At Home with TINKALINK: The London Home Behind the Brand

A Home Full of Stories

I have always loved homes that reveal something about the people who live in them.

I don’t particularly want everything to match. I would much rather a room contained something unexpected — an old object next to something contemporary, a beautiful piece of fabric alongside a slightly silly find, or a colour combination that perhaps shouldn’t work but somehow does.

My home has evolved like that over years.

There are things picked up while travelling, pieces found at markets and car boot sales, family photographs, fashion books, ceramics, textiles and objects whose value is mostly sentimental.

Nothing has been bought to create a particular “look”. It has simply accumulated into one.

And I think that is what makes a home interesting.

Colour, Pattern & Everything in Between

Colour has always been instinctive for me. Before TINKALINK, I studied art and spent 15 years working as a make-up artist, where colour, texture and tiny details were part of my everyday life.

I still think about interiors in much the same way.

A flash of red can completely change a room. Green can behave almost like a neutral. Pink doesn’t have to be pretty. Blue and white can feel wonderfully calm one minute and incredibly graphic the next.

And then there is pattern.

Stripes, checks, florals, old textiles, embroidery, book jackets, wallpaper — I notice all of it.

Always Looking, Always Finding

One of my favourite things about the house is that patterns appear where you don’t necessarily expect them. They don’t have to dominate a room. Sometimes just a small piece of fabric or a striped candle is enough.

That instinct has become an important part of TINKALINK. Inspiration for the collections comes from fabrics, flowers, fashion, old houses, gardens, travel, art and unexpected colour combinations.

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

Possibly the smallest room in the house is also one of my favourites.

When my son had grown out of his old Where’s Wally? books, I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw them away, so I tore the pages out  and repurposed them as wallpaper for our downstairs loo.

The result is wonderfully chaotic. Every inch of the walls has something going on, and however many times you look at them, you notice something you hadn’t seen before.

I love that the room began with something that already belonged to us rather than a roll of wallpaper. It has a history, a sense of humour and absolutely no intention of being sensible.

And sitting happily amongst all that visual chaos is another of my loves: Anya Hindmarch.

I love pretty much anything and everything Anya does. There is something about the way she takes ordinary, everyday objects and gives them wit, personality . Her work is playful without feeling frivolous and never takes itself too seriously. So naturally, the hand wash found its way into my downstairs loo.

The little pair of eyes peering out from amongst hundreds of tiny Where’s Wally? characters makes me smile every time I see it.

Perhaps that’s quite a good summary of what I love in interiors: beautiful things, ordinary things, old things, new things — and always something that makes you smile.

It is also very much how I approach TINKALINK. I am constantly noticing something and wondering how it could be made more beautiful, more personal or simply a little more special. I like

Books, Fashion and Walls That Aren’t Too Serious

Books are everywhere in my house.

I love fashion books, art books and interiors books, but I also love using them as part of a room. A beautiful spine or cover is almost a little piece of artwork in itself.

My Vogue wall is perhaps the clearest connection between my old world and my new one.

After years working in fashion and beauty, magazines were such a huge part of my visual world. I couldn’t bear to hide all that imagery away in boxes, so the covers became part of the decoration.

It’s bold, colourful and slightly mad — which is probably why I love it.

Flowers — Preferably from the Garden

I don’t think a room ever feels quite finished without something living in it.

Flowers don’t have to be elaborate. A hydrangea cut from the garden and put into a simple vase can be more beautiful than a perfectly arranged bouquet.

I love watching the colours change through the seasons, particularly hydrangeas as they fade from fresh whites and greens into those slightly muddier, more complicated shades.

Nature rarely puts the “wrong” colours together.

It’s something I come back to constantly when I’m designing.

Candles Everywhere — Without the Worry

Unsurprisingly, there are TINKALINK candles all over my house.

On bookshelves. In bathrooms. Beside the bed. Among flowers. On tables. In little corners that need something.

The idea behind our fabric-wrapped LED candles was partly about being able to create that feeling anywhere. I love candlelight, but I wanted the atmosphere without constantly thinking about an open flame — particularly around fabric, flowers and all the other things I tend to pile together.

The Kitchen Cupboard Is Part of the Colour Palette Too

Inspiration isn’t restricted to beautiful things.

Open my kitchen cupboards and you’ll find packaging in every colour imaginable.

I genuinely love packaging. Labels, typography, unexpected combinations of red and green, an old-fashioned bottle, the particular yellow of an olive-oil label — these things all go into the visual filing cabinet in my head.

You never quite know what will spark an idea.

That is probably one of the things I enjoy most about designing TINKALINK. Ideas can begin with a colour, a pattern or simply something that has caught my eye.

Beautiful Doesn’t Have to Mean Perfect

Perhaps the biggest influence my home has had on TINKALINK is the idea that beautiful things don’t have to be terribly serious.

I like rooms with personality. I like objects that make you look twice. I like mixing beautiful things with humorous things, precious things with inexpensive finds and old pieces with new ones.

Homes should be lived in.

They should contain evidence of family, dogs, dinners, travels, hobbies, half-finished projects and the people who have passed through them.

For me, the best interiors aren’t perfect.

They’re personal.

From My London Home to TINKALINK

The line between my home and TINKALINK is inevitably rather blurred.

The same colours, patterns and objects that surround me at home eventually find their way back to the studio. An old textile might inspire a print for candle. A garden might suggest a colour combination. A piece of vintage china might spark the shape of a new homeware piece.

Back in West London, those influences become crystal jewellery made by hand, individually fabric-wrapped LED candles and an ever-growing collection of homeware. I don’t think I would want the process to be any more formal than that.

TINKALINK has always been about making everyday things feel a little more special — through colour, pattern, craftsmanship and a certain amount of playfulness.

And home is where most of those ideas begin.

Kathinka x
Founder & Creative Director, TINKALINK

And Then There Is Plum…

No tour of my home would be complete without Plum.

Plum is usually somewhere in the middle of whatever is going on — preferably asleep on the nicest piece of fabric available.

Our early morning walks are also one of the times when ideas arrive. I love wandering around West London before everything gets too busy, noticing gardens, front doors, architectural details and odd colour combinations.

Portobello Road, the Pimlico car boot sale, the V&A and those early walks with Plum are all regular sources of inspiration.