Taunton and South Somerset Living Apr - May 2020

So when did your first break come in TV?
Well, I was on Magpie when I was a child!
I know! That was very difficult though
because my father had removed the ITV
button so that we couldn’t watch ITV, so he
had to find it again so that he could watch
me in it. I remember my parents being very
disapproving, saying ‘Why couldn’t you
go on Blue Peter?’. Magpie was just too
funky! They all wore flares and had regional
accents.
But then you got into it, and along came
other programmes, such as Changing
Rooms etc?
As soon as I left college I was on the
edge of a lot of media stuff. I had a very
successful degree show and sold paintings
to people like Adam Ant and Terry Jones.
I was with the Crucial Gallery in Notting
Hill who were very, very fashionable. So I
actually ended up doing some weird stuff
like advertising work in Japan, but that’s
when I had a kind of scene change and
decided I didn’t want to do any of that at
all, and went off and spent three years
marketing rubber flooring. Because I just felt
like it. I actually really enjoyed it, and I really
enjoyed the responsibility of it. But after
three years I started looking around at what
I really wanted to do. I had done so many
different things at college and I had done
a lot of interior design, but I had also done
an enormous amount of stage design and I
was very keen on that. I’m still keen on that
now! But I sort of trickled into interiors really
through styling committee parties and then
I’d be asked to design a conservatory and
things went from there. And I was literally
plucked from that to do a screen test for
the BBC for something they were calling
‘Changing Rooms’. And the rest they say
is history.
We must talk about your new wallpaper.
How did that happen?
Well, similarly to when you were asking
about the television break, one of the
defining moments was Changing Rooms,
which is funny because I was quite grumpy
about doing it. I was very busy and I had a
lot of stuff going on but I filmed it. But it did
have a disastrous effect on my business. I
had a really lovely coterie of about eight or
nine repeat clients who were terribly discreet
and very wealthy. It started getting irritating
when I would turn up for a site meeting and
there would be paparazzi, and so one-byone
I started getting those ‘it’s not you, it’s
me’ telephone calls from clients, who would
say that they love my work but they can’t
cope with it all. But it was actually my wife
Jackie who came up with this idea of ‘if
everybody in the world is watching television
then lets sell to everybody in the world.
Let’s work with B&Q, Homebase, House of
Fraser. Let’s create licensed products’.
Your latest design of wallpapers are
exquisite. The intricacy of some of these
designs is absolutely beautiful. How do
you set about creating that?
Well, this is the big thing because it’s now
twenty years since we actually launched
this and it’s been incredibly successful and
actually that’s what I want on my tombstone!
I don’t want ‘that bloke off the telly’. I want
‘Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen - Designer’.
That’s what I do. But for the twentieth
anniversary of the brand I wanted to have
something really very authoritative.
When you create that design, the
bit I don’t get is how you turn it into
wallpaper. How does that work? And
where do you create them? At home?
Largely on planes! My rider, you would
expect snow leopards and lilies, actually
consists of Epsom salts, gin and a drawing
board. Very monastic! Everything starts as
a drawing, which I will do wherever I am
(which can even sometimes be in the lounge
of an airport, should inspiration strike!).
Sometimes I’ll come back from being away
with an enormous portfolio of drawings, but
more often than not I’ll photograph them
on my phone and send them to the design
office and then they put them into repeat.
I’ll always design with repeat in mind. The
repeat is the clever thing because I suppose
the big thing is that there’s always an innate
homage to William Morris in everything I do.
We recently went to the Jane Austin
Museum. The wallpaper was so bright, it
was not what I expected.
We always think of the Georgian period as
being wonderfully understated and rather
pastel-hued. But no, it was vulgar as hell! If
they could get it bright yellow they certainly
would! But it’s very interesting with wallpaper
because I think it is quintessentially a
British product. It sort of doesn’t really exist
anywhere else. It’s because it’s a very easily
read symbol of the middle class. In France
or Italy or anywhere else where there was
no middle class you would have real silk on
the walls.
You have bedding and wallpaper in the
Signature range is that correct?
We’ve got beds, we’ve got furniture but the
wallpaper I always see as being the flagship
of my style.
Going back to art, what do you think of
our local boy, Banksy?
We actually share an art dealer! It’s very
interesting because I think there is a very
pronounced movement now for art to
become a lot more interesting and a lot
more readable. I think the art of the 80s and
90s, the Brit Art movement, and actually a
lot of late 20th century art was deliberately
over-intellectual. I think a lot of people would
go into a contemporary art gallery and think
‘yeah, okay’. It’s almost that feeling of ‘I can
do that’. But stick them in front of one that
everyone goes crazy for, Leighton’s Flaming
June and you would say ‘Oh my god!’ You
know, that’s one of the best paintings in the
world. And we do love them and I think there
is a real return to a level of craftsmanship. I
mean, Banksy doesn’t really do a lot himself.
He has a huge studio that create these
things. But then, so did Rodin, and so did
Rembrandt. But then you’ve also got people
like Grayson Perry, who I think is very
interesting as well and his work is, unusually,
every bit as interesting as him.
You have a place in Cornwall don’t you?
Do you paint when you go down there?
We have, in Port Issac. But no, I wish! I
tend not to do any work. When we first went
there, a long time ago, I used to do a lot of
landscape work there, and I do love it as
somewhere for inspiration.
Left: Lawrence’s original drawing ‘Club
Tropicana’, Middle: the finished printed
wallpaper, Below: Lawerence’s Aspen
Headboard with Monoglam bedlinen.
Selected wallpapers are available from
the Llewelyn-Bowen Signature Collection
at Wallpaperdirect.com
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