Finding your Interior Style

By Marianne Wallace

“Fashion and interiors: learn how your clothes can help you discover your interior design style.”-Marianne Wallace

Designing and decorating a home can be a daunting endeavour. 

Choosing furnishings and accessories is time consuming and expensive, so it’s important to get it right the first time. But how do you start? With so many beautiful and different interior styles out there, how do you know which style is the right one for you?

If you’re anything like me, you have an Instagram page or a Pinterest board full of saved images of interiors of all different eras and styles. Every single interior style is beautiful when it’s done well; as a result, you end up lost in a sea of interiors that might as well range from farmhouse to postmodern.

So how to find an interior style that suits your own personality?

Sometimes the house you live in dictates the interior design style for you. That is particularly true when you live in a home with strong architectural details that are very particular to a certain era, such as Victorian or Midcentury. But more often than not that is not the case, and you are back to square one. 

Midcentury modern architecture and interior style

The best and simplest way to figure out your own interior style is to have a peek inside your closet. Fashion and interior design are intrinsically related as they both use aesthetics as a means of expressing oneself. Both industries prioritize style and function, while focusing on colour, material, texture, pattern.

The idea of self-expression through fashion, however, is much easier to grasp. Fashion is fastpaced and impulsive, and therefore expressing our individuality through garments comes instinctively. With that in mind, have a look at your own personal fashion style. Open your closet. What colours do you see? What is your absolute favourite piece of clothing? And I don’t mean your favourite sweatpants and fuzzy socks. What is that one piece that you absolutely love? The garment or accessory that made your heart skip a beat when you first saw it? The outfit that screams “this is so me”. Even if it’s something you can’t really afford, who is your favourite fashion designer or icon

Let’s look at some examples, shall we? 

Case study 1: your favourite outfit is a tailored black Armani suit jacket and you tend to gravitate towards blacks and greys.

Case study 2: your closet has lots of beiges and browns, but also lots of colours. One of your favourite accessories of all time is your Tory Burch Ella tote bag.

Case study 3: most of your clothes are neutral and you are all about being comfortable and cozy, but in a stylish way.

Now that you know that fashion and interior design share an almost symbiotic relationship, you can finally stop the guessing game; just open up your wardrobe and start browsing for your interior style!

*All Photographs Credit: Marianne Wallace

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