Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic “Colour is a feeling,” says Rose Uniacke. The architectural interior designer is sitting in her home studio in Pimlico — a satisfying slither of a room tucked away on the first floor with its own tiny walled terrace. Daubed in a warm white, it’s a space for thinking. The shelves are filled with design books and neatly stacked samples of the luxuriant fabrics that she began creating back in 2017. The scent of the fig tree outside fills the air of the 1860s building — originally the home, studio and picture gallery of the Scottish portraitist James Rannie Swinton. Uniacke is discussing the prominent role that colour plays in her practice. For anyone familiar with the understated aesthetic of the designer, who established her antiques shop and studio in 2009 and whose interior-design clients include Alicia Vikander, the Marquess of Bute and the Beckhams, this is something of a surprise. “People often think I don’t use colour, but I actually do — all the time,” she says. “I’ve always been interested in colour, and the way that it operates.” This month, Uniacke is introducing 20 shades to her collection of mineral-based paints, free from toxic chemicals, created with Graphenstone — taking the total to 61. What began with an impressive array of whites and off-whites has grown to include deep military blues and fleshy peaches to earthy browns and vivid scarlets. For those seeking “quiet luxury” in colour, this is an elegant place to start. “My primary interest is in the atmosphere and spirit of a room,” says Uniacke. She leans towards a single, unifying tone: balanced, and all-encompassing. Rather than employing jolts of colour, she likes to work within the boundaries of a single shade, and explore its connection to its environment. The recently restored stables of her own home (“the baby sister” to the main house) set the bar. Across two floors, the Coach House has curvy plaster walls in a soft dusty pink. The mood is warm and inviting. Through objects and artworks, she then pushes the hue in different directions, drawing in stronger, more fiery shades. An iridescent green abstract tapestry by Simone Prouvé speaks to the view out to the Tom Stuart-Smith-designed garden. “I’m not interested in shock value,” she says. “It’s more about envelopment. The response should be that it feels just right.” When Uniacke talks in colour, it’s a whisper. “My aim is that you’re not looking at the colour, you’re experiencing [it],” she says, pointing to an image of an East Hampton coastal home that’s awash with jewel-like, autumnal tones.Our relationship to colour is in constant flux throughout our lives, she says. “We need different things for different times.” She lists the light, the exterior view, and artworks as starting points when choosing a shade for a room. “There has to be a strong relationship between these elements for it to be right.” That same sense of flow and harmony should be applied to the whole house, by considering where the colours sit in neighbouring rooms as you move through them.It’s not all soft tones. In a 19th-century townhouse in St John’s Wood, Uniacke has playfully blended rich, strong shades with primary hues. The impact is maximalist. The pinks and greens of a hand-printed EW Godwin wallpaper in the study correspond with the neighbouring TV room, clad in a deep green velvet; the soft pinky tone of the hallway is taken to extremes in an adjacent deep red bathroom. Even such dark colours can be restful, she says. “Colour companionship,” she says, involves exploring the depths, heights and contrasts within shades to ensure they all sit happily together. It’s telling that Uniacke started her career collecting antique textiles (“Things have a different energy when they’re old,” she says), and spending time in a restoration workshop, where she learnt, among other things, the ancient art of water gilding. This labour-intensive process involves building a surface with gesso, and layering it with a special clay called bole, before applying gold leaf. It’s an experience that continues to influence her love of colour. Look at her home, and her projects, and she is drawn time and again to the burnt ambers, ochres and warm yellows revealed through the gilding process. “When you strip off the gold leaf you get this beautiful glow coming through. These colours remind me of that,” she says, pulling up an image of a client’s bedroom with its cardinal red Fortuny curtains and a golden-toned velvet sofa of her own design. While white might seem safe, it can be a jarring contrast to other colours if the tone is too bright. she says. Uniacke prefers softer, warmer whites – her collection includes a quartet of whites, and many more off-whites – from eau de nil to cloudier tints. When Uniacke first began decorating her own homes, she’d hang the walls with artist’s canvases before painting them, to create a textured, muted effect. Today, her paint and fabric collections contain the colour “Canvas”. The interplay of tone and texture in velvets, silks and cashmeres is another influence.While she may err away from shock, she allows room for strength and surprise. Purple? She had a house with windows dressed in antique, lilac-hued silk damask curtains, she tells me. Yellow? “It’s my favourite colour,” she says, pulling up an image of her own study, with its antique silk curtains, whose custard-tart tone is echoed in the room’s Mughal carpet and a Sarah Lucas portrait on the wall. One of the new hues is the brilliantly bold “Buttercup”. Would she ever cover the walls in its unapologetic glory? “‘Buttercup’ walls,” she smiles, considering it. “That would be fun — actually, that would be wild.”Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on X or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
