Sophie Ashby, South-African born and London based designer founded Studio Ashby in 2014 at the age of 25. She is revolutionizing the interior design industry with her eye for color, antiques, ‘world art’ and flair for South African style. She takes much inspiration from her own life and uses it to create beautiful interiors. Her mother was South African and her father British, so she spent many years in England and in South Africa.
For part of her life, she grew up in a market town called Tontes in Devon, England, that was filled with small boutiques that sparked her interest to own her own business someday. She always knew that she wanted to do something creative in her career and had an interest in property and business, so she felt interior design would be the perfect field for her.
Ashby studied at Leeds University in England in Art History. Afterwards, she spent the summer semester at The Parsons School of Design, The New School in Manhattan. This gave her the fundamental theories and strategies needed to launch her into the interior design industry. She was an apprentice to Victoria Fairfax, a renowned interior designer who inspired Ashby’s love for antiques.
She then headed up the interiors department at a multidisciplinary creative agency, Spring and Mercer. At the agency, she had a lot of freedom to develop her design style and lead the department in the direction she thought was best for the company. Even though she had a successful job at Spring and Mercer, Ashby always had a dream to own her own business.
When one real estate developer asked her independently of Spring and Mercer to decorate a townhouse near Trafalgar Square, she took the job and decided this was the time to step out and start her own business. She was working from coffee shops on her laptop and didn’t have much of a plan beyond this one job with this real estate developer. Yet, three weeks later she had another client and now the business has swelled to twelve employees.
Ashby and her designs have been covered in multiple publications, such as Home and Gardens, Architectural Digest, and Design Anthology.
I am inspired by Ashby for her perseverance of following her dream and becoming a successful designer in a cutthroat industry. She took her raw skills, passion, and determination to found her own company and inspire others with her artistic eye and love for beauty.
What I love about Ashby’s story and what I think makes her story unique is that she spent several years studying and going to school before she started her entreperual ventures. Even though she had know for a long time that she wanted to be an interior designer she started with the basics and learned what she need to so that she could do the best work in the end.