NORDIC MOOD

Childhood home

Katrine’s parents were self-employed, her mother as an interior decorator, her father with a good eye for commerce. Together they developed Tapet-Cafe (Wallpaper Café) in Gentofte north of Copenhagen, which Katrine’s brother later took over and modernized.

‘Initially, the business was run entirely by my mother, who sold wallpaper and served coffee in a modest side room to a former dairy in Gentofte. When there were no customers, she designed interior solutions, working at a drawing table in the back room,’ Katrine explains. ‘She did well. My mother had a knack for customer relations and for spotting a good deal. She bought some overstock of sprigged French wallpaper from a Swedish wholesaler at DKK 1 a roll and sold them from her tiny shop at DKK 75 per roll. In fact, sprigged wallpaper was not trendy at all, but my mother thought white walls were dull, and her clients trusted her judgement and were willing to soften up their Scandinavian minimalism,’ says Katrine.

It seems to me Katrine’s mother had a good sense of customer relations, trends and a good deal.

In an international light she was definitely not the only one who felt like bringing in patterns and colours.

‘After a while, my parents were able to buy the whole dairy, so we moved into a flat on the first floor, while the business could expand on the ground floor. At this point my father joined the business.’

What is your main recollection from that time? I ask. ‘I remember a lot of running up and down the stairs, and that just as we would be sitting down for a cup a tea and some family time, the bell would jingle, and either mum or dad had to run downstairs to look after the shop. I also remember a lot of talk about the customers and their taste, both when it met with my parents’ approval and when they turned up their noses.

My parents were always working. During the weekends they did the accounts, and my mother had a principle of paying off the suppliers as soon as the bill came in; that makes for the best relationship, she would say, I adhere to that principle to this day.’

Leaving home

And you were not going to take over the business? ‘No, I thought I was going to be head of marketing in a big company. To be a small independent business owner did not seem attractive or prestigious to me at all.

I got wiser, didn’t I,’ says Katrine with a smile. ‘The benefits of being your own boss are almost indescribable. I have periodically returned to work with my brother, but he was the one who saw possibilities in the family business and who was there when my parents needed help, so in turn, he was the one who took it over. Now we’re business partners, and that’s perfect.’

At home in London

Your brother helped out in the shop, and you moved to London? ‘Yes, my boyfriend relocated, so I followed along and wrote my thesis in our cosy little loft in South Kensington. This was in the early 1990s, and the unemployment rates in London were high, so job prospects looked bleak. When I had finished my thesis, I swallowed my pride and took a job as a shop assistant in a Mulberry ladieswear concession on the second floor of Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. To be honest, I don’t think I would have accepted the job if I had been on home ground; after all, I did have a five-year degree. But I pulled myself together and figured I would just have to work my way up the ladder. There was a lot of competition for promotions, and nobody was noticing me in that department. But then Mulberry opened an “At Home” department on the fourth floor of the same department store. I fell in love with the products at first sight. This was my first encounter with a different interior design style than the sparse Danish look I had grown up with. A wonderful version of English country style. I applied for a transfer to the new department. I knew how to make measurements and how to sell. My manager was not a good salesperson, but I was, and when Roger Saul (the founder of Mulberry) noticed me, I advanced quickly, and before I knew it, I was Market Manager for the Nordic region and later for all of Northern Europe and South America.’ The essence of Katrine – pragmatic, I think to myself!

Katrine continues, ‘My relationship with my Danish boyfriend fell apart after five years. I met another man, an investment banker, and we married. He was as enterprising as I was, and together we opened 1 Lombard Street, a restaurant with a capacity of more than 300 people in a former banking hall at the most glamorous address in the City of London. The restaurant was a huge success, but the marriage failed, and shortly after the opening I decided to move back to Copenhagen.’

At home in Copenhagen

‘Now back home again, and tired of suits, I took a job in an ad agency. I figured I ought to find myself a creative man. I could tell you many stories from that period, but in summary, what I thought was going to be creative work turned out to be more about administration, and company morale was not the best.’

But did you find a creative man? I ask. ‘Hmm,’ says Katrine with a half-smile. ‘I soon discovered the men were far too creative for my taste. They roller-skated indoors, played basketball from their office chairs and were extremely self-centred. So no. The father of my children is a man I met at the bridge club.’

So then you left the advertising business?

‘Yes, I had a child and spent some time working with my mother and my brother in Tapet-Cafe; then I had another child, and I realized it was time for me to establish my own company. I wasn’t going to have a shop, I was sure of that. It had to have an aesthetic aspect, I was equally sure of that. And also, I would like to write.

As I was pondering what to focus on, I ran into a stylist I knew from Tapet-Cafe. She told me she was on her way to photograph a summer cottage, and I asked her if I could come along as her assistant. When I came home I thought, I’m not going as an assistant. I can arrange my own photo shoot. So I resolutely called my mother’s friend, who was the editor-in-chief of the monthly lifestyle magazine IN. I asked if it was hard to do home design features. She said no, what’s hard is finding the beautiful homes. And I thought, well that I can do, so I teamed up with a good photographer. For a number of years we did a lot of home design features. Since then, I have worked with a number of photographers on home design, campaign shoots for design companies and editorial material for monthly magazines both in Denmark and abroad.’

So this would have been while you had young children, was that a good match?

‘It was great, because it was completely up to me when and how much I wanted to work.’

A new home in Frederiksberg

The children grew older, and I knew that your life took quite a turn a few years ago.

‘Yes, it did. Without any prior warning, one night in late January 2016, my husband, the father of my children, suddenly collapsed with a heart attack. In an instant, our whole life changed. It was shocking and devastating, but I was able to decide to go on living and to have a good life.’

‘I had the courage to meet a new man, and today I am in a very happy relationship.

My boyfriend, Henrik, has embraced my children with open arms. A little less than a year after we met, we moved into a new shared home, a single-family home in the modernist style in Frederiksberg, where there is room for all of us, including his two, younger children, who spend every second weekend with us. Henrik is a joiner and extremely good at what he does. We have a strong shared aesthetic sensibility and often do collaborative projects. It is wonderful to have his support on every platform, both in my personal life and in my work. Our everyday life is good.’

In the clients’ homes

And the projects? ‘I will be publishing another book soon, in the autumn of 2020. Together with photographer Mikkel Adsbøl I have made a Nordic Christmas book titled The Season. We visited 12 creative people to see how they decorate for Christmas and to get their ideas for something creative you can make yourself and a Christmas recipe. And of course I’m very focused on my private and commercial clients.’

Katrine’s commercial clients are design companies that she does photographs for in collaboration with varying photographers.

And your private clients, who are they, I ask. ‘Some are people who recently bought a new home and need help with the bigger picture – from interior design and colour scheme to the even larger scale of moving walls or pouring a new floor. Just as often, it’s people who struggle to make the interior design of their existing home work. My clients don’t typically have a lot of designer furniture or expensive art. But most people have things that look good in addition to a lot of clutter.’

Whether something looks good is often about having things that interact, isn’t it? Seeing and highlighting their characteristics? ‘Yes, I agree. In fact, I don’t tend to describe things as ugly or nice; I’m more interested in whether they reflect the client’s personality, whether the quality is good, and whether the pieces match in terms of style, colours and proportions,’ says Katrine.

How does it work in practice? ‘First, the client tells me a little about him/herself, shows me around and describes his or her needs. In a matter of a few hours, I am able to get a picture of what the task entails,’ Katrine explains.

‘If the project involves knocking down walls and other major renovations, I go straight home to the drawing table, and then I put together a team of builders and craftspeople. If it is an existing home, we begin to move things around right away, and typically we move many things out. Most of the time, it’s more about taking things away than it is about adding new ones. Often, there’s no need to buy anything. All that’s needed is rearranging what’s there. I have a really good eye for that.’

And when it is a bigger project, or when rearranging what the customer already has is not enough? I know you often use mood boards. ‘Mood boarding’ is a good tool in any creative endeavour, but to many non-professionals it must be difficult, if not impossible, to go from mood board to reality? ‘When I show up I have bags full of material samples, and once the clients are able to see and feel things for themselves, that fuels the creative process, and suddenly, it’s easier for them to address what they like and what they don’t like,’ says Katrine with conviction.

So, when you have been in a home for a few hours, rearranging things and offering directions, maybe done a mood board with the client, what’s the next step? Who paints the walls and rearranges things, who shifts the wall, if that’s what’s called for? Who picks out what to buy, and who does the buying? ‘After my visit, the material/colour mood board is turned into a board with actual products. This board is intended as a plan for what the client can/should invest in, in terms of furniture, lamps and other items, over time. I always recommend people not to go out and buy everything all at once.

Sometimes a client will ask me to handle the purchases, and I offer that service too. Sometimes we go shopping together. If there are renovations involved, I have a list of builders and craftspeople I recommend. My boyfriend is a joiner, and one of the best I ever met.

Joinery solutions improve most interiors. If the client needs new curtains, I refer them to my brother, of course. He’s not cheap, but I know that no one makes more beautiful curtain solutions than he does.’

Designing a colour scheme for a room requires knowledge of light and daylight influx, the impact of colours on our mood and so forth – or a strong intuition. Do you take a technical or an intuitive approach?

‘My approach is completely intuitive,’ says Katrine, ‘and if there is no obvious palette to base it on, I encourage people to look out the window and work with the colours of nature. If you live in the middle of a city, it can also be effective to draw on the colours of the buildings you see out your window. I swear by muted, dusty, subtle colours, often cold colours, and I give red notes a wide berth. Warm, burnt notes work better at warmer latitudes, while cooler colours work well in a Nordic context.’

You have mentioned that we lack art and good crafts objects, and you have mentioned your boyfriend, who can deliver joinery solutions, and your brother, who makes curtains, and how they are a part of your toolbox.

Is that in fact a big part of both the problem and the solution – that for many years, whatever our budget, we have all bought off-the-rack solutions, so that we never had the perfect fit. Like buying clothes that do not fit properly; you keep having the urge to buy something new, because you’re never quite comfortable!

In other words, if we have things made to order that fit us, our rooms and our lifestyle rather than opting for ‘one size fits all’, we will have more beautiful and more functional homes where we’re not constantly replacing things in a never-ending search for perfection? ‘You’re absolutely right,’ says Katrine, nodding in agreement. In closing, I ask, after a visit from you and the joiner and the curtain man, will we feel more at home in our homes? ‘In my experience, it often takes just a few days, and then a family member, a colleague or a friend rings me up and says they’ve heard that I can work miracles.’