Tell us about yourself and your background.

Hey guys! Well first of all, thank you so much for having me here on Audenza. Where do I start? I founded multi-award winning interior design blog, Apartment Number 4 back in 2009. For the last 9 years I’ve been running the blog as a hobby alongside my full-time career as the editor of a menswear magazine. In March of this year, I was thrown head first into the world of freelance and decided I wanted to turn Apartment Number 4 into much more than a blog. I wanted to grow a brand. I also wanted to put my skills developed in the publishing industry to some use, so I worked with a designer to develop a digital magazine, where every product featured is directly shoppable from the page.

What compelled you to want to create 4 Magazine?

As a consumer, I know how frustrating it is when you spot something in a magazine, you go online to search for it and it’s either not in stock yet or nowhere to be found. The beauty of 4 Magazine is that everything featured is directly shoppable from the pages of the digital document. The whole ethos behind the Apartment Number 4 brand is to help people create a stylish home regardless of budget – help being the key word here. Which is why I wanted to create a product that took away the stress and hassle away from shopping for home décor. Plus, with 8 years’ experience as editor-in-chief, it would have been such a shame to let that go to waste.

What can readers expect from the magazine?

From inspirational home tours to spotlighting new undiscovered brands, 4 Magazine will be filled with helpful tips and advice, inspiring images and an insane amount of affordable product to bookmark.

What makes 4 different to other magazines?  

For me it’s the element of see now, buy now. There’s also a real community surrounding the Apartment Number 4 brand, and readers know that whether they’re reading the magazine, the blog or just chatting on Twitter, the products featured are trusted, authentic and, most importantly, affordable.

Can you sum up the magazine style for us?

I’m so excited to share the design with you. I met with my designer, armed with tear sheets, mock-up’s I’d sketched out and list full of ideas. We worked together to create a sophisticated, cool, modern layout, which embodies the feminine feel of the Apartment Number 4 brand perfectly.

Anything you’d like to add?

Yes! I’m also super excited to announce the launch of The £89 Online Interior Design Service, designed to help people create their dream home at an affordable price tag. I work with the client to figure out what they’d like to achieve with the room at hand, create moodboards, floorplans, a comprehensive shopping list and styling tips to make the most of the room. I wanted interior design to feel accessible to all, no matter the budget, because I know how daunting it feels when faced with such a big project.

Thank you so much, Victoria for sharing your exciting launch with us – the magazine is sure to be a thing of beauty! If you’re looking for design inspiration or maybe some useful tips to spruce up your décor, subscribe to 4 Magazine. The first issue launches this Friday 5th May.  What are you waiting for… it’s free!

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Gardening has changed dramatically over the last few years – it used to be the case that you were either a gardener and obsessed with plants, or you weren’t and just had a lawn with a few shrubs, but now we want a garden that we can use as an outdoor room and that we can style accordingly without having to become the next Percy Thrower! My garden is very labour intensive and that is my choice because I would actually like to be the next Percy Thrower, well a female version of, of course, but for those of you who want to actually have time to sit in your garden as well as enjoy it as an extension of your home then this is the mag for you. It’s full of inspirational design and style ideas for creating an interesting outdoor room without being overly horticultural.

This month’s edition (April 2016) has a feature on how to set up a garden cinema for a fab summer party, everything you need to know about tulips (well not quite everything but enough to make a great display, did you know you can eat tulip petals? I didn’t), how to create a garden kitchen for alfresco parties, planting a purple corner that bees will love and lots more style ideas to create a garden to be proud of.

You can subscribe here: Modern Gardens. Needless to say, I’ve already subscribed.

So what you think?  Is it just the garden mag you’ve been looking for?

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

Move forward just over a year, and Sophie has now launched the very first issue of her premium bi-annual newspaper, Warehouse Home with 15,000 copies having already being distributed directly to the residents of the UK’s most exclusive warehouse conversions.

This image is pretty much Amelia’s ideal home.  An industrial edge, with a feminine twist.

And you know what?  It’s pretty bloody good.  Securing an exclusive interview with Sir Terence Conran takes the paper up another notch in itself.  But the content is good, well styled, well curated and interesting.  I particularly like the subtle design details and layout.

Talking to Sophie I found out that they conducted a great deal of research into Victorian newspapers – the font and front page in particular are directly inspired by these.  The font on the front page was actually specially commissioned for them.  Of course the focus is on the Victorian period as that was the height of the British industrial revolution, when so many of these wonderful warehouses would have been built and in constant use.

When it comes to industrial interiors, I like things to be on the slighter softer side, which explains the images I have chosen to show.   But I think it’s also nice that the paper isn’t exclusively for die-hard industrial fans and there’s certainly some great interviews and content to keep you occupied for some time.   As well as a host of design led products to drool over.  Oh, speaking of which, our Copper and Brass Stools were very kindly featured in the paper too.  What great taste!

With photography and styling by Carole Poirot, of Mademoiselle Poirot, who I also met at the same blogging event and wrote about in the same post on the blog.  I’ve been a fan of Carole’s styling and photography for some time and having her image featured on the front cover of Warehouse Home is testament to her talents.  I am completely in love with the sofa in the above image, in fact ‘Industrial Luxe’ is definitely the kind of industrial I could get in to!  Oh that deep blue combined with the copper!

You can read the magazine online here: Warehouse Home.  I would love to know what you think, so  please do come back and let me know below.

Hollie x

New Warehouse Home Newspaper by Hollie Brooks

Photo credits: Warehouse Home

Aside from just how exciting it is to have the house featured, mostly I just feel so unbelievably proud of my Mum.  A woman who’s absolute passion is her home, who is so unbelievably talented at styling and designing, but has a complete lack of self confidence or belief in herself and this, I hope is finally testament to her talents.  She was convinced that they would come in to the house, take one look in the flesh and then decide it wasn’t right for them after all.   But alas, they loved it, as I knew they would! (Especially since they’d already seen rather detailed pictures!).

Amelia and I have learnt everything we know about design and interiors from our Mum and all of the vignettes and styling are her handiwork.  We realise this kind of eclectic look isn’t for everyone, but it’s the ‘Audenza look’ as Katie, the journalist who wrote the piece says.  It’s a very individual style, which is reflected in our choice of products on the site and a look that we’re pleased to find others like as well.

Huge thank you to Homes and Antiques magazine for featuring our home, in particular Katie Hallett, who wrote the piece, as well as Rachel Whiting who photographed the shots.  They both did a fantastic job of making our home look lovely.

We’d love to know what you think…

Hollie x

Photography: Rachel Whiting

Our Home in Homes and Antiques Magazine by Hollie Brooks

The news that our house was going into the January issue, then of course meant that we had to get the house looking Christmassy.  So, by the time Christmas rolls around, we will have done Christmas 3 times already this year!  Homes and Antiques wanted to have some wrapped presents in the shot too, so Amelia and I got a little crafty with this and made a festive woodland scene to decorate the side of the box.  We will be doing a post on this, to tell you how we did it, but suffice to say, it’s a fiddly job!

So, as you can imagine, we have had a busy week preparing for it, we have only just re painted the sitting room, so everything had to be completely re arranged, re hung and re styled, not to mention the fact that my mum washed what seemed like every item of soft furnishing, kitchenware, ornament and surface!  It did at least encourage us to get a lot sorted- all those little jobs like pictures that have been sat waiting to be hung for months are now finally done.  In fact, we didn’t end up going to bed until 3am the night before! Partly owing to the fact that we have a lot on with the business at the moment in the run up to (dare I say it) Christmas and partly because all three of us are a bunch of perfectionists!

Homes and Antiques is undoubtedly one of our favourite magazines, so it was perfect for us that they chose to feature our house and one that I think is actually a good fit for the mag as well.  We were never going to be featured in a minimalist, contemporary and fuss free mag were we!  Our home is full, (literally bursting at the seams) with antiques, quirky ornaments, one off handmade items and plenty of colour, which we realise is not to everyone’s taste, but it’s just the ultimate compliment for us that a magazine like Homes and Antiques to want to feature it.  All of the styling, decorating and interior design is the work of my very talented mother and I hope that seeing her home, her absolute pride and joy, being featured in a magazine will give her confidence a much needed and well deserved boost.

We can’t wait to see the feature- they did also photograph the 3 of us, so do keep an eye out for us in the January issue!

Hollie x

By Hollie Brooks

The new issue is due out on Monday April 22^nd and is their 6^th issue.  With 110 pages of ‘loveliness’ as described by Caroline, I for one can’t wait!  Caroline recently won a ‘Women in Publishing’ award for ‘New Venture 2012’, which is fantastic and thoroughly well deserved.

Isn’t this just gorgeous?  I always love the colours 91 use on their covers, so fresh and inviting, don’t you think?

Having spoken in the virtual world a number of times, I was very happy to finally meet Caroline at Selina Lake’s Pretty Pastel Style book launch and fair.  When I found out about the new issue, I asked Caroline if she wouldn’t mind answering a few questions for us:

Can you tell us about a couple of the features coming up in the new issue?

We have a lovely feature looking at where craft trends originate from, and share some ideas of what we think will be hot this year.   We have our first ever foodie feature, which has some scrumptious recipes as well as stunning photography!  We were welcomed into the homes of a lovely shop owner and a blogger, whose interiors I know you will love!  And we have the 2nd instalment of our lovely downloadable desktop calendars by Charlotte Love.

What inspired you to start 91 magazine?

Back when I originally had the idea for the magazine in the summer of 2011, I’d noticed that there were lots of great online magazines coming out of the States and Australia, but not really any in the UK at the time. I have a real passion for magazines, photography, design and interiors and I thought this was a great opportunity to put all these things together.

What’s your starting point for each issue?  How do you go about getting your inspiration for it?

I usually just get inspiration from things that I love, or that I find interesting! So for example, in the new issue we have a feature about the origin of crafting and styling trends. I was personally really intrigued as to where these trends come from and how they spread, so I thought it would be nice to investigate this further. I then worked closely with the stylist to come up with some of our own trend predictions and created some lovely photos to go with it. 

I also have lots of discussions with existing and potential contributors about ideas I have or they have that might work. I then make choices of what will run in the next issue and plan out the running order.

What’s your favourite feature in the new issue?

Oooh! That is too difficult to answer! I really do love everything that goes into the magazine.  If I didn’t I wouldn’t include it. But if I had to choose one, I do love the shoot we did with The Hambledon at the shop and the owner’s home. (here’s a peak below).

So what do you think?   It looks fab doesn’t it?  The images are just gorgeous.

Patchwork Harmony, who publish the magazine, also publishes a successful blog, offers freelance editorial services, as well as creative business advice sessions. Find out more on their website.

If you want the new issue as soon as its live on Monday 22nd April, make sure you email SUBSCRIBE to info@91magazine.co.uk.

Audenza x

91 Magazine Sneak Peek and Interview- By Hollie Brooks