14 Mar 18

Are you a Winter personality?

Winter is a season of extremes, from the sharpest frosty morning with piercing blue skies (the kind that makes it hard to drive on the school run) through to those foggish drab flat dull January afternoons which feel like they’ll drag on forever. There is also a real motionlessness to winter. Unlike the energetic styles of spring and autumn, winter is stealth like in its stillness. But this makes for very powerful and striking landscapes, which is reflected in all elements of design.

Luxury surfaces like gold and marble are perfect for Winter personalities next to striking geometric prints

So similarly you’ll see a lot of extreme behaviour in the Winter personality. To sum it up Winter people are utterly non-comprising and no nonsense. They don’t suffer fools and are not afraid to speak their mind. They tend to be decisive and powerful with sharp wit and clarity. On the flip side as the season suggests that can come across as cold and unemotional.

Winter is the only season to have pure black and white in it’s colour palette. All items show from Habitat

A winter room scheme will be impeccably thought out and efficient with no unessessary frou-frou (unless they are a mad maximalist whereby the frou frou is so very necessary). Any art or objects will be carefully curated and never random. Generally they go in for big design statements, so for example,  rather than a gallery wall of pictures you’ll see one massive striking piece of art, preferably with a big price tag as Winter personalities are not afraid to show off. Especially if they are wealthy- which they probably are. They strive to be at the forefront of everything new so you’ll find the latest tech as well and iconic design pieces in their home. They’ll pour over Elle Decoration or Wallpaper every month, as keeping up with the trends really matters to them, as it’s a reflection of their success and love of cutting edge design. It’s no surprise that a lot of successful designers and luxury brands are Winter.

everything in Winter interior will be a carefully considered style statement, even down to what coffee table books are ion display

In terms of colour again they favour the extremes, either very light or very dark.  They are the only season that could live with bright white or pure black as they are just too cold and stark to harmonise with any of the other seasonal colour palettes. Any colour added to this neutral backdrop would be sharp, saturated and cool: colours like a sharp Mimosa yellow or cool cobalt blue.

Their love of luxury will be reflected in the materials they choose, shiny metallic’s, leather and marble. I can’t help thinking that Winter people must have been in their hay-day in the 80’s but the resurgent Memphis trend would be perfect too. However just as likely to be in a Pawson designed minimalist pad they’d also be just at home in a totally over the top maximalist boudoir. Like I say, it’s all about the extremes and making a striking style statement wherever possible.

This post completes my four part blog series on the Seasonal personalities. If you want to catch up on the previous posts here are the links; Spring, Summer, Autumn with an over view of Colour psychology here.

If you are a deisgner working within the interiors profession I hope you can see by now what an amazing tool this is for untangling a clients brief and helping you deliver powerful schemes. Do check out the Colour Psychology workshops I host, especially for you here.

You can shop for this look over on the Habitat website were everything is listed here.

Habitat photographs by Lol Johnson.