Pick a handful of names from the galaxy of interior design stars and you’ll find that there’s no pre-ordained path up to the stratosphere. Many found their way via other fields, some more relevant than others: Nicky Haslam was a horse breeder in Arizona, Anouska Hempel was an actress, Nina Campbell worked in the wedding list department of The General Trading Company, David Hicks designed cereal packets for J. Walter Thompson and John Fowler painted furniture at Peter Jones.

For an earlier generation of designers, studying interior design wasn’t an option, but many newer arrivals worked in other fields, most enrolling either in the Inchbald School of Design (launched in 1960) or the KLC School of Design (launched in 1982). A good example is Brandon Schubert: a lawyer, first in his native Texas and latterly in London, he trained at the Inchbald and worked in Ben Pentreath’s interior design team before establishing his own practice. “When isn’t a legal background useful?” he asks.

Nevertheless, compared to law and other clearly defined careers such as medicine and accountancy, the route to interior design remains circuitous. Natalia Miyar, Douglas Mackie and Philip Hooper all studied architecture, a transition that requires only a short hop and which brings with it huge benefits of drawing and spatial understanding. Others are drawn from theatre design, such as Tiffany Duggan of Studio Duggan (whose work is pictured above), who found working with colour, texture and as part of a design team invaluable training for her new life as an interior designer – as was the all-important ability she developed to “create an experience”.

Over the years, some have migrated from the world of fashion, notably the former Ralph Lauren creative director, Ann Boyd. More recently, the creative brains behind 5 Hertford Street, Robin Birley’s private members’ club in Mayfair – arguably one of the most influential British interiors of the last decade – was the Turkish-born fashion designer Rifat Ozbek. Another designer who made the switch was Matthew Williamson, who turned his back on fashion to design everything from a burgeoning range of interiors accessories to projects for Blakes Hotel, Aynhoe Park and Belmond’s La Residencia hotel in Mallorca. “Whilst I’m no longer dressing people, I’m designing and dressing rooms, which feels similar in lots of respects,” he says.

A significant number of the current generation of designers are drawn from magazines, notably Suzy Hoodless (Wallpaper*), Gavin Houghton (The World of Interiors) and Lucy Elworthy (whose work is pictured top) who says describes her work on Vogue and House & Garden as experiences that “didn’t just teach me to respond to a brief, evolve ideas and distil them on to the page, it also forced me to think on my feet.”

“Coming up with the ideas is a small part of the job. It’s executing those ideas down to the last detail that takes up far more time”

Yet creativity is just one of the attributes required for a successful project. As Thomas Edison said, “genius is one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.” That perspiration can be expended in all sorts of different activities; from contracts to managing budgets and teams. It’s a sentiment echoed by Brandon Schubert whose legal training was invaluable: “Coming up with the ideas is a small part of the job. It’s executing those ideas down to the last detail that takes up far more time.”

When she moved from being a qualified accountant who spent 20 years in finance, Pippa Paton wanted to apply the same professional standards to interior design by training and developing the necessary skills. Katharine Pooley spent a number of years working in finance in Hong Kong and Singapore. “For both clients and suppliers, my background provides a degree of confidence,” she says. “Working in finance taught me some valuable transferable skills: hard work is everything, detail is everything, and precise organisation is what helps to bring your vision to reality, in the creative or financial spheres.”

Veere Grenney’s background couldn’t be further from finance or law; he arrived in London from New Zealand via India, Afghanistan and Morocco, fully immersed in the richness of the cultures he had experienced. It was while he was dealing from a stall at Portobello Market in the early 1980s that he met Mary Fox Linton. Today, he leads one of the most sought-after design studios, offering clients a depth and breadth of experience that owes its magic to those formative years (his own bedroom scheme is pictured above left).

“Travelling extensively, and living in Asia for so many years, helped me to see that an original viewpoint is the most precious and rare thing,” says Katharine Pooley (whose dining-room scheme is pictured above right). “For designers, I believe it is imperative to travel, experience other cultures and immerse yourself in the natural world. Fundamentally, to be a successful designer you have to have something to say, an opinion, an original viewpoint. I always advise design students starting out to travel extensively if they can, immerse yourself in this beautiful world to ensure you have a range of inspirations to draw on in your work. My years in Asia were imperative for my creative development, even though I was working in a completely different field.”