Sometimes conversations are just meant to happen, even if they take a few years to get there!

Charlotte and I first talked about doing this Colour Couch chat all the way back in 2020 when we first met through a mutual textile designer friend Susi Bellamy. We met up over the years saying we’ll get to it. We bump-in each other at this years Decorex in London, by the V&A stand, no less and we set a date, and here we are five years later. It was worth the wait.

Charlotte is known for her her joyful use of colour and pattern which through her fabrics and wallpapers and we chat about where her love of pattern comes from, how she approaches colour in her designs, and what inspires her creative process.

If you’d like to dig a little deeper, in the video below Charlotte generously shares her insights and tips for aspiring textile designers with plenty of lightbulb moments. We talk about giving ourselves permission to experiment and to fail, because that’s what creativity is all about. the importance of having someone who’s honest with you, and the inspiration behind her latest Greek-inspired collection. And for a bit of fun, she even lets us in on what she calls her ‘psychic decorating’.

So grab a cuppa, settle in, and join me for a colourful chat with the delightful Charlotte Gaisford.

Read The Colour Couch Interview (extract)

What is your earliest colour memory?

I think my earliest colour memory is from the 1970s, when we used to drive from Northumberland all the way down to my grandparents in southwest Cork every summer.

It was such a long journey that my father always stopped a lot for petrol. The stations gave out free gifts and they had felt pens, which were such a novelty back then. You couldn’t really just get felt pens like you can now. They were like gold dust.

We collected loads of them and we always used to sort of persuade my father to get the felt pens when he filled up. There was one muddy, [olivey] green my sister and I loved and fought over.

It felt seriously trendy at the time, though I wouldn’t say it is now. But when you asked me that question, I really remember it clearly. You know, it’s a vivid memory of that green and the felt pens from the garage.

What does colour mean to you now?

I’m just so attracted to colour. If I see something really colourful, it just pings out at me. If there’s something with loads of colours in it, I have to go and have a look. I’ve always been a colour person. I’ve never been able to use boring colours or neutrals. I just can’t. I find them really boring. I have to use colour. It’s always been that way for me, all my life.

Do you have a favourite colour now? Is there a colour that you feel you gravitate more towards?

Well, yes, it’s red. I love red. A really rich, bright red. Not a pinky red. I suppose it’s more between a pinky red and an orangey red, like a true red. My logo is red because I love red. It’s a warm red. And greens. But I’m quite careful not to use it too much in designs. But for me personally, I like it in my everyday life.

I did have a pair of glasses which were really red, and then someone came up to me and said, how come you’ve got a Ferrari sign on the side of your glasses? I didn’t realise because I bought them online, and I wanted something fun rather than boring brown. That’s why I wear red glasses as well. When my Ferrari ones broke, I had to get some new ones, the nearest I could get to red.

It was quite funny because I did a thing on Instagram the other day. I’m not very good at going on camera, but I’m trying to make myself do it. I was in a better place with better lighting, and my glasses really showed up. Everyone said, oh, I love your new glasses.

Is there a colour that you least like?

Where do you want me to start? I’ll start off with purple. Burgundy. I’m going to call it a group. I just absolutely hate those colours. I just find it does nothing for me. Even though I love red, when it goes into that sort of bluey purple, I absolutely hate it. People do not buy purple. When you do fabrics, they will not buy it.

I’ve been designing and selling fabrics for over ten years, and I’ve looked at trends, I’ve looked at all sorts of things, and I have done purpley-ish things in the past and they’ve never sold. I don’t know what it is. It’s that burgundy colour as well. It’s just horrible.

I think for me personally, and from my experience of what I sell, burgundy and purple, I think it’s probably a bit of an offshoot from the past. People have seen it, done it, been there, and they’ve just thought, oh no, I don’t want to revisit it.

If you look at paint colour charts, they don’t really have that burgundy either. They don’t have a purple or a burgundy. You know the seventies purple. Absolutely horrible.

And then there’s orange. I just find again it doesn’t sell. I did have one pattern, I think it was an elephant pattern, and actually it was a trend colour a few years ago. I found a trend colour way and I thought I’d try that. It sold but then it didn’t. It was mixed with a brown and a lovely sort of cobalt blue, and I really liked the colour way. Orange peel orange – I can’t cope with it.

We then move onto Charlotte’s thoughts on her customer base and what sells…

The thing is, people buy the same colours. People don’t want to buy something weird. They just want to buy something they can relate to.

But when they’re designing an interior, they won’t go for weird colours. They literally just go for the easy options. The blues, the greens, the pinks. They won’t go for that purple.

Yes, which is absolutely fine. I think in this day and age, being a fabric designer, there are quite a few people out there doing it, and I think different market, different customer, different price point, different style. Anything goes. And I just. I definitely know which colours people prefer.

I’ll tell you another thing which doesn’t sell – Chocolate brown. Chocolate brown is meant to be really in at the moment in fashion. I saw the chocolate brown thing and I did some chocolate brown stuff, and actually I really liked it. Didn’t sell. Brown doesn’t. I’m quite glad in a way because anything to do with brown, I don’t like either. Sorry, I’m really restricting myself to a few colours, but I can’t really do brown either. To me, brown isn’t really a colour. To me, colour is green, red, yellow, blue. The bright colours. That’s what colour is to me.

And the thing is, when you’re painting and mixing colours and it goes disastrous when it turns into a brown. To me that’s a negative. So I don’t like brown. That’s probably why.

When you’re starting a new design, where does it begin for you? Does it start with colour, pattern, or a particular feeling and can you share a bit about what goes on behind the scenes in your creative process?

I never have just one way of designing because I’m always learning new things and picking up new techniques. I’m constantly looking around me. I go to museums, art galleries, old country houses, and I look through books. Something will always spark my interest, usually a shape. When you’re designing fabric, you don’t want it to look too complicated or too strange because people like to recognise the shape. If you make it too busy or too colourful, it can start to look like wrapping paper or a greetings card.

Once I’ve worked out the shapes, I’ll put them into a repeat pattern and then bring in the colours. The colours come in about halfway through the process because they help you see if the pattern works. Some designs look awful in certain colours but amazing in others, so the colour really guides you. It all comes together, the shape, the pattern, the colour, and then the scale.

I hand paint everything, and once I’ve created the shapes, I’ll play around with colour. You always need a main colour and then the others support it. A bit like decorating a room with that sixty, thirty, ten balance. But there’s no strict rule, it’s very instinctive. I go by what feels right.

I’ll often do digital mock-ups to test things, like putting a design onto a cushion to see how it works from a distance. Then I get it printed, live with it for a while, and see how it feels. Some I end up loving, others I completely go off. It’s all part of the process.

Because everything I do is digitally printed, it’s really sustainable. I don’t hold stock or print huge quantities. If a design doesn’t sell, we just stop printing it, but if someone wants a discontinued design, we can still produce it on demand. It’s quick, efficient, and there’s no waste.

After ten years of designing, I’ve honed my process to do as much as I can digitally before printing, so I only produce the samples I really want to see. I turned sixty this year, so I called my latest collection 6010 – ten years of designing, and everything I’ve created this year. I didn’t want to stick to a strict seasonal collection. I just wanted the freedom to design what I love, when I want, and share it straight away. That’s how I work now.

Given Charlotte mentioned she hand paints first it spurred me to ask if she was an artist before?

I’ve always been into art. I’ve always drawn and painted. I used to be a paint effects person and had my own paint effects shop. I did a lot of television work back then, painting for people, for TV shows, and even bits of work around Europe. I had a shop in Kendal in the Lake District, and that’s where it all started.

I remember these producers turned up one day with a van full of furniture, and we spent two weeks doing it up, painting everything for an eighteen-part TV series. We didn’t have to paint the whole room, just one corner for the cameras. We did close-up shots, painting headboards, kitchens, floors, all sorts. It was such a long time ago, before I was married, so about thirty years back. Luckily it was pre-digital, pre-Sky, so you’ll never find the show now.

I also did bits for the BBC, programmes like The Art Show and The Leisure Hour. I found some old footage recently and had a good laugh at myself on telly. We’d go into people’s homes and do makeovers – floors, kitchens, you name it. It was all before the internet, so everything was done by phone or letter. You look back and think, how did we manage?

I’ve always been drawing and painting. I did a lot of trompe l’œil, so I had to paint things on a big scale. It’s just always been part of what I do.

Were you ever scared of colour or afraid or wary of colour and what you did you do to overcome it?

I think over time I’ve learned that when you’re decorating, it’s not just about picking a colour you love from a chart and thinking it will look the same on the wall. You really have to think about the room itself. Which way it faces, how much light it gets, and how you want it to feel.

Just the other day I was helping a family choose a colour for their daughter’s bedroom. They’d picked this really boring grey-green, and I said, which way does the room face? It turned out it was a north-facing attic room with lots of angles. I told them it would end up looking really dull and oppressive, and they’d regret it. So we looked at something a bit brighter, a green with more life in it. At first they weren’t sure because in my studio the lighting is terrible. Everything looks exaggerated under electric light, but I said, you have to dare yourself a bit more in a north-facing room. You’ll never see the full colour otherwise.

I took them into one of my bathrooms that’s painted a really bright yellow, and I said, tell me if you think it feels too much. It’s north-facing too, and they were surprised because it didn’t look yellow at all. They realised the colour they’d chosen for the bedroom wasn’t as bright as they thought, and they were much happier.

I think being wary of colour often comes down to not understanding how light and direction affect it. If you stop and ask yourself a few simple questions like which way does the room face, how do I want it to make me feel, what time of day do I use it, you’ll end up choosing better colours that make the room look and feel right.

I’ve definitely painted rooms the wrong colour before. I once painted a bathroom and hated it because it just wasn’t warm enough. So anyone can make mistakes, even me. The point is to learn from them, not to retreat back to neutrals out of fear.

I think people often worry what others will think. I said on Instagram once, don’t paint a room for your friends or your neighbours, you’ll only make it boring. You have to let the room tell you what colour it needs. If you ask the right questions, the answer’s usually there.

People also send me photos all the time asking, “What fabric goes with this?” or “What colour should I use?” I always say, choose your fabric first, then your paint colour. And remember, the photo you’re looking at might be taken in a completely different light, an east-facing room in the morning will look totally different to a west-facing one in the afternoon.

I love helping people with colour. It’s in my nature. If they give me a bit of context, a photo, a little brief, I can really help them find what works. I enjoy that process because I always learn something myself too.

What do you think your life would be like without colour?

Very boring. I couldn’t live without colour. I’d be devastated. I’d feel transparent, empty. To me, colour is everything. It’s so important. People say they’re frightened of colour or that they couldn’t paint with certain colours, but I always think look around you. Look at your television, your phone, nature, the shops you go into. You already live with colour all the time, even if you don’t realise it. Life without it would just be dull.

I think a lot of people are still scared of what others might say. They decorate for their friends or their families, wanting approval, and that little voice in the back of their head says, “Oh, I can’t paint that, what will people think?” But you have to get past that. Colour is what makes life feel alive.

For anyone afraid of colour what would your number 1 piece of advice be?

I think my number one piece of advice would be to just try things out. If you’re decorating, put everything together and wait until the whole room is finished before you judge it. Don’t panic halfway through when the walls are bright pink or whatever and think, oh my goodness, this is awful. Wait until the furniture, the fabrics, and the pictures are in, because that’s what brings it all together.

It’s about creating something cohesive. A wall colour might feel like it’s taking over at first, but once the other elements are in the room, it softens. Quite often people go the other way — they play it too safe, end up with a boring scheme, and then come to me asking how to make it more interesting.

Sometimes it’s as simple as adding one small accent. That tiny pop of colour completely changes the energy. When I’m putting a scheme together, I always try to include another colour, something unexpected just to give it that punch and to tie everything together.

If people just tried it, they’d be surprised. And honestly, if you love it and it works for you, that’s all that matters. Don’t think about what other people will say. It’s your house. You’re the one who has to live in it.

Which colourful person do you most admire and would love me to interview for the On the Colour Couch series?

Paddy O’Donnell. I went to see him give a talk at Chelsea Town Hall and he was so nice and natural and funny, just really sweet. He’s someone you can really relate to and he’s brilliant at putting colours together.

I think he lives at home with his husband and his mother, which I found quite surprising, but he’s always very careful about how he decorates because his husband doesn’t like too many pictures on the walls, and his mother has her say too. The house looks really lovely, cosy and comfortable and he’s just such a good person. I think you’d really enjoy talking to him.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of On the Colour Couch. What a joyful and refreshingly honest chat that was with Charlotte. I loved hearing about her early memories of those precious 1970s felt pens and how that spark of colour still shines through in everything she creates today.

Charlotte reminds us that creativity isn’t about getting it perfect. It’s about experimenting, making mistakes, learning, and daring to try again. I also love how she encourages us to choose colour for ourselves, not for friends, neighbours, or what’s trending, but for how it makes us feel.

It really got me thinking. How often do we play it safe with colour out of habit or fear of what others might think? What would happen if we let ourselves be a little bolder, trusted our instincts, and decorated for joy instead of approval?

I’d love to hear what resonated most for you. Let me know in the comments below as I always enjoy reading your reflections.

If you would like to discover more about Charlotte Gaisford, head over to his Instagram @charlottegaisford.

You can watch Charlotte’s house tour over here.

You can read Susi Bellamy’s On The Colour Couch interview over here.

Wishing you a colourful day,
Karenx