Hospitality Design - November 2019 - 44

interview
perspectives

The Unicorn Grey wallpaper set
behind the Bloomsbury sofa

Kit Kemp: I love that description.
MW: You reinvented the way hotels can look.
Looking back at the post-war travel boom, there
were some horrible hotels. The big chains came
in and improved basic standards, but they were
generic. And that's what people wanted-the
reassurance of a generic product. Things stayed
that way until the '80s, when Kit became one
of a handful of designers to change design
attitudes.

they don't like them. But when you complete
the look and have the Yves Klein-blue coffee
table with liquorice allsort stools, they see how
fabulous it is.

Apache Sienna wallpaper and chairs
upholstered in the Great Plains fabric

faultless, but not necessarily creative. Ours sparks
something in the imagination.

MW: My children tell me what I do is weird, but
in the end, weird is good.

MW: I'm not so keen on discussing projects
in advance. You tend to lose some of the
excitement when it comes to the big reveal.

KK: The beginning of a project is always

KK: For me, it was all about the sense of
arrival. When you're traveling en masse by
airplane, arriving at your hotel signals the start
of an adventure. Today, when so many high
streets have the same multiples and chains, we
look to hotels to capture our imagination.

important to me for the flow. With event
spaces, if you have seven gatherings
happening at the same time, you don't want
to hear or see each other. So the very first and
last parts are crucial. You shouldn't be able
to visualize the whole thing on the first day.
There's always a building process for us on
projects, so ideas have to keep moving.

MW: That's so true. Hotels provide

MW: You're much braver than I am.

On the importance of storytelling
KK: It's amazing when I think of the stories
you've told since the '70s. Through Martin's eyes,
you realize the world is a small place. It's like
anthropology. Everything merges and you see the
links between different tribes and nations. The
other thing we have in common is that we are
great collectors. What you collect doesn't have to
be expensive, but when you place them together,
they start talking to you.

MW: When I think back to the '70s, I like to say
it's the decade that taste forgot.

KK: But it did all start there.

individuality on identical high streets.

KK: Martin has always underplayed his role
On the creative process
KK: I never knew there was a template, so it
was easy to ignore. Having said that, I have
had to design by stealth at times because
there will always be people who say you can't
do something a certain way. If you talk about
vivid turquoise and lacquer, people will say

044

November 2019 hospitalitydesign.com

in design. To do what you've done in retail, all
the rules you've broken by putting together
different styles, fabrics, lighting, furniture,
now that can only be done by a master. You
became one of the first destinations for people
looking for new ideas, and that remains true.
I see a lot of interior designers whose work is

MW: Yes, it was an astonishingly creative decade.
We did wear extremely embarrassing clothes, but
fortunately, the internet didn't exist. At the time,
it was all about geometrical patterns, bold colors,
and the space age. We all thought we'd be walking
around in white vinyl jumpsuits, eating pills, and
traveling around in jet packs by now.
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