Karen Howes’ clients regularly request glamorous, yet practical interiors which she undertakes exceptionally. Karen tends to stay away from any form of signature styling and prefers to focus on providing her clients with a home that is truly personal to that individual.
Clients within Taylor Howes’ criteria expect seamless attention to detail within their schemes. As a company, Taylor Howes designs its own joinery in-house to distinguish itself from the market, offering its clients exclusive and unique schemes.
Although Karen does not have a prominent signature style, one aspect that is fluent of her designs, is the elegance showcased and the ability to induce a home that is easy to live in. Karen has an understanding of the importance of combining flexible and functional design solutions with elegance and glamour. Personally taking inspiration from Mary Fox-Linton, Karen loves to use bursts of colour in a bold and confident manner and places great emphasis on finding show stopping artwork and unusual objects to fulfil her clients’ needs.
Knightsbridge House
Knightsbridge House is a converted church which Karen and the firm recently completed behind Harrods. A project of a lifetime, the property proved to be a real game changer for Karen and the team, as it tested the firm’s abilities in designing a family home in a high-volume, challenging space. Although it was a complicated build project – the first major project worked on as Howes & Rigby, a collaboration between Taylor Howes and developers Rigby & Rigby – the end result is amazing, something the Karen and the firm are and always will be, hugely proud of.
The brief for Knightsbridge House was to create an interior that was more Armani than Versace, using understated colours and calm neutrals.
The clients were an international family who had fallen in love with the church’s beautiful architecture, so it was important to them that Karen retained the building’s original historical features – in particular the vistas through the arches. The clients wanted to keep a lot of the character the house held with regards to the beams and the angels. Karen and the team worked with Sally Storey to make these come to life, resulting in the house being serene and magical at dusk.
Inspiration
Karen takes inspiration from anywhere, stating: “Inspiration is all around you.” She is a regular traveller, for both work and pleasure, and always comes back home with new ideas to share within the creative meetings held at the firm.
With a love of texture and detail, alongside clean palettes and strong accent colours, Karen works with great design houses such as Mary Fox-Linton and Dedar which produces beautiful textile fabrics for Taylor Howes’ projects. Karen and her team enjoy using pattern and texture within their schemes, which Karen feels that some designers are ‘shy’ of using. She believes that the use of texture and patterns bring depth to a scheme and can ‘simply pull a scheme together’.
“I love colour and would die if I was restricted by one colour,” comments Karen. “I do however get on a ‘theme’, so it was Hermes orange last year, this year it is navy blue and white and gold and now we are moving onto baby pink and rose gold – the combinations are endless which is one of the reasons I love my job, we never get stale.”
As a collector and a lover of detail, Karen does not admire the minimalistic look. She believes there is a balance achieved by Taylor Howes and something that she personally feels that Taylor Howes is recognised for. She says: “The subtle balance of decorating a space to make it feel balanced, luxurious, but elegant and never overwhelming.”
The Meadowcroft
An example of Karen’s inspiration is shown exceptionally through Taylor Howes’ project for The Meadowcroft. This is a vibrant family home full of warmth and colour. Taylor Howes had worked with the family on their London apartment and when they relocated back to the States, they asked the firm to work with them again to create a fabulous home.
Understanding and working with its clients to think of every detail and make a home inspiring, but at the same time practical, is a big part of Taylor Howes. Once the firm has been through the learning curve of how its clients like to live as a family, it is then applied to the next project.
Another scheme where this ethos is applicable is Taylor Howes’ OKG Lateral project. Again, Karen and the firm had worked with the client on a couple projects prior to this, so the client trusted the firm to work with the space and layer it to create a glamorous and unforgettable interior. Scale was important for this project with wonderful ceiling heights.
Taylor Howes can have 25-30 projects on the go at any one time, and is looking forward to working on a holiday home in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi for one client, a complex house in Notting Hill, which comprises two listed houses joined together, and three fabulous show apartments near Regents Park.