26: Nina Campbell

Bunny chats to Nina Campbell in her London Garden. Nina is the Doyenne of Interiors and is an internationally renown Interior Designer. Nina won the American Fashion award for ‘the Women who has most influenced style Internationally’ and works for many celebs such as Ringo Star and the royals. Nina is Godmother to Geri Halliwell’s daughter. She was born on the day after World War II ended. Nina talks about her life and how she got into interior design. Nina she still enjoys running her business despite being 79 years old . Her wide business interests include having a shop and designing fabric collections. Nina has no intention of having an exit strategy, but enjoys working with young designers and creating new ranges for a wide range of price points. Nina talks about her design strategies and how she plays with scale and colour. In her tiny London garden she has played with paving sizes to create false perspective, has used mirrors and narrow but high containers to make the space look bigger but also softer. The palette of plants, the louvred fencing and the furniture are chosen with great attention to detail and together create stunning relaxing spaces from what was a narrow, dusty, roadside strip with no privacy from the public. For Nina’s present, Bunny takes Nina a plant, Dianthus barbatus ‘Sooty’ , a short lived perennial with beautifully deep maroon flower heads that last for months. It also has an exceptionally long vase life. This plant self seeds (and is true from seed) so although technically a short lived perennial, in affect it rarely needs replacing. To see Nina’s gardensee Bunny’s YouTube ‘Bunny chats to Nina Campbell in her London Garden’. #ninacampbell #bunnyguinnesspodcast