Interior Designers Share Secrets for Mastering Maximalism
Experts Martin Brudnizki, Corey Damen Jenkins, Trilbey Gordon, and Nicholas Potts reveal their techniques for layering pattern, texture, and color
Perhaps architect Robert Venturi had a point when in 1966 he famously coined “less is a bore” as a horror vacui retort to clean-lined Miesian modernism. Subsequent decades brought an influx of cozy opulence and the lavish, personality driven interiors that characterized the ’80s. While designers’ present-day interpretations may have redefined maximalism, what has remained is the freedom to unapologetically embrace what one loves—be it art, pattern, antiques, or all of the above.
“We try to weave narrative into every room,” explains Corey Damen Jenkins, whose New York firm conjures exuberant spaces that exude glamorous panache, many of which are featured in his fall monograph, Design Reimagined (Rizzoli). For one client entering a new chapter as a single mother, he completed an extravagant Upper East Side residence, cosseting the breathtaking entryway in a lush silk de Gournay wall covering depicting a family of peacocks. Such intentional details, he says, “can drive home the point of who lives here.”
Pattern Play
Some designers wear the maximalist moniker with pride—though style torchbearer Martin Brudnizki prefers calling his interiors “layered” for their potential to feed one’s soul and mind. “The spaces I create encourage exploration,” he says, noting his own whimsical Sussex manor brimming with handpicked antiques, Old Masters paintings, and references to its diplomat former tenant. If there are “stories within all the elements,” he explains, the initial overwhelming sensation that guests experience quickly gives way to comfort when they simply sit down and look around.
Brudnizki bristles at the notion of decorating rules but advises against blending disparate floral patterns. “Try mixing in geometrics and stripes,” suggests the designer, whose new book, My Life in Colors (Rizzoli), is bursting with maximalist rooms from New York to the Italian Riviera. He champions enveloping an entire space in one single print, like his own primary bedroom, which he saturated almost fully—walls, curtains, headboard, bedspread—in one painterly Jean Monro linen pattern of foxgloves.
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Material World
A homeowner’s collection is sacrosanct—and often dictates a room’s scale and tone. Inheriting an icy de Sede sofa impelled British designer Trilbey Gordon to pepper a collector’s exuberant London townhouse with Yves Klein–inspired blue elements, specifically the living room’s oceanic disk above the marble fireplace and brass puzzle shaped cocktail table lacquered inside with a sapphire hue, both by Based Upon. “You have to do what the client wants,” says the self-taught designer, “but because I have quite a distinctive style, they let me do what I want.”
For the pattern-averse, Gordon recommends placing bold textures in unexpected places. Her material selection is often guided by instinct and “playing around until I see what works.” That yields curious results, such as upholstering an entire conversation pit in alpaca. Not everyone will be charmed by the rock and roll notes, but “once people see how glamorous it looks and how it makes the house so much sexier and more interesting,” she says, “it’s never a hard sell.”
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Designers needn’t summon the splendor of Versailles to achieve “wow” moments. Careful editing is how Washington, D.C., architect Nicholas Potts attained a sense of grandeur in a once-spartan unit at the Watergate complex, transforming the apartment into a seductive aerie evoking ’70s-era lounges. He heeded Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s wisdom—look in the mirror before leaving and take one thing off—while devising a living room backdropped by curved Okoume veneer paneling, delivering both buoyant veining and what he describes as “white space.”
“It’s not hitting you over the head with patterns, colors, and textures,” says Potts, who insists context is everything. Sleek and sinuous furnishings can temper bold gestures while emanating a strong personality of their own. Case in point: an Arthur Vallin cocktail table made of carved travertine shines among the room’s dusky earth tones and mustard yellows.
Jenkins echoes that sentiment. White sofas may not scream opulence, but placing one in a room painted entirely in navy blue “makes the piece explode in a visual way that a gray wall simply can’t achieve,” he says.
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A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Fall Issue under the headline “Maximum Impact.” Subscribe to the magazine.