House Rules host Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on Australian design

HOUSE Rules host Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen says Australia is at the forefront of a new home design renaissance but we’ve just got to stop playing it so safe.

British design guru Laurence ­Llewelyn-Bowen has a connection to Australia that goes back to the 18th century thanks to a distant relative, famed London map-engraver Emanuel Bowen. Bowen’s map, A Complete Map of the Southern Continent survey’d by Capt. Abel Tasman, published in 1744, is one of the earliest depictions of Terra Australis and was noteworthy for its elaborate historical and topographical footnotes.

Currently in Australia and espousing its virtues as he films the TV series House Rules, Llewelyn-Bowen knew of his link to Emanuel Bowen but had never read the map’s inscription. The flamboyant raconteur is uncharacterist­ically silent as he takes in the following ­notation from his ­direct ancestor: “(The Southern Continent Discovered) lies precisely in the richest climates of the World … and therefore whoever perfectly discovers and settles it will become infallibly possessed of Territories as Rich, as fruitful, and as capable of Improvement, as any that have hitherto been found out, either in the East Indies or the West.”

House Rules judge Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Picture: Channel 7

“I’m getting all … goosebumpy,” he says, temporarily ­almost lost for words. “It’s like hearing directly from great-great-great-great-Uncle Manny. He was quite an intellectual. He made the most beautiful maps; they are absolutely exquisite. How wonderful that he liked Australia as much as I do!”

The designer’s historic connection to Terra Australis also can be traced to his great-great-great-grandfather who “jumped ship in Australia” during the gold rush period. “He became very wealthy – but we don’t think because of the gold – he started something like a ship’s chandlery in the Melbourne area,” says Llewelyn-Bowen, who has several product ranges to his name, including wallpaper, linen, paint and kitchenware. “He ended up very wealthy then scampered back to Wales and started his own shipping line. Many of my relatives and uncles and such were captains on the Blue Funnel Line, so they would have had contact with Australia.”

Llewelyn-Bowen grew up in South London, attending school in the Streatham district. The 52-year-old, of Welsh descent, says he is genuinely astonished at how much he feels connected to Australia. “Like most Brits, you are fed a very innocuous, sappy guide to what Australia is like; which never, ever expresses the cultural subtlety, the heritage, the architecture,” he muses. “We only ever see barbecues and blond people. We never really see quite how mighty these Australian cities are.

Laurence Llewellyn Bowen says a little colour goes a long way.

“Design is almost impossible to separate from class in the history of Britain. Generally speaking, you get this ­ridiculous idea that somehow posh people have good taste, and nobody else has any. Of course, one of the joys of Australia is that you don’t get that; you don’t get class being ­immersed within taste or style at all. It is something that’s much, much flatter, and therefore so much greater.

“And that’s why I feel very strongly there’s a potential springboard in Australia … I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is where we got the new renaissance from. Now that the world is so small, we need a cultural petri dish that can grow taste and style in a new and different way – it’s not from Europe; it’s not from America; it’s not from Asia; it’s from somewhere new, and Australia is that new.”

So, Australia is the new black? Quite possibly, says ­Llewelyn-Bowen, as long as we do away with the beige. It is a case of changing perceptions; changing what Australians do in terms of design because they think it is the done thing.

“They use what they call natural colours and neutral palettes and they’re not natural at all,” bemoans Llewelyn-Bowen. “They’re the colour of nature, sure, but the colour of nature after it’s died! It’s sort of sands and beiges and taupes. Where actually the colour of Australian nature is unbelievably vibrant – a chromatic orgasm of blue sky; green foliage; thousands of different greens; the colours of the flowers; the colours of the birds; the colours of the sea; the colours of the soil – this place is an absolute rainbow.

“It’s not the colours of a desert or a beach – they are ­neutral naturals and they’ve been imported from Europe, and they don’t actually relate to Australia at all. These are northern European designers who have a very understated sense of what they can get away with and they’re not to be trusted in the bombastic, boisterous climate of Australia where everyone’s got an extraordinarily healthy sense of humour and you’ve got so much incredible nature.

Laurence Llewellyn Bowen says real estate agents who advise homebuyers to paint their walls beige are wrong.

“It’s a fusion. It’s a confluence of East and West – but also, very, very, importantly, the old and the new. Yet it’s all ­motivated by a youthfulness and an energy that is really very exciting. It’s a thing that people in Australia don’t ­particularly recognise. They probably look at the way that homes are done in America or Europe or Milan and it’s ­assumed that that’s somehow better. They assume that’s a good space and that’s what they should be doing … absolute bollocks!

“One of the extraordinary things about where we live (is that) our houses are our shrines. It’s a big lump of money that defines you. So, love it. Lick it. Enjoy it. Hang out with it. Flirt with it. Have an affair with it. Don’t just treat it as bricks and mortar. Treat it as an incredibly important part of your identity, your personality.

Laurence Llewellyn Bowen advises his clients to design in the way they’ve always wanted to do it.

“And do the sort of stuff to it that you’ve always wanted to do. OK, the mother-in-law might come ’round and ‘tut, tut, tut’, but ultimately it’s not about her, it’s entirely about you. Your home is somewhere where you really can just let rip. If you have the ability to have your own space; your own roof; your own home – bloody well make sure it’s a reflection of you, not a reflection of what next door has done.

“You can read the magazines and you can listen to the real estate agents and everyone will tell you that beige will help you sell your house and that beige will make the walls look farther away.

“Honestly, it’s all bollocks. Do design and style in the way you’ve always wanted to do it.”

And it is precisely that attitude that Llewelyn-Bowen will inject into his role as a judge in the new season of House Rules. And the contestants had better be ready for it. His outrageous suits may out-fop MasterChef dandy Matt Preston’s cravats, but he has a reputation for being tough, in a withering Gordon Ramsay kind of way.

“That’s putting it mildly,” he says. “If any of these ­contestants try and fob me off with a bit of beigery – ­because they’re hoping a show home is going to get a high mark – I’m afraid they’ll see that I get scary; my hair turns into snakes and there’s lightning all over the place.

“I assure you, I can get very, very … cross.”

House Rules airs on Seven, Sunday nights at 7pm, Mon-Thurs 7.30pm