Interview with Danielle Proud

Danielle Proud, craft enthusiast DIY and interior designer, talks to Marian Buckley following the launch of Sony's new Vaio CR series.

Danielle Proud has just finished a pilot for what she hopes will be a new BBC2 series entitled In The Best Possible Taste, which brings her unique approach to interior design to the masses. She is also renovating a house in East Sussex with husband and gallery owner, Alex, as well as writing a weekly column for The Sunday Times. We caught up with her after the launch of the Sony Vaio CR range which offers state-of-the-art PC laptops in a range of lusciously lairy colours.

When Danielle was a young girl, her family moved to the US where her dad was posted to work for ICI. Dad is a scientist specialising in plastic and Mum has always been an inspirational DIYer/interior designer. Danielle's dad has a personal collection of plastic including lots of bakelite pieces. "He loves old nik nacks, " Danielle says, "and was always tinkering around in the garage. He also used to buy a lot of old furniture, he taught me how to worm furniture."

Fuelled by her mum's passion for American Midwest arts and crafts, Danielle has developed her own range of craft kits under her Housecraft label. These have so far included lampshade and cross stitch kits and before Christmas 2007 she will be launching charm kits for customising lampshades. Her work she says is inspired by traditional and modern crafts. "Kate Westerholt is an amazing cross-stitcher and I really like Jenny Hart's patchwork portraits of pop stars and modern icons. I also admire Jocasta Innes' stencils. My mum and I used to stencil pineapples together!"

The last mother/daughter collab was a coffee table which the pair mosaic-ed together. "My mum had this really old table with a lip around the edge, so it was perfect for a mosiac. One of my mum's favourite paintings is a Henry Rousseau picture of a tiger, so we drew out a pattern and spent hours working on the table." Danielle sources her materials and furniture from everywhere. "I'm like a magpie I really am." she told us. "I've learnt how to buy stuff from ebay now and I love secondhand shops and I go to charity shop warehouses. I like working on pieces which are old and challenging - I don't tend to go for something which is already beautiful, I like to create something new and if it's already beautiful, what's the point?" She describes her style as mixing modern style with traditional methods, psychedelic and "arts and crafts on acid."

Her laptop she says is indispensible for her work. "I am a Photoshopper and I also use it to draw a lot, I use Illustrator and I also use Indesign. Photoshop is my favourite though, it was the first programme I learnt to use." She has a red Sony Vaio which matches her favourite shoes. "I don't see why white goods have to be so boring. Fridges come in different colours and so it's about time we had a choice of vibrant coloured laptops. It used to be that the visual community all used Apple Macs but now that is changing."

For your chance to win a Sony Vaio CR red laptop like Danielle Proud's enter the competition here.

Words: Marian Buckley