Designer chargeable for Boris Johnson’s garish No10 wallpaper is awarded OBE
The interior designer behind Boris Johnson’s lavish Downing Street refurb has been handed an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list.
Lulu Lytle, founder of Soane Britain, gets an OBE for “services to British Manufacturing and Craftsmanship.”
Miss Lytle was the creative brains behind Mr Johnson’s controversial 2020 refurb of the flat above Number 11 Downing Street. During the redecoration she was pictured at Mr Johnson’s lockdown-busting birthday party – which led to both Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak being handed police fines.
At the time, Ms Lytle said: “Lulu was present in Downing Street on 19 June working on the refurbishment. Lulu was not invited to any birthday celebrations for the prime minister as a guest. Lulu entered the cabinet room briefly as requested, while waiting to speak with the Prime Minister.”
Ms Lytle is popular for her colourful designs, British craftsmanship and eco-credentials. The firm’s eye-catching patterned wallpaper is said to run to £100 per metre. A table lamp could set the buyer back some £1,250, while many items on the website come without a price and the details are only available on request.
The firm has done work for the Cobbler’s Cove Hotel in Barbados, as well as Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the home of the Marquis of Cholmondeley. Downing Street insisted the PM paid for the refurb out of his own pocket – despite trying to set up a charitable trust to fund the project.
It was later reported he borrowed or took that money from a donor to the Tory party. An official report said weeks after he left intensive care, Mr Johnson took advice suggesting a charitable Trust to fund the works on his private flat “could be made to work”.
Legal advice then raised “doubts” about whether a Trust was suitable for dealing with the private residence. That forced the publicly-funded Cabinet Office to pay initial invoices for some of the work. It then recharged that bill to the Tory party in June 2020, believing a not-yet-existing Trust would eventually pay. On October 19, with a Trust still “months off”, Lord Brownlow decided to settle another invoice for more of the work himself directly with the supplier.
