Inside Michael S Smith’s New Zoffany Collaboration, Shot At Cecil Beaton’s Former Home

Gianluca Longo talks to designer Michael S Smith about his new fabric collaboration with Zoffany – and how Hamish Bowles came to have a starring role 

This piece was taken from our 2026 Interiors Guide

Michael S Smith Brings The Zoffany Archives To Life

When US interior designer Michael S Smith created a fabric collection inspired by the Zoffany archives, he knew he wanted to photograph it in the right place. The winter garden of Reddish House – Cecil Beaton’s former home in Wiltshire, now owned by Lucy Yeomans and Guy Brooks – came to mind as the perfect setting. 

‘I have always been in love with the English countryside,’ Smith tells me from his home in California. ‘I was at school in England and lived there for some time. And I have long been fascinated by Cecil Beaton. There’s this iconic 1960s photograph of him in the winter garden at Reddish with his pug Simba, and shooting the fabrics here seemed the ideal way of taking the concept of chintz and English florals and moving it into the 21st century.’ 

Who better than Smith’s friend Hamish Bowles to reinterpret that atmosphere and sit as Beaton? ‘I remember being at Reddish soon after Cecil Beaton died,’ Bowles says. ‘I think I was 14 years old, and I went to see the sale of his furniture that Christie’s had organised. It was magical. There were flowers in every room. I remember it so well.’ Bowles was thrilled when Smith asked him to pose as one of his heroes. ‘The collection is very Beatonesque, so it all made sense.’ 

Known for his effortless blend of American modernism and European classicism, Smith is one of today’s most sought-after and prolific interior designers. He is behind beautiful homes across the world – including the private quarters of the Obama White House and some of its state rooms – plus glamorous hospitality spaces, such as Santa Monica’s Shutters on the Beach hotel and The Lowell in New York. 

‘Whenever I think of designing a new fabric or accessory, it’s always because I can’t find it anywhere else,’ he says of his new indoor/ outdoor fabric collaboration with Zoffany. ‘The perfect colour, pattern or material for a terrace, garden or a conservatory room is especially hard to pin down.’ The specialised outdoor fabrics in the market are bland-looking and synthetic-feeling – not in line with Smith’s signature sophisticated classicism. 

He shared this frustration with Lisa Montague, chief executive at Sanderson – and in no time, Smith received an invitation to visit the rich Zoffany archives. ‘What I wanted was an English garden vibe. After hours of exploration, rummaging the archives with the magisterial help of Peter Gomez – Zoffany’s design director – I was totally inspired.’ 

A new collection was born, featuring 13 designs, each one Smith’s interpretation of a historical Zoffany fabric. ‘What started as a small idea kept growing once I held these fabrics in my hands,’ he says. He looked at the idea of inside-out colouring, adding fading to some weaves and softening the stripes, to give an effect the patterns had been there forever; he asked to print some of the fabrics on the wrong side, using hand block technique, adding that charming ‘bleeding’ through them; he revisited a French cotton indigo from the 18th century, reworked a lilies of the valley pattern, and reinterpreted a trail of roses print from the 19th century. The result is a collection that can be used both indoors and out. ‘Many of my clients love to match the outside with the inside, and with this collection there is a real option. Coordination is everything. 

Combining Zoffany’s archives and Sanderson’s know-how, this collection also brings together two things Smith loves: technical design and the ability to print indoor and outdoor fabric in a way that recalls vintage designs, ‘lending a sense of history to it,’ Smith says. ‘We used colours that sit beautifully inside and will still look great in the outdoor light anywhere in the world. The look also needs to be complete because, of course, outdoors you don’t have carpet, painted or papered walls, artworks, so the furniture needs to hold together visually.’ He is confident the fabrics will work for schemes not as classical as his own aesthetic. ‘Although I’m also a big believer, I always say, in a hat on top of a hat.’