Fashion Meets Design

Emma Oldham’s creative talents shine through her exquisitely tailored apartment where beautiful materials and luxe fabrics mix with classic pieces

- Judith Wilson

Emma Oldham’s passion for elegant, understated style is evident from the moment you step into her restored period home. From the hall, a sweep of chic pink stair carpet takes your eye upwards, while straight ahead the living room is a celebration of unusual art, modern and mid-20th-century furniture and sophisticated colour. ‘I always prefer tones not to perfectly match,’ says Emma. ‘I think they’re better a little off-key.’

With its four-metre high living room ceiling and oak parquet flooring, the apartment looks true to its Victorian roots. But when Emma bought it three years ago, it was an ugly, boxy 1980s conversion, totally lacking features apart from, oddly, a Gothic-style staircase. Seeing its potential, Emma wasn’t put off. She removed the false ceiling and swapped the banister for a traditional style, then reinstated the original mouldings, skirtings and window shutters in the living room and sourced the flooring. ‘I put back the pretty bones the property deserved,’ says Emma, who studied fashion and later switched to interior design.