‘Slow Decoration Is Soul Decoration’: Interiors Queen Miv Watts On Avoiding Trends

The renowned interior designer Miv Watts (mother to Hollywood star Naomi Watts) has launched a series of design retreats aimed at giving people the confidence to tell their own unique story through their homes. Juliet Herd caught up with the designer to find out all about her new venture.

Miv Watts On Her New Series Of Design Retreats

There’s nothing cookie cutter about interior designer Myfanwy (Miv) Watts’ style. Words like exuberant, irreverent, eclectic, bold, colourful and unapologetic, spring to mind when trying to encapsulate her design aesthetic – if that is even possible. She approaches furnishing and decorating a home a bit like telling a story, building a rich visual narrative that documents a person’s life (rather than dictates it) and allows their true personality to unfold.

‘Creating a home is about filtering the layers and experiences of one’s life,’ says Miv, former costume and set designer, plus author of best-selling lifestyle book, The Maverick Soul. ‘It is theatrical, like creating a drama or film – but a home is also a process, it has a strong practical element. It is a mix of dreaming and deciding, feeling and function.’ Her philosophy stems from a life well travelled, working in music, film and interior design since the 1960s, and styling properties as varied as boutique hotels in Rajasthan and tin shacks in Byron Bay.

The Australian-raised designer’s current labour of love is a 17th century manoir deep in the heart of Gascony, South West France, which she has transformed into an Anglo/French boho gem, full of heirlooms, exquisite textiles and quirky finds from flea markets around the world. It’s a sprawling, 11-hectare hive of creative endeavour with cottages (for holiday lets), studio, barn, pool, parkland, and even a pigeonniere – ‘a totally magical immersion in pure nature’, as Miv puts it. ‘The brocantes here [in France] are an important source of decorating delight for me,’ she says. ‘I decorate instinctively, according to the age and style of the house, mixing periods, styles, colour and textiles. If there is a style I favour, it would be Bloomsbury. I work around the spirit in things, and I love well-crafted pieces that are made to last.’

For the past four years, the property has been a rural haven for Miv and her family: her New York-based daughter-slash-actor Naomi Watts (best known for her roles in Mulholland Drive and The Impossible, among others) is a regular visitor with her two teenage children (by Liev Schreiber) and actor husband Billy Crudup, as is Miv’s fashion photographer son Ben and his wife, plus their six-year-old son.

She raised Naomi, 56, and Ben, 58, in Sydney after splitting from their father Peter Watts, sound engineer for Pink Floyd, and has talked in the past about immersing the children in ‘every inch of my erratic, itinerant life’, which included taking them to primary school in England wearing Afghan dresses and Tibetan boots, much to their embarrassment at the time. ‘The other mothers were in twin sets and pearls. I drove a lime green Deux Chevaux and all the other kids wanted to ride in it,’ she recalls, laughing.

‘We have pizza nights and music in the barn,’ says Miv of entertaining her family when they descend en masse. ‘Naomi’s children arrive jet lagged from New York. They’re dyed-in-the-wool city kids and unwilling to part with their devices, so we send them off to collect fresh eggs in the morning. We take breakfast under the palm trees followed by a trip to the local market. Billy stacks wood in the shed, while Ben works out in the barn. Naomi disappears into the potager [kitchen garden] and spends the week telling me how to cook a quiche.’

It seems entirely natural, then, that this consummate host is opening her home to bring together likeminded individuals for a five-day creative jamboree that she is calling Coming Home. Part of her Lexis Retreats series, the getaway is aimed at encouraging people to find inspiration among the fields and vines of Armagnac country, away from trends and social media. Unsurprisingly, Miv, who wrote The Maverick Soul to show ‘how free spirits live’, is not a fan of design by influencers. ‘I think you should choose your style from your own instinct and a need to be authentic, rather than be guided by social media,’ she says. ‘We will be working on the courage to avoid trends and make a home around your own unique story. Slow decoration is soul decoration.’

She has assembled a fascinating cast of players to ‘guide and nurture’ people and help them to embrace their own style. Her co-host is Lady Marie-Thérèse Robinson, who has spent much of her life advocating for creativity in education and promoting the work of her late husband, the educationalist Sir Ken Robinson. Together, the couple wrote the New York Times best-selling book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, which explores the intersection between natural talent and personal passion. ‘Thérèse was one of our guests on the last retreat,’ explains Miv. ‘We connected immediately over our love of interiors and a wicked sense of humour. I realised immediately we were on the same journey.’

Joining the two women is globe-trotting photographer Phil Volkers, a self-described ‘renegade’ and master storyteller, whose work has appeared in Vogue, Condé Nast Traveller, Harper’s Bazaar and Tatler. Photographer Hugh Stewart, who collaborated with Miv on The Maverick Soul and has photographed some of the world’s most famous names, including Nicole Kidman, George Clooney and, naturally, Naomi, will drop in via Zoom to talk about the experience of chronicling the lives and homes of 25 Bohemians for the book, which is being reprinted.

The team also includes nutritionist and wellness expert, Nicole Langone, international chef Matthew Horton, who will craft feasts using locally sourced produce, and psychic (or ‘sensitive’, as she describes herself) Amaryllis Fraser, who uses Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT) to give homes an energetic spring clean (unsurprisingly, she’s in big demand in Hollywood).

‘I first met Amaryllis when she was a little girl in Norfolk when her parents arrived at a house I was sharing at the time with Johnny Byrne, the screenwriter of [TV classic] All Creatures Great and Small. She was sitting in the back of a long wheelbase Land Rover along with three lurchers and the rib cage of a dead cow, and I knew then she was special,’ recalls Miv. ‘Amaryllis is very gifted with her Reiki and ability to unravel the subconscious – she’s also immensely loveable.’

The retreat will include visits to private châteaux, artisan studios, vintage markets, as well as candlelit dinners around Miv’s large oak monastery dining table and workshops designed to spark creativity. Armed with her enviable contacts book, Miv will offer access to properties not usually open to the public, such as one nearby château, which has been in the same family for more than 400 years and is full of ancient tapestries. Another on the itinerary is rumoured to have belonged to the former mistress of a French president, and a third was once a brothel as well as a home for refugee Jewish children during the Second World War. Guests will also be taken on a tour of the residence of the late former fashion model Enid Boulting, who was married to the film director Roy Boulting before becoming the wife of the 9th Earl of Hardwicke. ‘It is the most beautiful house [in the town of Lectoure] – full of her style, ingenuity and remnants of a glamorous life,’ says Miv. 

‘These homes stand proud with their heritage and have been infused with romance, tradition, the laughter of children, the aromas of good cuisine, the tragedies that inevitably visit all households, and the art, poetry and literature of the passing generations,’ she adds. ‘We need more such stories in these uncertain times.’

The designer hopes her visitors will leave this gloriously unconventional retreat with ‘a notebook full of inspiration and a deeper appreciation for detail, texture, and the link between material and mind. Most of all, you’ll return home awakened: seeing with fresh eyes, guided by curiosity, and ready to continue your own thoughtful, soulful curation.’

Coming Home is running from 2-8 October. To book, visit lexisretreats.com.