Why David Collins Studio is in the Design 100

David Collins founded his studio in London in 1985, building a reputation first on the high street with Café Rouge and Chez Gérard before Claridge’s Bar, unveiled in 1998, established the vocabulary that would define his career: rich materials, Art Deco detailing and a saturated, jewel-toned use of colour. The Wolseley and The Connaught’s bar, its three panelled rooms hand-painted in a Hibernian landscape of dusty pink and pistachio green, followed. Those interiors set a register of hospitality glamour London hotels and restaurants have measured themselves against ever since.

Collins died in July 2013, a year after Walpole gave him its lifetime achievement award. The studio he co-founded with Iain Watson has continued under Watson’s leadership since, with creative director Simon Rawlings and design directors Georgina Wood and Lewis Taylor carrying its hospitality, residential and retail work forward, from Harrods to hotel projects across five continents. Four decades on, the name still stands for a particular register of London polish.