How Miminat Shodeinde became the designer of the moment
The afternoon I speak with the ground-breaking designer Miminat Shodeinde, she has just filed her first column for the Financial Times. Its subject: “Is Instagram a problem for interior designers?”
In summary, she thinks it is.
“It’s quite punchy,” Shodeinde chuckles, about her article’s stance.
It’s not just interior design, or Instagram, of course. From Pinterest to Reddit to Spotify, social media has created a conspiracy of “good taste”: a homogenous and fallacious consensus of what we should all like. Starting a watch collection? A YouTuber will tell you which half-dozen models to buy. Curious about Italo Disco? The canon is pre-approved on an Apple Music “Essentials” playlist.
“Everything is so accessible,” she says. “You can just log on to Instagram, see something you like and ask to get it replicated. If clients show me something on Pinterest, I say ‘No! I can’t replicate anything.’ If it’s an interior-design project, I’m inspired by character and context. If it’s furniture, I’m inspired by what I’m reading, studying or listening to. Nothing is done for ‘trend’. My work is very personal to me.”
It’s also in demand. As we speak, Shodeinde is supposed to be en route to Art Basel Miami Beach, the international art fair, but her work schedule has scuppered that. Now 28, she founded her design and interior architecture studio, Miminat Designs, in 2015 when she was still a student at in Edinburgh. She hit the ground running with residential commissions in Cape Town, Málaga, Provence and her native London, where her practice is based. Recent work has included transforming a 12-room Portuguese villa for clients who wanted a home reflecting traditional Japanese design, a set of sculptural furniture inspired by Howard Hughes and early aviation, and revamping a six-storey house in Kuwait using custom-made pieces.
“And we’re hopefully starting a new hotel project in Antigua,” she says. “Everyone wants something ‘now’ and nobody understands patience. So, it’s all been about managing expectations and drinking lots of wine to calm down.”
As per her Pinterest comment, Shodeinde’s work resists categorisation. She designs interior spaces, monolithic furniture, artistic lighting and fluid sculptural objets. She tends to choose materials that feel smooth to touch, including oak, mahogany, bronze and natural stone.
“Whenever I get a project, the first thing I think about is materials, even before I get a floorplan,” she says. “I can use seven different types of stone or timber in a room, but you’d never know. I’m constantly picking up thin
