Interior designer Cath Beckett, co-founder of Yellow London, has made her own flat the perfect showcase for her bold, expressive use of colour and pattern
As is the case with most creative people, the question ‘how do you do it?’ can be a frustrating one for interior designers. ‘I don’t know how I do it,’ is a frequent reply, ‘it just happens!’ Such is the case with Cath Beckett, one half of interior design duo Yellow London, whose London flat is a striking showcase for her bold, playful approach to colour and pattern. While those of us who lack such clever instincts may lament the difficulty of explaining them, it just makes it all the more impressive when we see the finished result.
Cath acquired the two bedroom flat, in a Victorian house just off Ladbroke Grove in west London, from her brother when he moved to Singapore. “I moved in in 2019, “ she explains, “after two boys in their 20s had been living there for several years, so it was pretty grim.” It’s easy to imagine the state of it, but the flat was redeemed by its well-proportioned rooms and the light flooding in. “I wasn’t meant to do much at all to it,” she continues. “But I ended up doing everything.”
Cath had set up Yellow London in 2017 with her partner Liv Wallers. The two met while working for the interior designer Joanna Wood, after Cath had spent her early career working in visual merchandising at OKA. “We use lots of colour at Yellow,” says Cath. “I hate a white wall.” The studio’s aesthetics have found a sort of apotheosis in her own flat. Certainly there are no white walls, and everywhere you look – in the upholstery, the wallpaper, the tiles or the cushions – is another exuberant pattern.
The idea of comfort is at the heart of all this. While some people might find relaxation in a spare, uncluttered room, for Cath, it’s the sense of being enveloped and embraced by the space that does it. There is plenty of pink in the flat, starting with the pale pink walls in the sitting room, and the pink upholstery of the sofa. “It’s such a nice cosy warming colour,” she says, “and it looks good in all seasons.” From this gentle base the patterns are built up: a kaleidoscopic Teyssier flamestitch fabric on the bentwood armchairs; a pink and red fan print by Ottoline Devries on the blinds; lilac ᵴtriƥes on the cushions; and marbled lampshades dotted around the room.
Comfort has also dictated Cath’s attitude to living in a small space. Though the sitting room is small, it is packed with large furniture. The sofa is generously sized and very inviting; a large Swedish desk stands in front of the window, and another chest behind the sofa. “I don’t mind that the furniture takes up most of the room,” she shrugs, “although I wouldn’t do it with a client!” That same love of being enveloped is particularly obvious in the dining room, a narrow space down a few stairs from the sitting room. Cath has papered the walls and ceilings of the room in Pierre Frey’s ‘Plein Eté’ pattern, surely one of the most ebullient patterns ever created. “It’s intense and all-encompassing – such a wonderful feeling when you’re in there at night.”
That fearless approach to a bold pattern is just as evident in the hallway, where Whiteworks’ ‘Rites of Spring’ wallpaper dances against the arsenic-green woodwork, and in the bathroom, where ‘Rainbow Stripe’ tiles from Otto make the shower a jewel box of colour. The bedroom demonstrates a more toned down approach – if you’re looking for that slippery ‘something to copy’ that doesn’t depend on the unknowable alchemy of the creative process, this might be it. The room centres around one large-scale pattern, a Josef Frank floral on the headboard, to which the rest of the colours and patterns in the room – pink on the walls, the pale blue cloud pattern of the curtains, the geometric skirt of the dressing table – all seem to pay homage. “You don’t want to have several big patterns all competing with one another” says Cath. “I tend to play with the scale of patterns, for instance starting with one big pattern, then perhaps using a ᵴtriƥe and a floral on a smaller scale.”
But discipline and method isn’t really the name of the game in this flat, where the process has been about freedom, spontaneity and the elusive, personal feeling of homeliness. “It’s so different to designing for a client,” says Cath of the process of designing for herself. “You don’t have to answer to anyone, so you can take risks; clients tend to prefer to avoid that.” On looking at this flat, however, and the success of all those adventurous decisions, we imagine her clients might be more inclined to trust Cath’s instincts.
