IN PARTNERSHIP WITH RANGE ROVER
Interior designer Roisin Lafferty talks good taste, overrated virtues and her current state of mind …
Your favourite virtue: Curiosity. Your favourite qualities in a man: Warmth, humour, playfulness, self-awareness, confidence, generosity, ambition and drive, balanced with grounded-ness; passionate and loving. Your favourite qualities in a woman: Same as above! Your chief characteristic: Creativity. What you appreciate the most in your friends: Honesty and openness. Your main fault: Easily distracted by the new shiny thing! Your favourite occupation: Designer. Your idea of happiness: Being able to be my real self and feel seen by those I choose to share my life with – friends and lovers. Enhanced by a beautiful environment I have dreamed up and created. Overall, feeling like I can express myself and be creatively fulfilled. Your idea of misery: 9-5 in a job I hate, without being able to creatively express myself. If not yourself, who would you be? My cat Henry. Your current state of mind: Appreciative for the now, excited for the future.
Your favourite colour and flower: Green, and Gorse. Both best seen in the Irish countryside, with long and spiky leaves and the most voluminous and vibrant flowers. Most overrated virtue: Docility. Which talent would you most like to possess: To be able to play the piano. Your favourite authors: Margaret Atwood, Gabor Maté, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl … For life is all about the balance, and you always need a sprinkling of magic! Your favourite poet: Sylvia Plath. Your favourite heroes and heroines in fiction: Sara Crewe, from A Little Princess. As a child, I was transfixed by her power to transform the most mundane and depressing places into magical imaginings. Alice, in Alice in Wonderland – again, the idea of a magical alternate world in which everything you imagine is real! Most key characters from Roald Dahl stories, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach… unexpected people, who come through bad experiences, who surpass expectations, and create magic and happiness out of nothing. I’m sure my list could be psychoanalysed quite well! Your favourite artist: Anish Kapoor. Your favourite musical artists and composers: Like everything, it depends on my mood … but here are a few: Jon Hopkins, Ólafur Arnalds, Zero 7, Arvo Pärt and Róisín Murphy, with a sprinkling of Taylor Swift for good measure! The principal aspect of my personality: Imaginative. Your idea of good taste: Something timeless that also expresses personality in a way that is truthful and not trend led.
The quality I look for in my surroundings: One that evokes a specific and identifiable atmosphere, the architectural tranquillity of an art gallery, the calmness of the coastline, the infectious buzz of a well-designed bar or restaurant. Spaces that capture an essence and mood. The country where I would like to live: Ireland. The more I travel and get to experience amazing places around the world, the more special our green island becomes. I look to the road ahead with … excitement and possibility.