Adding to her growing number of style bibles, this month sees the launch Jane Cumberbatch’s new book, Pure Colour. The book, laid out as though you are delving into the personal style notebook of Jane, takes you on a journey through 5 colour palettes and a veritable paintbox of inspiration for your life and home. It’ll make you excited for summer and beyond. We caught up with Jane to find out all about it.
What can readers expect from your new book?
The book shows the reader how to look at the colour in daily life and see how it can inspire an idea for an interior scheme. Arranged as an intimate scrapbook, Pure Colour is filled with my notes and illustrations from my travels both local and more far flung.
How to describe your own personal interiors style
My personal look is not just about rooms and furnishings, or about trying to achieve an impossibly perfect glossy lifestyle. It ‘s about trying to achieve a balance. It’s about making life luxurious, not in a costly, glitzy sense, but in a more matter-of-fact , practical and natural way. It’s about paring down and trying to live with less clutter – the fewer things we have to fuss about, the more we can get on with living. It’s about simple, basic design that combines function and beauty of form – crisp , clean , classic and timeless.
What inspired you to write another book?
I’ve written and styled my previous books, and worked with wonderful photographers. But having spent years looking through someone else’s lens I wanted to set myself the challenge of photographing my own book . I love taking the photos for my blog, and it seemed a logical step to work on a new book about colour – a theme which has always been my passion. My trusty secondhand Canon 5D travels everywhere with me, and there’s a tripod on hand when necessary.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
I find inspiration in the ordinary and everyday. The garden, the sea and landscape. are my colour charts, my paintboxes of ideas and inspiration . From the green beans of the vegetable patch to the eau de Nil wash of a calm evening tide I store these images in my head like snapshots, everyday ideas to help furnish my home with freshness and simplicity. There are too many sources of creative inspiration to mention here but William Morris , Terence Conran, Henri Matisse, David Hockney , Laura Ashley, and Constance Spry, are a few of my heroes and heroines .
What has been the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
No one single piece of advice but my lovely mum encouraged me to bend the rules and do things my way rather than follow the pack!
Photos: Jane Cumberbatch
Visit Jane’s website at www.purestyleonline.com
