The commencement of a new year inevitably sparks discussions about industry trends – what’s in, what’s out, and the ever-elusive thumbs-up or thumbs-down. However, I must confess, I’ve never been one to blindly follow trends. In the realm of interior design, where fads can come and go like the seasons, my heart lies with classic […]

So, you’re thinking about paint colours. The choice is infinite, with so many weird names (elephant’s breath, dead salmon, etc). But maybe you’re starting in the wrong place. Instead of starting from the colour, it makes sense to narrow down your options by prioritising sustainability and choosing an eco-manufacturer first. There are still thousands of […]

In my last blog – Certification: making sense of fabric labels Part 1 – I gave GOTS, OE 100 and Oeko-Tex Standard 100 a thumbs-up. If you see any of these on a label, it’s sustainable. But that’s not the whole story. You should also be able to trust any of the following: Bluesign is […]

Happy New Year – and welcome back to the elemental studio fortnightly blog. I want to return to a subject explored in my November blogs. If you read these, you’ll know I recommended certain fabric materials – and laid out which ones I think should be avoided. But what about Certification? We all know that […]

It’s almost Christmas and you’re probably overdosing on carols, fairy lights and pine needles. So here’s the antidote – an elemental studio special edition on … kitchen worktops! If you’re the family cook, you may have spent a lot of time working in the kitchen recently, chopping, sorting, planning and arranging your Christmas preparations around […]

In my last blog I looked at sustainable fabrics. Now for the unsustainable nasties. What sort of fabrics do I avoid like the proverbial plague? It isn’t hard to guess the answer. When considering a fabric, the equivalent of the scary soundtrack which signals the arrival of a film’s bad guy is hearing that the […]