“And then we’re about to bring out dining tables, a dining bench…which would also work well in a hallway. And then bedroom furniture: a really cool four-poster bed and wardrobes. (We’ve already brought out some bedside tables.) We’re also introducing new lighting over time. We already have metal and ceramic lamps, and we’re about to bring out a turned wooden light as well. Then we’ve got the pendant lights that go over the dining table, and then we’ll be bringing out more fabrics, wallpaper…”
I’m with the award-winning interior designer Nicola Harding at the launch of her new homeware range, NiX. We’ve found a quiet spot in her otherwise bustling studio/showroom in Queen’s Park, northwest London to talk about her new venture, which launched quietly in the summer with a selection of lighting but is evidently now in full flow.
The designer’s eponymous collection (she goes by the name Nix) brings Nicola’s comfy, colorful style and deep understanding of craftsmanship to consumers for the first time. Born out of an understanding of how people live and what makes a home come together, the collection is designed to offer timeless, previously hard-to-find homewares “that work just so.”
“Each product has come from having had a need that’s been hard to meet,” Nicola explains over sweet tea. With NiX, the aim is to marry a “purpose first” approach with Nicola’s experience of creating bespoke environments for both her residential and commercial projects.
Years of building exceptional antique collections for her private clients have honed Nicola’s eye for objects of the perfect shape, size, and scale. The aim with NiX is not to painstakingly replicate those finds but to “take the best bits” and reinterpret them, paring them back in the process. “We don’t necessarily want our products to be the shouty thing in the room,” she says. “I see each piece as the support, or scaffolding, that other things can be layered with.”
