Paloma Faith’s accent, from Oliver Twist, helps her bag home bargains

Paloma Faith’s new homewares collection is faithful to her signature style. It’s loud, proud and affordable, and inspired by her grandmother.

The popstar and actor is no minimalist. Her style is strong, vibrant and fierce. So it comes as no surprise that the same sensibility runs through her newly launched homewares range, Paloma Home, her first foray into the world of interiors.

She says the idea came from friends coming to visit her home in London and wanting to know how to buy similar things.

Speaking from a very nicely appointed rental with tasteful pale oak parquet in Prague, where she’s currently living while filming, she says her London home “is a shambolic mess of colour”.

High-end Dublin houses are selling quickly. Who’s buying them?

---

Former embassy on sought-after Dartry stretch for €5.25m

---

MyHome.ie releases new valuation tool for estate agents

---

“I wanted to bring that into this collection without you having to think too much about putting it all together.”

She has been lucky enough to travel the world while on tour and hives out time to browse and bargain hunt when away. She does all the legwork herself using what she calls a “sneaky little hack”. She prefixes the city she’s in with the word “hipster”, so hipster Prague, for example, and finds it delivers a good menu of cafes, fashion and vintage stores. In London she piles on the banter when she’s haggling.

“My accent helps. I sound like a production of Oliver Twist.”

And luckily for her, she says they don’t recognise her when she’s trying the same strategy abroad.

Finds that she’s proud of include a modular L-shaped 1970s sofa she found on eBay for £200 (€233) and then covered with a leopard print fabric.

“The fabric cost more than the sofa,” she quips.

It features heavily as a prop in the rich photography by interiors snapper Michael Sinclair. Other big cat prints, painted velvets, frou frou fringing and textures are all there in abundance and are styled in a way that’s very on point.

“I love pattern,” Faith says. “I’m quite the maximalist. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe I should blame my parents. They were into minimalism, white walls, white bedding and so much storage that the place looked empty.” Maybe it’s a prolonged teenage rebellion.

In contrast she says her Spanish grandmother was swathed in colour.

“She had hundreds of ceramic swans, doilies and ornaments. My frilly, Spanish Catholic side revolted. I hate white, beige or grey. ”

The only white thing she tolerates in her house is white bed linen. She likes silky Egyptian cotton and thread count is important but she hasn’t seen her bedding samples yet. The cushions, all replete with tactile trims, are a gateway buy. They’re affordable.

The range also includes wallpapers, one that pays homage to the work of her favourite film director, Hong Kong-born Wong Kar-wai, whose 2004 film 2046 features a love scene in which the wallpaper was, for Faith, the star attraction.

When in London she loves shopping at Les Couilles du Chein, a vintage store cum cabinet of curiosities.

“I buy a lot from him. I don’t like his prices but I just crumble.”

In LA she heads to Lady Peter’s Whimsy where owner Victoria told her she had Jane Mansfield’s training bra.

“She’s a girl after my own heart, she overcharges but the story of how she got it hooks you. It’s so emotive. I bought a plate for $100 so naff that it features cotton wool dogs with oogly googly eyes.”

She’s bought velvet paintings too,wrapped them in bubble-wrap and put them in her suitcase to bring home where her partner, artist Leyman Lahcine, has asked the burning question: “How much stuff can one house hold?”

She could respond in song, her own 2019 I Gotta Be Me perhaps. Their home is, by her own admission “full of stuff and full of tat, from tiny things that seem pointless, like casino chips” that she really liked the colour of to vintage ocelot print cushions whose fringing inspired her own range.

But there’s difference between clutter and cool chez Faith.

“Everything is quite tidy,” she explains. “When you dump lots of stuff somewhere it doesn’t have value but if it is well aligned and in a clean, curated space it gives it value.”

It is easier to work this look at home if you don’t have to do all the dusting. Paloma has a cleaner.

“My collection is about creating a framework, a crazy canvas, an explosion of colour that is affordable.”

The feather-filled cushions range from €45 to €55 and the duvet sets have double, (€100), king (€115), or super-king (€125) options. These will be available through Hickey's Home Focus stores and online from mid-August. Prices for the wallpaper, which will be available direct from UK-based Paloma Home, start from about €55 per roll while selected upholstery will be available via Sofology. Prices per metre start from about €55.

[ Palomahome.com ]

[ Homefocus.ie ]

[ Sofology.co.uk ]