“I don’t believe in saving things for special occasions. You should sit on your silk velvet sofa, drink out of a beautiful teacup, eat the chocolates someone gifted you. You should live beautifully every single day, and the best interiors do that,” says designer Natalia Miyar, who founded her namesake atelier in 2016.
Born in Mexico to Cuban-American parents, Miyar spent her formative years in Mexico City, where she and her family took strolls through a bazaar in the historic city center on Saturday afternoons, meeting local craftspeople and viewing their wares. “It’s a poignant memory that forged and continues to influence my love for creating narratives from spaces, places, and things,” she says. Miyar moved to Miami, then studied the history of art and architecture at Brown University in Rhode Island, before earning a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Miami.
Now splitting her time between Miami and London, Miyar brings her signature vibrant touch to the likes of the Twenty Two in London, her first hotel project, which opened in April. Located inside an Edwardian-era mansion on Grosvenor Square, the Parisian look of the building’s exterior informed Miyar, who references furniture by André Charles-Boulle and the Château de Malmaison, once home to Josephine and Napoléon Bonaparte. “Each project we’re working on pulls inspiration from its location and is guided by the stylistic influences of the surrounding culture,” she says.
This fall, Miyar also unveiled her first product collaboration, a wallcovering with Fromental. Drawing upon her heritage and the work of renowned Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, Ambia is an abstract patchwork of textures, including handpainted marbling, speckles, buckskin, and a cracked eggshell inlay. “I use texture in all of my projects because it’s cozy and homey,” she says. “You can have a lot of color, but it still feels calming.”
The printed and hand-foiled Ambia wallcovering is available in four colorways, including Vedado (shown)
This article originally appeared in HD’s December 2022 issue.
