Lisa Armstrong, head of fashion at The Telegraph, explores the enduring synergy between fashion and accessories that inspires pieces like our new Sennen tableware.

Elsie de Wolfe, reputedly the inventor of interior design, once declared, ‘I am going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life’. This included clothes. The notion of beautifying every aspect of life is not new.

Then there was Coco Chanel, that great streamliner of twentieth-century womenswear, who set out a blueprint for chic, simple, luxurious clothes, but also rooms, with taupe, cream and black interiors speckled with comfy, luxurious textiles. Or Ralph Lauren who, when he launched his first homeware collection in 1983, sixteen years after his first ready to wear, instantly made ‘dressing’ your home the way you liked to dress yourself more straightforward. Other designers followed. In 2019, the London-based Erdem (a favourite of the Princess of Wales) launched blankets, ceramics and candles that reflect the chintzy, ‘English-stately’ aesthetic of his clothes. By 2020, when London Fashion Week star Roksanda dabbled in interiors for a development in Kings Cross and even staged a presentation in one, where the blush pink (which became a hugely popular interior colour), yellow and burgundy decor mirrored her collection, most of us had got the memo about the interconnectivity of everything that surrounds us.

Now, courtesy of Instagram, we’ve become as familiar with the concept of accessorising our homes as our outfits. Throws, cushions and rugs have never been more of a style statement (the most popular press gifts at the fashion and jewellery presentations recently were Dior’s toile de jouy blankets). During lockdown, ‘cottage-core’ sprigged prints and ruffled dresses and blouses sparked a contagion of delightfully pretty tablescaping with horticulture-inspired napkins, china and pleated lampshades (and yes, some influencers dressed to match their dinner plates). Floral outfits have seen a concomitant surge in the popularity of house plants; green is now everywhere in our wardrobes and our living spaces. 2023’s catwalk infatuation with stealth wealth (think soothing shades of head-to-toe milk and caramel) has also seen a renewed interest at home in the restful versatility of cappuccino.

Talking of reassuring, in 2024, the comfort and gracefulness of Edwardian style (an era described as a golden age of interiors and architecture) is in full swing on the catwalks and our screens. Thank you Peaky Blinders and Guy Richie’s The Gentlemen, where, in the latter, modern day characters wear updates of tweedy, early twentieth-century tailoring. The now-collectible Vampire’s Wife’s piecrust necklines and fluted sleeves, the nipped-in waists and tailored jackets at Dior, Erdem and McQueen, and Miu Miu’s ruched bags can all be traced back a century. When small British fashion label The Fold launched a silk dress printed with an original Arts and Crafts Liberty print design last June, it sold out instantly. The catwalk’s maxi hemlines and blazers for winter 2024 play on the period’s proportions too. At Chanel, Celine and Maison Michel, boaters are back. Meanwhile, Tate Britain’s recent John Singer Sargent exhibition, with its woozy, glamorous gaze on turn-of-the-nineteenth-century glamour, delighted crowds. Sargent’s sumptuous velvets and jewelled accent colours are already finding their way into our interiors.

Ultimately, perhaps, this is not about adopting a one season fad from social media, and more about the slow accretion of beloved layers – the subtle ruffled edging on Neptune’s new Sennen tableware that echoes the frills of Victorian and Edwardian silk blouses, and our rekindled love for kilims, needlepoint cushions, wood panelled walls and items that don’t feel perfectly finished or mass produced: a gradual gathering of objects we truly love. As Sister Parish, that master of old-meets-new-meets glamorous interiors, said decades ago, ‘I never followed trends. …rooms should be timeless and very personal'.