Bedroom design and trend update by Laurence Llewlyn Bowen

Fitted bedrooms are an unbridled passion of mine because, to me, they’re the clever answer to the tricky question of modern day living. We’re a nation of proud shoppers, people who have masses more clothes than our forefathers, who quite simply collect a lot of stuff. And the thing is we need, we want, we desire somewhere beautiful, calm and oh-so organised to keep it all.

That’s the beauty of the fitted bedroom; it looks incredibly stylish outwardly, can be designed to fit your taste and the contours of your boudoir to perfection – but the interiors are a secret temple to all things storage. Everything you own can be sorted, de-cluttered and organised to utter perfection. That’s what you call true interior design.

The first range I have helped develop and style for Sharps Bedrooms is Pure (below) and this is the perfect example of how fitted bedrooms can be a very modern, very practical solution for clothes lovers everywhere. Pure has a real Sex and the City appeal for me. The white finish of this bedroom is a very contemporary statement and something which I worked hard with the styling team to ensure that it is shown in a very glamorous and elegant context. It’s not just about minimalist storage – as a collection, it is much more flexible and has a lot of detail to it, and gobbles up as much as you can throw at it – ideal for fashionista shopaholics.

Pure is elegant and seductive scheme but in fact is a much more daring choice than you may first think. White is a bold colour choice and it is also a very good antidote to a dark room. If you are using very bold, richly coloured or patterned wallpapers, to have a wall of white gloss wardrobes on one side ensures that it doesn’t become too overpowering.

Of course people are very used to this idea of feature walls, where you have one wall with a bold wallpaper print, but you can turn this around and have three walls with a lot of pattern on them and one wall as a more neutral space provided by the Pure wardrobes.

With something so pure, we had to keep the styling simple so I chose different shades of mauves, greys and shell tones. I wanted to play up to the glamour that this range offers without overcomplicating the scheme or taking the attention away from the wardrobes themselves. Using different textures and materials to accessorise with adds interest and makes the overall look very grown up with overwhelming appeal.