To get a better idea of what to expect from 'Aesthetic Designs', let's take a look at what Michelle Ogundehin predicts for the world of interior design in 2022.
Originally trained as an architect and the former Editor-in-Chief of ELLE Decoration UK, Ogundehin is the Head Judge on the BBC's Interior Design Masters, and the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness, a game-changing guide to living well.
She is also a regular contributor to many prestigious publications, including Vogue Living, FT How to Spend It magazine, and Dezeen.
"At the end of my last trends report, I proposed 2021 as 'the year for the interiors equivalent of speaking your own truth' understanding 'that the best homes are about the feeling they give you not the stuff they contain, the 'right' colors or 'hot' looks,' Ogundehin wrote.
"The most poignant of these was that we are all products of our environment. And we were making a right mess of ours. Not just on the wider climate scale, but also domestically. I'd even written a book drawing a direct line between our homes and our health: Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness. It was published as the first waves of Covid hit UK shores, but conceived way before the word pandemic had entered the popular lexicon."
Its message was a simple one: what surrounds you affects you. "While many of us know this intuitively, for the scientifically inclined, there's a Stanford University study that proves environment is more important than genetics in determining the strength of your immune system," Ogundehin highlighted.
"Albeit I'm leaping to the assumption that the bosses of our worst air, water, and plastic polluting corporations (China Coal and Saudi Aramco to Coca-Cola, Pepsico, and Unilever among others) start focusing their might on species survival rather than lucrative personal tenures. Things are happening, but too slowly," she said.
"Regardless, my faith still rests with the power of the everyman and the nudges for change we can make as individuals. A 2020 report by the IBM Institute for Business Value showed that six out of 10 consumers are ready to change their purchasing behavior to minimize their environmental footprint. This has power because options exist, consumers switch and such direct impact on corporate bottom lines forces change."
Ogundehin is positive that the most incredible opportunities already exist for us and every single brand can be a game-changing trailblazer for the greater good.
