Prior to Farrow & Ball’s rise to middle-class must-havedom, the paint colours we chose for our homes were largely bright and plasticky, with names that did their best to describe the colour in the pot in front of you. Enter Farrow & Ball, and their traditional formulations poetically titled Elephant’s Breath (warm grey) and Mouse’s Back (grey/brown).

The husband-and-wife team behind British brand House of Hackney knows how to do matching. The home furnishings and fashion label reinterprets traditional English aesthetics for a new generation.