Interior Design

In Conversation with Lisa Montague

This week we hear from Lisa Montague, CEO of Sanderson Design Group, home to a number of well loved fabric & wallpaper brands and of course the Salvesen Graham trimmings collaboration.

She talks about the importance of British design & manufacturing and how they keep a 160 year old brand relevant today.

CEO of Sanderson Design Group

Could you tell us about your journey to CEO?

I earned my stripes in international sales with high-end and luxury fashion companies, winning a Sales Director position by 25, branch MD in my mid-Thirties and a big jump to COO at Mulberry in the year 2000. My first CEO role was at Loewe when we moved the family to Madrid for a wonderful seven years, back in 2009.

How have you seen the interior design industry change since you joined Sanderson?

I joined Sanderson, or Walker Greenbank plc as it was then, six years ago now! What a strange few years it has been for us all with Covid, Brexit, UK politics, global security and now the unpredictable US market landscape! What strikes me is the change in UK consumer behaviour with the lower end all moving online and into shopping malls, while the top end has become stronger with interior designers thriving. The smaller independent retailers have really struggled to navigate the lack of footfall on high streets. We have become much leaner and more cautious with new launches, as there is so much choice in the market, new product must stand out to earn its place, with excellent craftsmanship and be truly beautiful. At Sanderson, we have reduced the numbers of designs and colours in our collections to offer a tighter and more confident edit, specific and unique to each brand.

What advice would you give young women aspiring to leadership roles in the creative industry?

There is a wide array of opportunities in creative industries and not only for talented designers! We have a team of over 500, of which less than 10% are in design functions. Please consider product management/ merchandising, finance, commercial and people teams as opportunities to work in a creative environment. I can recommend it! We recruit many creative talents from the New Designers graduate show and keep an eye on our website and LinkedIn for broader openings. The big luxury groups all offer graduate entry.

How do you balance preserving the company's rich British heritage while keeping designs relevant for contemporary interiors?

Heritage alone is old, as my team often hear me say! The history of a brand that allows it to stand proud on the foundation of its origins, provides a solid platform from which to refresh, make relevant to today and communicate to excite, inspire and ultimately attract new audiences.

Favourite Sanderson Fabric?

The classics of Stapleton Park and Rose and Peony. Having said that, the whole world was wooed by the Aperigon Stripe in the Giles collection, which has quickly become a new decorating classic in its quirky colour combinations. The new collection launching soon has taken inspiration from archival documents and adapted for a celebration of some special gardens, which we all love!

How do you see British interior design evolving while maintaining its distinctive character?

British design and make is outstanding and makes us all proud! The British decorating style (I think your interpretation is New English?!) is appreciated and sought after internationally. I think it is important to maintain a global outlook and see the whole World as a competitive marketplace while focusing on our defining features and desirable attributes.

Any secrets you can share from the design archives?

We have around 75,000 documents, including a rich lifestyle history of the Arts & Crafts period, at the end of which the Sanderson sons cleverly bought up many small studios and workshops so we have quite a treasure trove going back to the 17th Century!

What aspect of Sanderson are you most proud of?

The versatility and purity of the brand, which gives us great scope to inject a little fun, like Disney Home, characters with Maro Itoje, or take in new directions, as we did with a touch of whimsy thanks to Giles Deacon. The brand has always been beautiful, uncontaminated and evokes the fond nostalgia of well-loved chintz.

What’s the best part of supporting British manufacturing?

Standfast & Barracks celebrated 100 years of textiles printing on the same old wagon-works site in Lancaster last year, and we renovated the clock tower to show the correct time! Anstey has also been printing wallpapers for about as long, albeit having grown out of its original site and now residing in Ladybird House at Loughborough, the former book-binders. Winning awards for excellence, craftsmanship, export and British business over that time, makes the skilled communities confident in our ability to endure, embracing technological advances that improve efficiencies and celebrating the innovation that continues to create unique design solutions, using the full range of traditional and new techniques, to take us into the future. We are the only house of brands with our own manufacturing – what a priviledge!

For those readers that don't know about the Salvesen Graham x Sanderson trimmings collaboration, could you explain a bit more about it and how it came about?

We asked the Salvesen Graham design duo to style a Sanderson collection with us as we love their design aesthetic’ and it quickly became apparent that we were lacking the trims they needed to add finishing touches, so we decided to create a collection to enable our designer community to create and compete their schemes in the celebrated new English style that Nicole and Mary specialise in.

Discover Salvesen Graham X Sanderson