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Profile of David Collins:
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Profile of David Collins

Kate Spicer profiles David Collins, designer of Claridge's Bar.
A Filipino maid opens the door to David Collins' house and my eyes dart on before me. It is always fascinating to see how interior designers choose to decorate their own abode, and I am particularly keen for detail of Collins' home.

His is a name known, largely, among the cognoscenti who occupy his spaces: that is, those who dine in the world's best restaurants, stay in its best hotels, shop with little regard for budget and enjoy the odd peek at the gossip pages.
In recent years, the forty-something Irishman (he declines to divulge his age) has shaped retail, hotel and restaurant spaces and redefined the world of up-market interior design.

And, despite his work for clients as diverse as the jeweller David Morris in Palm Beach and the lingerie label Victoria's Secret in the States, it is in London where he has made the most difference. So, forgetting for a moment the work in New York, St Petersburg, Barbados and Dublin, his roll of honour in London includes the Blue Bar and PŽtrus at The Berkeley and Claridge's Bar, as well as restaurants such as The Belvedere and Locanda Locatelli. If you can get a table at any of those tonight, you are probably Madonna, or Tom Ford, or have an excellent concierge. It is probably no coincidence that Collins knows both quite well. So David Collins is 'in'. When I arrive, he is upstairs in a formal drawing room, being photographed for a story in The Financial Times' weekend supplement, How to Spend It. 'How not to spend it is what I need to know,' he says when he joins me downstairs. My first impression is how self-effacing he is, unusually so - which seems odd, given the charmed circles he mixes with. He doesn't talk easily about his achievements, and would rather discuss general ideas, politics and the fact that he never got to grips with physics and chemistry at school. 'Couldn't see the point,' he says. He insists that he lives a simple life: 'If someone invited me to the most fancy-schmancy place, or to an evening in Shoreditch playing cards, the cards would win every time,' he says. This explains, perhaps, Collins' success. He has never rested on his laurels, preferring to think of himself as being one step from failure. ('Being broke makes you powerless,' he says.) He never talks about work out of his long hours. 'I work hard. Unfortunately, success is usually down to hard work.' And a dose of talent. I wouldn't say that he has a signature style, as every interior of his is different, and yet when I walk into a restaurant I can usually tell within moments that it has been done by Collins. He trained as an architect, so the spaces tend to have a depth that less intellectual decorators never reach. He can go well beyond the cosmetic, while creating spaces which, he well knows, are destined to be temporary. There is incredible attention to detail in a Collins space; there's more than just physical comfort in his rooms, it is also spiritual. And his rooms are sexy - you feel that you should look good in a Collins interior; indeed, it's very hard not to do so. His interiors are also typified by rich colours. The detailing might be classical, but the rooms he designs are refreshingly modern. 'My major influences are Mies van der Rohe and Eileen Gray, who were modern at all costs. But modern is not an aesthetic any more. Minimalism and modernism are not linked. These days, "modern" is an attitude, not a style.' Collins' most recent work was for Marcus Wareing's PŽtrus restaurant at The Berkeley. 'I do not take the easy route. It's not easy to do a claret-covered, velvet-upholstered room when everyone else is doing white.' His partnership with the Savoy Group has been a happy one. 'I like collaborating with people with principles,' he says. 'They are interested, they want to get it right, compared with other hoteliers, who hold the view that someone's mate could do this cheaper.' The Savoy Group left him to it when it came to The Blue Bar, an example of his ability to be modern with classical form. The blue finish he gave to Sir Edwin Lutyens' panelling might have made more cautious decorators wince. 'Those Lutyens panels,' he says, in his intense Dublin burr, 'I am nothing if not well-informed. I knew that when they were moved from the old Berkeley, they had been cut from 14 down to nine feet high. They had already been bastardised.' So back to his flat, which he calls 'studenty'. 'It's where I read, watch TV, listen to music and play guitar and piano.' It's decorated in white, mauve, shades of blue, wood, and black. It is mirrored, lacquered, textured, yet smooth. There's a purple rubber floor in the kitchen and in the sitting-room, which features a hardwood floor there is a large white painting that would not look out of place in a gallery. Collins did it himself, in an introspective moment. And, of course, it fits the space perfectly.