They say you cannot judge a book by its cover or a person on
the street by the way they dress and carry themselves - a refined, intellectual
mind may not care for finesse in personal attire and fine clothes certainly do
not make a gentleman or a lady as we found out in Julia Robert’s Pretty Woman- but you can always tell something about a person by
the way they choose to live and arrange their personal space. You can tell a
pretentious person by their lavish, chosen-for-show, must-haves in their homes
–they try too hard to please others rather than pleasing their own senses and
tastes. A pragmatic, no nonsense person
will have the essentials to live and nothing else, a fanciful person will have
things that need a fanciful mind to comprehend,
a book lover will have books spilling out everywhere, used as doorstops
and make-shift tables, an art lover will have art on their walls and then the
subject of their choice of art is another giveaway – there is always something
that gives you a glimpse of a person’s
personality as soon as you step inside their personal space. But all these wonderfully narrative signs are
sadly stripped away as soon as someone (not trusting their own judgment) hires
an interior designer to arrange their space. As such, I don’t necessarily
approve of interior designers arranging personal spaces (I know it sounds
strange coming from someone who trained as one). Perhaps for this reason alone, my design quest
has always been more inclined towards finding, sourcing and promoting good
design rather than ramming my design ideas downs people’s throat (or through
their doors!) 
I always feel individuality is on a backburner these days - the
world of now is mostly about conformity, conformity of thoughts, actions,
following the status quo. Remember the corner shops of yester years that sold everything from groceries to magazines to fabric? Each one was laid out different, stocked different merchandise, there were always surprises to be found if you visited a store further afield - these days each brand of retail shop is the same the world over. Gone are the little ways that owners and employees could customise their shops and call it their very own. I miss that kind of indiviuality in the world of today.We are not doing a great job teaching our kids originality either. I was recently at my 17 year old son’s parents-teachers consultation and lost count the number of times his various teachers mentioned he has to do such-and-such to get the grades which he needs to get into the university course of his choice. I could hear them telling the same to all the other parents while I waited in turn to see some of his teachers, and I felt a bit sad for all the young, slightly apprehensive young people there with their equally bewildered parents – if everyone needed to do the same things to get the same grades, the education system was advocating conformism and toeing-the-line over individualism and exploration of their distinctive preferences and personalities. Working in a school as well, every day I see (and feel crushed, every single time) when a child’s individuality is put on hold to work on something that needs to be done just so, because that’s how they need to learn it, because that’s how they will be assessed later. It is a sad state of affairs, I don’t know why we are so afraid to let children explore their individualism and map their own learning experiences.
But on a positive note, homes are where you can unleash your individuality, thats why your personal space is so important because sometimes in this world where everything has to be just so, thats the only place you can unwind and be your true self. So, do not be afraid, trust your instinctive style, and do yourself a favour, do not call in an interior designer…
