"Joy Is Not Something That Comes Naturally" — India Mahdavi on Evoking Emotion and Comfort in Interior Design, and Why Color Should Disturb

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For most of our UK readers, the India Mahdavi project they're most familiar with is the (formerly) Pink Room at the Gallery at Sketch in London. Gentle yet vivid, it's a great introduction to the French-Iranian architect and designer's bold use of color.

"That space announced something publicly that I had felt privately for some time," says India. "That color could be an architectural decision, not a decorative one, and that joy was a serious ambition." And so she set the tone for her interior design, architecture, furniture, and more.

Eager to get more insight about the emotional impact of color from India , I asked her for an interview. The conversation below explores how the designer pursues joy, the different layers of comfort in interiors, and why color should disturb.

Your work is so often described as joyful. Is that a feeling that comes naturally to you?

I am always fighting my own melancholia. Joy is not something that comes naturally to me — it is something I pursue, something I build. This is precisely why I take it seriously as a design intention. Joy, for me, is not decoration. It is an act of resistance. In fact, I think joy has long been undervalued in design.

For too long, seriousness meant severity. Ornament was crime, color was frivolity. I never believed that. Today, when the future offers so little reassurance, joyful color becomes not just a value but a necessity. A serious matter, to make someone feel — even briefly — that the world is bearable and beautiful.

Habitat's new checkerboard coffee table is bold and contemporary, but in brown and cream tones if decorating with red feels like too much for your interior scheme.

I really believe that great design can do that, in the same way as art. It's so affirming.

Color is very visible and very photogenic — and in a world where the image has become so dominant, that has given it an almost inflationary quality. Everyone uses color now. Not everyone uses it with meaning. What interests me more is friction. Imperfection. The idea that a color can disturb slightly before it seduces.

I am not interested in color that simply pleases — I'm interested in color that provokes a second look, that creates a slight dissonance before resolving into something right. In difficult times, color should not offer false comfort. It should offer the kind of aliveness that reminds you that you are here.

Add a focal point above your kitchen island, like India's, with this three-light white silk pendant light.

What do you think color can do to a person's emotions?

Color brings a vibration, a quality of light that is not physical but psychological. It can produce joy, unease, nostalgia, desire — sometimes several at once. At its most powerful, it doesn't produce a single emotion but an openness to feeling. It makes you more present in a room.

A personal favorite design of yours is the Rosary headboard for Bolzan. How did you come up with that palette?

For the Rosary headboard, it was less about color choice than about meaning. I wanted to integrate something into a bedroom that could sanctify it. The bed is the center of your life in a way we rarely acknowledge: it is where you dream, where you are most vulnerable, where the most extraordinary things happen to you. It deserves reverence. The ceramic beads are there as a kind of offering — a private ritual object. And because every combination can be customized, every bed is different. Every dream is unique.

If you don't want to go as bold with a pouf, you could opt for something that gives a more subtle pop of yellow to your space, like this fun chequered design from Westwing.

So which colors are you finding yourself drawn to at the moment?

It is entirely instinctive — and yet also very precise. I know which color belongs and which does not. I often feel that colors impose themselves on me, that I am only their medium. The work is not choosing. The work is listening closely enough to hear what the space is asking for.

What resonates from your work is how integral color is. What do you think is the effect of being as bold as you are?

It can provide comfort . And I think of comfort in three distinct ways: physical comfort, visual comfort and emotional comfort. Physical comfort is the most obvious — scale, proportion, the quality of a seat. Visual comfort is subtler: the sense that wherever your eye lands, there is something worth resting on, without noise or aggression. And emotional comfort is the deepest — the feeling that this room knows you are there. That it was made with a human being in mind. Achieve all three simultaneously, and there is simply no reason to leave.

If you want more designer Q&A's, we spoke to interior designer Shalini Misra about comforting schemes, impactful curation and the power of negative space.

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