Luxury Interior Design Studio

Founded in 1985, David Collins Studio is an award-winning interior, architecture and product design studio, delivering internationally recognised retail and hospitality destinations, as well as a select number of residential projects. The Studio works with brands that represent the best in their field and with private clients that share its obsession with luxury interior design. A team of talented and experienced interior designers expertly manage the entire process from concept through to completion.

Perhaps best known for its London signature restaurant and bar projects, the Studio delivers industry-leading interior design within the hospitality sector. David Collins Studio is the design firm behind award-winning projects such as The Wolseley, The Artesian and Connaught Bar – winner of World’s Best Bar for four consecutive years.

“David Collins Studio redesigned the interiors of some of London’s most opulent and historic hotel bars and restaurants in a style redolent of their classic charm and decadence, infused with a modern aesthetic and lightened by a great sense of fun.” — The Times

As well as signature restaurants and destination bars, the Studio has spearheaded the design of national concept rollouts for restaurant chains and food retailers, including Café Rouge and Dome, as well as highstreet food retailers EAT and Pret A Manger.

The Studio has also worked with luxury fashion and accessories brands internally, including roll outs for Alexander McQueen, Jimmy Choo and Vivienne Westwood. David Collins Studio are experts in absorbing and communicating brand values and this is reflected in the iconic projects delivered for global clients.

Since its first full-scope hotel design project for The London Hotels in New York and West Hollywood, the Studio has collaborated with renowned luxury hotel brands Le Meridien, Rocco Forte Hotels and Four Seasons. More recently, the Studio designed the award-winning Mandarin Oriental Msheireb Downtown Doha, the brand’s first hotel in the Middle East, and the Nobu Hotel London Portman Square.

In 2019, David Collins Studio began its first maritime project, collaborating with Cunard on their newest luxury cruise ship.

Philosophy

Founded in 1985, David Collins Studio is an award-winning interior architecture and design Studio, delivering internationally recognised hospitality, residential and retail projects across the globe. The Studio works with luxury and heritage brands that represent the best in their field, as well as a select number of private clients that share an obsession with detail, craft and refinement.

The alchemy of possibilities

To describe it as the design process ignores the emotional commitment that exists at David Collins Studio.

It starts with a confident client, and it requires an idea.

The idea may be lateral and oblique to start with, but it soon evolves as a palette of materials, colours and moods emerges and the familiar becomes exotic.

An internal lexicon

Nobody can own a language. We do not have exclusive rights to the words that we use. Some are words that others use to describe David Collins Studio, some are words that we deploy ourselves.

Intriguing. Beguiling. Provocative. Otherworldly. Elegant. Subversive. Unpredictable. Quality. Permanent. Graceful. Rigorous. Luxurious. Privilege. Subtle. Opulent. Singular. Timeless. Intelligent. Discreet.

Inspiration is not imitation

Our influence is never literal or obvious. It has been refracted and reconfigured. A single object or detail can be informed by a myriad of references. These come from art, cinema, music, fashion, architecture, literature, philosophy, geography, and history.

The skill is in distilling all of this into an environment which belongs to no specific era or discipline. It is the instinct to look to the past without nostalgia. To reference history without the slide towards pastiche.

The tourist and the purist

Who is a typical David Collins Studio client? There is no quick answer to this question that is of any value.

There is no restriction on the spectrum of what we design and who we design for.

Born out of time

Design was undergoing a surge in 1985. Clumsy Post industrialism, frigid minimalism and crude maximalism swept through a decade of excess. Carpets, upholstery and curtains were eradicated.

Into this David Collins revealed something entirely disconnected, the notion of swooning romance and sensual tension. If it slightly dumbfounded critics his visual eloquence and poetic sensitivity seduced a discerning clientele.

His name became a globally understood byword for beauty and luxury. This, to the curious and wayward vision of David meant a point of deviation and evolution.

His desire to explore the outreaches and uncharted regions of aesthetics is critical to the purpose of David Collins Studio.

The beauty of being born out of time means it is impossible to be defined by an era.

There is design that is defined by a decade, and there is design as defined by David Collins Studio.

A peculiar necessity

David Collins composed a Studio with the same precise judgment that he used to compose everything. He then used the Studio as a strange laboratory wherein conventional and familiar form could be broken down, particalised and meticulously re-assembled to satisfy his desire for intriguing and subtly wayward beauty.

As the Studio evolved and grew so, too, did the capability to refine all of its output into a unique statement. Less a design office and more of a belief system based on overwhelming and lethal elegance.

The Studio instinct is to distill and not to dilute. The perfect colour and nothing less. An obsessive commitment to material and detail.

Decisions are never made in favour of convenience. Every element of a project is passed through a stringent quality filter. A beauty which requires no thorough explanation.

A question of value(s)

Some people require quick solutions at a low cost that will deliver for the short-term. Solutions with superficial effect and little consideration for the future. Some people still believe that value is found in the lowest cost.

The pursuit of beauty for David Collins Studio comes with a powerful sense of permanence. It is simple, David Collins Studio wants its work to exist for as long as is possible. That explains the selection of materials which, owing to quality, become more beautiful with age.

We are awarded projects because of the quality and beauty that defines our work. Sometimes we are not awarded projects because of our perceived cost. We could spend a lot of time explaining and justifying this, or, we could simply, and confidently, do what we do for our international, and very appreciative, clientele.