more emotionally considered. The best interiors we saw today had one thing in common: they felt like they belonged to someone. That's the goal. Not a showroom. A home.
Led by Gianluca Longo - Style Editor of British Vogue and Cabana Magazine - alongside Linda Boronkay, Jo LeGleud, and Michael Diaz-Griffith, this was one of those conversations that manages to feel both practical and genuinely impactful.
The idea that resonated most? Using a muse. Not a mood board. A muse - a person, a place, an era, an object that you deeply love - as the emotional anchor for a room. Linda talked about her love for Cleopatra growing up and how this has influenced her design approach down the years, embracing Egyptian motifs, small trinkets, and rich colour palettes to bring a room to life.
This takes the perfectionism out of designing interiors - the daunting prospect of looking at an empty room and having no idea where to start - and grounds your interior project. It's a deceptively simple shift in design approach that produces soulful results.
Instead of asking "what looks good together?", ask "what does this feel like?". Start with something you love ‑ really love ‑ and build outward from there.
We found the overarching theme of embracing eclecticism resonated with us deeply - as a brand championing timeless, retro-inspired pieces made to be loved for years, not months.
Leaning into a more soulful approach to interiors, Michael gleefully mentioned how the pendulum has swayed from the cool minimalism of recent years back to eclecticism - and how this looks to be staying. Jo’s love and passion for embroidery, and visiting the places that continue to champion handmade processes, emphasise this feeling further - the need to champion these skills before we lose them altogether.
The panel also touched on the growing conversation around furniture and architecture in dialogue. Not furniture placed into a space, but furniture that responds to it - that understands the proportions, the light, the history of the room it inhabits. The relationship between the space and the objects within it.
Regular readers will know we’ve done a deep dive into the world of Analog Living - why we should be refocusing our homes away from screens and unhealthy distractions, back to tactile hobbies and relaxation. The growing desire to reclaim spaces in the home for rest, pleasure, and authenticity. WOW!house 2026 echoed these thoughts and then some.
To be “useless” certainly doesn’t sound positive, but take away the negative connotations of the word and you have yourself a space that exists to purely be enjoyed - no agenda, no pressure, no worries.
It’s a reading nook, a room filled with your passion for handmade ceramics and vintage finds, or a space dedicated to your most loved hobbies and board games. Complemented with furniture that isn’t there to be Instagrammed, but a natural accumulation that reflects a life well-lived.
The message was clear: layered, lived‑in interiors are having a serious moment. unlike the maximalism of previous years, this version feels considered rather than chaotic.
What We Saw: 3 Moments Worth Noting
Generous, sculptural sofas in velvets and boucles, sculptural coffee tables, organic forms, and rich colour palettes. All whirled together to create depth and relaxation at the core of your living room. We loved the deep purple hues - plum, heather, aubergine - mixed with greens and blues. This felt like colour-drenching done right.
Fringed rattan awnings, trailing greenery, hand-painted ceramic tableware, and Mediterranean-themed tiling.
At the centre? The kind of table you want to sit at for hours. This is pattern mixing at its most joyful and confident - and a reminder that the dining table is one of the greatest opportunities in any home for connection.
The house itself was a masterclass in contrast. Every room was delightfully different from the last. Threaded throughout were accessories and lighting, embracing a mix of materials.
Aligned with retro-inspired interiors from the 60s and 70s, we saw marbles and stones alongside metals, soft velvets with travertine.
Introducing Minhwa
Introducing Minhwa
Introducing Minhwa
Introducing Minhwa
The Benjamin Moore Minhwa Salon tells the story of Minhwa. Translating to “painting of the people”, this is traditional Korean folk art, rich with symbolic meanings, and imaginative, humorous illustrations.
Young Huh brings her Asian heritage into every room she designs, mixing contemporary and traditional with maximum effect. We literally gasped when entering this room in the WOW!house. Shaping her sense of style, Young Huh was always fascinated with the blend of both her Asian and American upbringing - something you can see in the Benjamin Moor Minhwa Salon.
An explosion of colour and patterns, your eye is immediately drawn to the contemporary black armchair - playfully modern, this chair could be at home in the centre of any modern art exhibition at the MoMA in New York.
We love the bold use of colour and cartoonist furniture that made the room come alive.
Walls covered in colourful recessed panels in red, teal, yellow, orange, and black, a bold black-and-white chevron tile floor, and a sculptural white table displaying ceramic objects. The painted ceiling above it all was extraordinary. Bold, playful, and completely committed. A lesson in how to go big without losing coherence.
Other Textures + Shapes We Liked
What WOW!house 2026 confirmed is something we've been saying all year: interiors are becoming more personal, more material-led, and more emotionally considered.
The mixing of materials - velvet alongside terrazzo, brass next to linen, antique beside contemporary - wasn't accidental. It was the whole point. And the spaces that brought it off most successfully were the ones built around a clear sense of feeling, not just a collection of individual pieces.
More on the dialogue between furniture and architecture - and how to use it in your own home - coming very soon.
The best interiors we saw today had one thing in common: they felt like they belonged to someone. That's the goal. Not a showroom. A home.
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