Cressida Fairfax

Cressida writes about interiors the way a set designer reads a stage: scale first, light second, objects last. That order runs through her guides, which tend to open with why a room behaves as it does before they suggest anything be bought or moved.

At The Nestiora she translates design principles into decisions a reader can actually make — proportion, colour behaviour, lighting hierarchy — and is consistently more interested in what will still look right in ten years than in what is currently everywhere.

Cressida came to interiors through theatre design, and it shows in how she writes: she treats a room as something staged, where scale, light temperature and sightlines decide how it feels long before the furniture does. She explains the principle rather than issuing the instruction.