Oksana Kashenko: You have opened a new salon. Has something changed for your customers, except for the address?

Maria Yakushkina: Since our name is ENGLISH INTERIORS, we initially represented only English style. But over time, we began to represent other styles. Therefore, our name has changed: “English Interiors - galleries of interior styles”. Accordingly, we expanded the area to show the scenery in other styles that exist in the world. The main part of the gallery - “The English House” - as it was before, has remained. We tried to transfer it from Chistye Prudy absolutely precisely so that people would not have any feeling that something had changed. Often people try to do everything in a new way in a new place. We set ourselves the task of doing everything as before, but added a few more rooms in the New Classic gallery. “New Classics” is such a mix of classic European styles in the modern interpretation, including in the modern American interpretation.

OK.: What do you think is different American reading?

M.YA .: Americans are enlarging. Increase the scale of things and pay more attention to the decor. This applies to both English style and other styles that are popular in America. As I understand it, those styles that were brought to the mainland by the first conquerors got accustomed and developed there. Each, in accordance with its origin, wanted to see English or Spanish furniture in its house ... And, apparently, to consolidate this tradition, Americans enlarged national style elements. It turned out that our people are very close. We also love the style to be immediately recognizable. We love rich decor and big, large-scale things. Now, after all, at home we went large — huge spaces, tall ceilings — we needed and appropriate furniture.

OK.: Masha, why did you decide in your time to practice exactly the English style?

M.YA .: The absence of pathos has always been characteristic of the English style, and the interior in the English style is always cozy. After all, their bourgeois culture has existed for a long time, and it was very well developed. The aristocracy lived in palaces, and the bourgeoisie lived in houses and apartments, many of which were small. The furniture was inherited. Hence the tradition of decorating - in a limited space to “marry” things of different generations. In my opinion, precisely because of these features, the English style stands apart from other European ones. After all, they originate from the palaces. And the palaces are decorated everywhere the same - even in Italy, even in France. So, when our new bourgeoisie tried to decorate their houses with palace furniture ... a dissonance arose with the architecture of the space. Ceilings, walls, windows ... not to mention the facade of buildings. This is now the situation has changed, and people began to build their own palaces. And in the 90s, remember what happened? Therefore, at that time I chose for myself what I thought was honest with respect to our objects - excellent English bourgeois furniture, which declares the status of the owner and creates comfort in the house. I really do not like the word "comfort", but in other words I can not convey the homely atmosphere that creates the English style in the interior.

OK.: What year did you start your company?

M.YA .: In 1996, this year will be 15 years. Before that, I worked in an English company for eight years. Then, in 1989, when I started working on this field, there were only two companies that were engaged in expensive repairs (the expression “interior design” appeared a few years later), our English and another Danish. Actually, the choice was small: to do either in the English style, or in Danish. Then the era of European repairs began, and only then the Spaniards came to Russia and the Italians already followed them. And I was so imbued with the English style that I didn’t even think about anything else. And then he was already very much in demand. Or maybe it just happened so happily that when I organized ENGLISH INTERIORS, clients who have dreamed of an English-style house literally poured over to us.

OK.: If we think, the English design tradition is very close to us: wallpaper on the walls, carpets on the floors, an abundance of furniture of various forms, rich curtains, tablecloths on the tables ... We all had this in Soviet times, not English, of course, but. ..

M.YA .: Maybe so, such a psychological memory for the interior. I think that when people want to create a home outside of time and fashion, this is an English style. Because, as soon as English bright wallpaper appears on the walls and the house is filled with English decor, it immediately comes to life, becomes habitable, warm.

OK.: According to my observations, now the audience of fans of the classics is getting younger: they are beginning to be interested in it already at 25.

M.YA .: I think the issue here is not in age, but in status. And most often in marital status. While a person is single, he has some habits, some preferences in the interior: he likes everything to be bright, to attract the attention of the opposite sex, to the interior to impress, to colleagues gasp, that everything is unusual, not like everyone else. After all, we work not only in the classical style, but in the modern too. Accordingly, we made mirror tables, black walls, black kitchens, theater-style interiors ... not only for the young ones. For idle. And then they get married, sometimes even in the process of creating the interior, and we have to change everything: the black kitchen - on the cream, the mirror tables - on the wooden ... And sometimes they immediately start building a new house, more comfortable.

OK.: Masha, and what do people like most about the English style? What is almost always desired? And what, on the contrary, was unacceptable for Russians?

M.YA .: Oddly enough, it will be about the same thing. Everyone likes English wallpapers. Decorative, beautiful. They look, they admire, but they do not decide right away. The era of European repairs spoiled people's taste, everyone is afraid of color, everyone is asking for a bright interior. At the same time they say they want comfort. And comfort - it largely depends on the color of the walls. But we have already learned how to deal with this “color failure”. At first, we managed to convince customers to make colored walls in the living room, then switched to the cabinets. The hardest thing was with the bedrooms, where the British decided to hang wallpaper "toile de jouy." Men were afraid of them like fire - too catchy.

OK.: It seemed to me that this type of wallpaper with pastoral scenes is not striking: cherry or blue silhouettes on a beige background ...

M.YA .: Oh no no! The English “toile de jouy” is very decorative. Bright blue on yellow, for example. On this truth, not everyone will dare. But then they will go to England, look at traditional houses and, you see, they already agree.

OK.: Did you have to do interiors for our compatriots abroad?

M.YA .: In Spain, she made a modern interior with a rooftop pool, in France - in the style of modern Provence, in America - in the English style interior ...

OK.: Why do you think customers in these cases invited a designer from Russia?

M.YA .: First, it was our regular customers. And secondly, they tried to order interiors there, but it did not work out. Have