Stephen
ANDERSON
I always say GOD IS in the DETAIL.
What that means TO ME is
that there's an ABUNDANCE
IN EVERYTHING.
but he had such a lightness about him untainted by any semblance of the ageing consciousness that so often burdens people as they grow older. What was this man’s secret?
He shares some of that below…
I
I wanted to interview Stephen for this site because for me he personifies an agelessness, grace and style that is truly remarkable and I was knocked out when he first told me his age
a few years ago now. I found it hard to believe because he had not only looked years younger
Secondly, but not least I loved the shop that Stephen with his husband Andrew own in Brighton, Papillon which showcases their unique and vibrantly rich approach to interior design and home decoration. I found myself getting inspired and excited when I wandered around their shop which is not only decorated artistically with all sorts of interesting and often colourful things put together in a glorious array of multi-layered forms, with flare and humour but also has a most inviting and warm ambience – which of course reflects Stephen and Andrew’s embracement of all those who walk into the shop. Although they are like a couple of master traders from the Silk Road or somewhere similar many aeons ago, for them it is not about the money but about the people. Their customers often enjoy the experience of being in the shop so much that they simply don’t want to leave. What I observed on my first visit to Papillon, was how Stephen and Andrew treated each person with such a warmth, courtesy and respect that they went home with much more than a beautiful lamp or mirror or some other artefact to adorn their home.
What we'd CALL
POOR DESIGN
is actually SOMETHING
that's just been BADLY
EXECUTED
ON
EXPRESSION ...
Stephen, you and your husband, Andrew, have a beautiful and unusual interior design shop in Brighton which is full of all kinds of what you might call curiosities. And it has a magical quality to it that’s so rich and artistic and creative and we're going to see that in some of the photographs.
How did you get into making these incredible interiors? Is it something you've always had a sensitivity to? Were you like that as a young boy or is it something you've developed as you've gone through life? Colour obviously means a lot to you in interiors, is this an art that you've come to?– JB
Well, I've always had an appreciation for detail. Detail for me is everything. And it is amusing I end up in retail in my sixties. And it is said of retail, by retail gurus, that it is detailed.
I always say God is in the detail. What that means to me is that there's an abundance in everything. Have I always appreciated that? No. Have I come to appreciate it? Yes. And that's one of the joys of ageing to me. As I've got older, then I've learned to appreciate more what life offers us in terms of how it can support us with our choices of colour for instance with interiors and design, and what works as great design. What doesn't work, what we'd call poor design, is actually something that's just been badly executed.
You see this in buildings all the time. I'm always fascinated by buildings and I love architecture as well. I love travelling, I love experiencing, what the world offers, especially older cities like Florence, where I feel very much at home and Paris which I visit often, so it's these beautiful settings. But it's not so much the beauty of the places, it's actually, what is holding those places as well.
The quality? – JB
Yes, the quality. Thank you. But it's again, going back to the detail, you can walk past this beautiful building and then you'll see that the stone is fronted with a certain design.
And it's that design, the building may be completely magnificent with a massive portico, but it's this little detail on a little stone at the base that I might have noticed and I'll capture. I love that. And I think that's why I love wallpaper so much because it comes back to capturing some of those details that you can then use as a canvas on your walls.
So were you trained, did you do a design course?
– JB
No. So my background is commercial. I was in the drinks industry many years, as a buyer and then a marketer. Then I ran a software company and, that gave me the skills necessary to actually support myself as an entrepreneur and I really enjoyed that.
After some years in London we came down to Brighton without an idea of going into retail – at the time we had an actor agency, and that was with Andrew, my husband. When we first moved down to Brighton, we were looking for an office for it. We hunted high and low for an office. Couldn't find one, but we did find a really lovely shop and felt, okay, why don't we do a shop?
We love buying. We love shopping and we can just shop on a bigger scale and offer it to everybody else. Fantastic
And we wanted to create a very welcoming environment – one of the feedbacks we get most often is this shop is just like stepping into a home. And that's exactly what we want it to be, like stepping into a home – may not be your home. But it actually is often the home that people want to have, but for whatever reason, they haven't got there – because of the design process and the blocks that get in the way..
The ambience we have here is supported by beautiful non-imposing music, by scent – we have candles burning. And we are just literally being true to what we are and we love what we do and everybody who comes in here, they feel that.
Andrew and I both love interiors. We both loved actually expressing that in our own interiors at home. So, when we had the opportunity to do that on a commercial scale, then we went for it.
We've noticed our style, and we’ve always gone for wallpaper from day one, but we've noticed our style has deepened and we've gone deeper into the richness of what we're tapping into. And, it's just lovely to share that with everybody whether that's in beautiful textures, the velvets, the cushions, the embroidery, the colours of the candles, the colours of the cabinets or the gold in the wallpapers. How many shops do you go into and they have a gold ceiling?
I would be an ADVOCATE for the SIMPLICITY OF LIFE.
LIFE FLOWS and it can be
VERY SIMPLE
ON
SIMPLICITY...
Exactly. – JB
That was for us was almost one of the first things that came to us. Why would we settle with a white blank ceiling?
Stephen, would you say that the process of creativity is that things just come to you. Is that right? – JB
Very much so, yes.
And then that choice determines what you do next. For example, you maybe start with your gold ceiling and then that can influence what your next step might be. So, it's like an unfolding and it just happens. – JB
There's a term called layering, which is applied to some things like that, where you start with a colour and then you start adding other colours to it, or textures like a rug, a sofa, an ottoman or a bit of furniture – layering.
So really it’s quite a simple in essence and yet people do get overwhelmed with interior design. – JB
Well, they don’t approach it like looking at their wardrobe and putting an outfit together, which most of us can do successfully. What happens instead is that they have a house or an apartment and they get overwhelmed by the SPACE that it’s offering. They haven't got a clue, I'm talking generally here, of where to start. So, a lot of people don't ever start. It's, literally move in and accept what someone else might have had done to their walls – whether that's some wallpaper or perhaps a splash of colour – hide it with some pictures and then get on with life.
Where we come in, when we are supporting people with their interiors, is actually highlighting that by asking, ‘Would you choose to live like that if you had a wand and you could actually say, ‘Okay, so this is how I want everything to be’? And the answer is: ‘No’.
So our experience of being in retail for the last thirteen, fourteen years has been customers coming into the shop and they see this very rich, adorned environment, this abode, and they say they'd love to have that in their own home. We say, ‘Well, of course you can, but you can't just copy it’. Of course, they can copy it and superficially you will have the same.
But what this (shop interior) comes from is a total appreciation and immersion in terms of what it is connecting you to.
So, I am drawn to certain colours and those colours, I know, enrich me and support me. I've got nothing against white or beige per se but as an adornment, as a decoration on the wall then it just doesn't support anything. When I'm sitting down with clients and talking about interiors, one of the subjects we talk about is colour. It always comes out.
Yes, I was going to ask you about colour. – JB
Colour has a very strong consciousness about it, as I discovered only a few years ago when we were actually designing and manufacturing and we were stumbling over the detail in certain colours and labels for a range of perfumes.
And what was then revealed to me in that process was how we are controlled, and we struggled to actually identify what it is about colour that is holding us back. And what the process showed is that there's a whole industry based on colour that's all about complication, and that's what holds us back.
Now, I would be an advocate for the simplicity of life. Life flows and it can be very simple. We choose to not make it simple because we bring in all sorts of stuff that gets in the way. And that's the same with colour.
So colour and the consciousness around it is all about complicating what should be a very simple process?– JB
Yes, so sure you have many shades of colours, but you innately know which colour is going to support you, what feels right. And it's always in the way you alight on a colour and it feels right.
Then what happens is that the swatch book has got like three hundred other choices in there. Then before, you know it you're in the overwhelm of ‘Oh, I actually like this one, but I actually quite like this one and now I'm not so sure’. So, it feeds that process of actually, ‘I'm just going to leave it or I'm not going to bother’. Or, ‘Okay, I'll go for this greige colour’. This greige has been a popular colour for the last decade or so highlighted by designers and what they want you to have, as opposed to listening to you. Then you look at what the purpose of that space is, how you choose to live, what's going to best support you in terms of everything that you do in your home and work life. And then you can alight on what's going to come through for the colour choices.
Okay. So, you said earlier that you think it's easy for people to actually get to feel the colour that supports them. But I wanted to question that because – and I understand what you're saying about the swatch thing – but we've been so educated out of using colour, and everything's very bland now. – JB
Yes. And a typical instance of that would be blue and green should never be seen.
Hello? Yes. It's such a stupid old, old rhyme. I don’t know where it came from.
Well, my old school uniform was blue and green. I looked amazing in it. But look at nature. Go back to nature and get a reflection from that. You know, an example of what actually works in the natural world and you'll see blue and green used all the time, just as one instance.
So, Stephen, I'm a client and I’m just about to get a new apartment, it’s off the plan and it's been done in a certain way and I come to you for help.
And you say, ‘Well, you already know, the colours that would support you’. And I say, ‘Well, actually I don't. I don't have any idea of them’.
How would you support me to find those for myself? – JB
It doesn't have to be
A VALUABLE
or EXPENSIVE item.
IT'S JUST what it
REPRESENTS.
It's just the beauty of
THE REFLECTION.
It's actually, more about SETTING PEOPLE FREE of their
PATTERNS around
USE of COLOURS
ON
COLOURS...
So first of all, we have a conversation around what does colour mean to you? And that could go nowhere. But normally that's unlikely. It will actually go somewhere in terms of, okay, I particularly drawn to these colours. I always seem to wear blues for instance. Or I like a lot of black, or I always tend to wear light colours. And then we examine why it is that you prefer those lighter colours.
And have you ever considered, that perhaps with those blues, for instance, let's say you are a navy person, and you, love wearing navy. Are you wearing navy because you just want to blend in to hide, to be part of the crowd as it were, or do you wear navy because of a certain authority that it may give you? Or do you ever feel to add a touch of colour? Like, if it's a lady perhaps a lovely pink blouse, or a white T-shirt, if you're a man or a woman, and so you've got that contrast.
It's actually, more about setting people free of their patterns around use of colour. What we've been educated into and what's been fed to us of what is the correct thing to wear, as opposed to feeling more and being playful with colour. And in this case, we're talking clothes, but the same applies with interiors as well.
Yes, because it takes a certain courage to decide to have black walls in your bedroom. – JB
And I totally get why people are generally reluctant to experiment with colour. It's not the same as buying a T-shirt that is a bit different to what you would normally choose. You get home, you put this T-shirt on you think, ‘Oh, actually, I'm not sure if I do like it’. And then you'll find fault with it: It doesn't fit. It's the wrong shade, or if you don't like the material and it becomes the proverbial white elephant – you never wear it.
So the cost per wear is actually credit behind. As opposed to, just sitting with something that feels right. You might always wear blue T-shirts and that's your uniform. However, if someone comes along and challenges you like me and says, ‘Well, okay, you're always in blue T-shirts. Why don't you ever wear a pale blue? Or why don't you wear black?’ And it could be that they find black too confronting. But other people also love black because they hide behind black as well, because it’s easy…
It's easy because everything goes with it.
– JB
Yes, exactly. So, it's weaning out whether you're being lazy and potentially conformist or following what has always been because perhaps someone else has it, or you’re being more true to yourself. And actually you're really feeling that. So, you can have a lot of fun with colour.
And then going back to the interior side, it's actually kind of bold step to put bit of colour on the wall.
Especially if, going back to your example of an off-the-plan apartment. You've had to move in, and you think, ‘Okay. So where do I start?’
So, that's always the question I get asked. But let’s come back to that in a moment.
Supposing, you've decided where to begin and you've decided, okay, I want to do a proverbial feature wall in a lounge, a living space, then you think, ‘Okay, do I want colour, as in a paint colour, or do I want to introduce wallpaper?’
I love wallpaper because it's just so transformative as you can see around me. It has the ability to be immediately transformative and it, depending on the pattern and the colours in that, it's something you can't truly replicate through a paint colour because that's just a solid colour. With the wallpaper, you get all these lovely nuances of detail. And it's just, to me, it's just a really beautiful process.
So, returning to the point about an apartment and where do you begin. Then my process would be sitting down with the clients either on zoom or just like this (in person) and saying, ‘Okay, so what space feels the most important to you in terms of prioritising?’
You've got the whole space of the apartment, you have two bedrooms and the living room, kitchen, and so on. Let's start perhaps with the living room, because that's where you want to relax. You want to just read a book or perhaps watch something. So, what is going to support you in being nurturing and being gentle and surrendering to yourself?
And sitting in a room with chairs, let's say hardback chairs, with white walls feels like a bit of a cell to me.
It does – yes. Very sterile. – JB
Very sterile, great word. So, we would actually go back to that process and say, okay, so you need something to sit on. This is assuming you haven't got anything.
So, you want a sofa, you want a certain size sofa. You want a sofa because you want to either sit on the sofa with someone or you want to stretch out on it. Then you want some chairs. If you've got the space to have one or two chairs. You either have a sofa and a couple of armchairs or two sofas.
It depends on how that feels or how much space you've got. And add a coffee table, or if you don't drink coffee, you can have something like an ottoman which is upholstered. I love these because you can then put a tray on it so you've got a hard surface and what's great about that is then you can put your drinks on it.
Yes. And you can also put your feet up on it. – JB
Yes, exactly. So, it's that welcoming coziness as well
Yes, absolutely. – JB
Yes, so none of those hard edges and even people who've got coffee tables put their feet on them.
Or put a cushion on it. – JB
So, hello. Why not just go for an ottoman straight away? And have that made for you in any colour you want. So, you can just bring it back to what's actually is essential and what's going to support you. And it's a recurring theme of support and what's nurturing you.
Then, let's say you've got your sofas, you've got your armchairs, you've got your ottoman that you've decided on. Then we'd literally look at the light direction. So how much light is that space getting? Is it flooded with light? If so, do we want to make the room darker? There's a misconception that having darkness in a space will make it dark, and you'll have to have more light to be able to see what you're doing, reading or whatever. What people don't consider is how enriching that is.
And that's where it's like add a slap of paint or actually going back to my favorite, wallpapers.
And so when you say enriching, you mean has a depth? – JB
Yes. It's providing the depth, but it's actually like an embellishment. It's providing this opportunity – for me colour serves a purpose.
That's what I wanted to ask. What does colour mean to you? – JB
Colour is supporting you in being purposeful. And what do we mean by that? We mean that whatever space, let's say the living room again, is going to be used for. Are you going to relax in that space? Or are you going to work in it?
So purposeful in terms of the colour that supports what you are using the room for? – JB
Yes. Is the colour there to make you feel something when you walk into a space? For example, we've all been into certain hotels and you're given the key to a room and potentially might have been upgraded (how lovely) and you walk into the room and it's like, ‘Wow!’
You think, ‘I just want to move in. I don't want to just spend one night here. I want to take this home with me.’ That's what we try and do. I actually mention that with my clients. We want to make your space, especially apartments, so that when you open the front door, you make it like a luxurious hotel space. Why not?
It's not a huge space at the end of the day so we can make it very, wow. But you don't want the wow on steroids because you can't settle with that. It's that wow of, ‘Oh, I love this. I don't want to leave.’ So just settling into it. They're just surrendering into that lovely, comfortable sofa, the beautiful gold, perhaps that you've introduced in the decor.
Yes. So, what colour means to you is purpose. – JB
I always come back to the purpose of the space. But talking specifically about colour here, it can be a game changer in terms of how it's going to support and nurture you to do what you're going to do, whether that's writing, watching a movie, or reading, or just literally listening to some music. [To find out more about what Stephen says about colour read our second interview with him coming soon.]
When I first came to your shop about five years ago, I was very struck by the things that you choose to have in your home and to have here in the shop. Are they symbolic of something to you?
I felt this very strong sense with you and Andrew, that you’re living other dimensions, which are very present in your life today as you are now, but you are bringing other dimensions through what you do and what you choose: the colours that you use, the perfumes and objects that you sell.
There was just a sense of agelessness about you both or even an ancientness, you know, that would come through you. Can you talk to me a bit about that? – JB
And you're absolutely right because there is a strong connection with an ancientness and I feel that we all have that. Whether we choose to be aware of it or tap into that, connect to it, that's down to the individual person but for myself and for Andrew, we definitely have felt that. There are certain objects, shall we say, design details, let's take these gold palm trees on a marble base for instance… Why are they here?
Well, apart from being visually very appealing, quite stunning, I feel, for me they represent a life lived in the past. We're talking about ancientness now. I can't prove that I've been in lands which have got palm trees growing from them but what I do get when I visit countries that have palm trees, is a connection, a sense that I've been there before.
It's not necessarily a resort, somewhere tropical, but somewhere that has a richness that it's offering. So, palm trees are for us symbolic because they are symbolic of lives lived in the past. I feel that we're going back a very, very long way here, and that taps into all sorts of belief systems.
My firm belief is that it's like one life. So, it's just literally chapters of these individual lives that make up one vast life and we're on this constant unending journey of endless expansion. And I love that. So, things like the palm trees, this beautiful gold, glass ostrich egg, no reason I like it apart from the fact I love its shape and I love its luster.
It doesn't have to be a valuable or expensive item. It's just what it represents. It's just the beauty of the reflection. The fact that there's been some artisan working on it as well and that applies now, as well as in times gone by, and I'm looking around at lots of things here.
We have a love affair with convex mirrors, which to us offer a portal into multi-dimensionality. It's that reflection, literally a reflection, they've been ‘fashionable’ in quotes in interiors for hundreds of years.
What we get from the convex mirrors is that sense that there's more. Whereas with a flat mirror – just the one that you would shave in, or do your make-up in – you’re just getting that reflection and it's you, and that's great. And most of us hopefully like what we're looking at as well.
With a convex mirror, you're getting much wider sphere and depth. And I've loved them as a decorative piece on walls for as long as I can remember. And I remember, when I did art school for a couple years.
So you did do some art! – JB
I’ve just remembered. I'd forgotten that. Well, my mum's a fashion designer.
ON
SETTLEMENT...
I CAN FEEL that within there's
this EXUBERANCE,
this is complete JOY and
it's INFECTIOUS
There we go. – JB
So there's the linking that you were looking for?
I was just seeing whether it was there or not.
– JB
My mum was a fashion designer, but I did do history of art for a little while. And there's a picture there, which I've always remembered.
I think it's called the marriage of Giovanni [The Arnolfini Wedding - Jan van Eyck] and it's got what we’re talking about the convex mirror. The woman looks like she’s pregnant but for me it wasn't so much that, the clothes of course I immediately clocked, but it was actually this beautiful mirror in the background. And then the detail that the artist captured in that mirror, but ever since then, I've always had this fascination for mirrors. The bigger, the better.
And it's all about going back to that enrichment, offering something different.
Let’s talk about ageing for a moment – you look so young and boyish. How old are you?
– JB
Sixty-one. I'm a sixty-one child. I'm sixty-one, sixty-one. [Born in 1961 and today it’s 2022.]
Yes. How do you keep your sense of joy, your vitality? Is there anything you can say about the secrets you've discovered as you're getting older?
– JB
What I love about that question is that it, it launches me into a world of vitality, because there's this myth of being in your sixties of, and I see it all the time with customers, ‘I've retired early’. I think really, that's early, you look like you're in your eighties, oh dear, something's wrong. You've taken on everything that life has thrown at you and really absorbed that. And that's a shame.
So, what I have experienced, what I've learned is a joy of living, fully living and expressing freely. I have a beautiful relationship, with a man who I absolutely adore – been with him twenty-seven
years this year. And what's interesting is that we've never ever
had a cross word. There's never been an argument. No difference of opinion. Nothing. We've both been on the same page, literally from day one, which has been absolutely extraordinary. And I have to say that it's extraordinary because it shouldn't be extraordinary.
It should be the normal, it should be that complete connection that you have with another and supporting each other. And I don't see that very often, which is again, very sad.
As I've got older and particularly actually since I hit sixty last year, and then now sixty-one, I'm aware that, time is present. Another nine years’ time, I'm going to be seventy and in twenty years’ time, you know, eighty and, and so on. And those are numbers at the moment. They're just numbers to me. But of course, the body ultimately is going to be not as energetic, not as strong, not able to do things as I can now at the moment. It's all about nurturing and looking after yourself.
There's a great joy in just being me. And what I've settled into is, how amazing I am but it's not just me that's amazing. It's actually recognizing the amazingness in everybody else. So that what I try and do – and one of my traits, if you like, because I'm a joyful, upbeat, half-glass-full type of person, optimist, whatever term you want to apply – is to bring that to others as well.
I am quite playful in my demeanor and how I am. My love of life is such that I love expressing that and actually making people smile and bring that out to them as well. And that that's across everything I do.
Yes. And have you found, you know, that you've become more yourself as you've got older?
That you've settled into yourself more?
– JB
That's a great word because that's exactly what's happened. I have settled more into me. We always pick up on – why do we do this? We always pick up on the faults that we have, like my nose is too long. My hair is thinning. Am I too thin? Am I fat or whatever it happens to be? And it really doesn't matter. No, because what matters is actually what's within and I can feel that within there's this exuberance, this is complete joy and it's infectious. It's just lovely to share that with others.
° ° °
Photos: Alan Johnston