Nicola Harding was on a completely different path before launching her interior design firm. Raised in England, she studied theology at The University of Edinburgh before trying aviation and considering a career in the military. When that wasn’t the right fit, she eventually pivoted to garden design. “It was something that wasn’t particularly fashionable, and it was full of the most bonkers, passionate people who didn’t mind being soaking wet and filthy dirty most of the time,” she tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “An interior might look its best 10 minutes after you leave it, but a garden almost definitely does not look its best 10 minutes after you finished working on it. You have to recognize the fact that there’s something larger at play. Mother Nature is the bigger hero here, and you’re a facilitator to let her do her work.”

In 2008, Harding launched her own garden design firm, which eventually turned into an interiors firm as she fell more in love with shopping for antiques and word spread about the homes she flipped on the side. Since then, Nicola Harding & Co. has taken on both residential and commercial projects across the world and is regularly recognized as one of Britain’s top design firms.

In 2022, her husband, Andy, who had a lengthy career in e-commerce working for companies like House of Fraser and the consulting firm McKinsey, joined the firm to manage the back of house. In 2023, the couple used their respective skills to launch the home goods brand Nix (Nicole’s nickname). “[We had] this feeling [of] gaps in the offerings in the market,” says Andy. “[Nicola] would always talk about making these pieces for clients, because it just wasn’t possible to buy that kind of beautiful craftsmanship at a price that was affordable.” They originally started creating one-off items for some of their hotel projects; when interest grew, they ultimately decided to launch their own brand.

“Our pieces are the building blocks of homemaking, and they’re the sort of quiet heroes of homemaking, the dependable building blocks,” says Nicola. Nix’s offerings include fabrics, lighting and furniture (which ranges from dining tables and sofas to four-poster beds). “There’s an Englishness to them—a familiarity, something comforting, and I think that that’s a theme that runs through what we do,” she adds. “Everything has grown out of not just our hotel experience, but the experience of having three very rumbustious children and dogs—a house that’s always full of friends and family. Everything gets thoroughly tested, and everything we make needs to stand up to that degree of real life.”

Crucial insight: Many designers choose to license a collection through a more established company when launching a product. The Hardings decided to do it on their own. “I think it grew out of a specific moment [in] time, [where] we were installing two hotels during Covid, [when there were] travel restrictions and supply chain issues, and it really brought home where things were being made,” says Nicola. “There were pieces that we had commissioned other people to make, and it became very clear where they were making them, and we just thought, ‘We don’t want to be part of this.’”

The couple also values knowing every person involved in every step of the process. “We want a relationship with the workshop. We want to be able to go see the working conditions, to understand the makers and the craftsmen working there, to talk to the owners, to really get a trust and truth around exactly how it’s being made,” says Andy. “I think if you’re licensing something from someone else, you don’t have the same relationship—there’s an in-between person that you work with.”

Key quote: “I suppose the only downside of word-of-mouth is that you can end up in a bit of a sort of echo chamber of people [who] see something that [they] like, and they ask you to work in a similar way,” says Nicola. “And I love the challenge of something completely new. I don’t see a project as a chance to stamp myself on a place, but rather learn from that place, learn from that person, learn from their collection, learn from the team who are assembled to work on it. I don’t want each place to be the same.”

This episode is sponsored by Ernesta. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

Host Dennis Scully and BOH editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen discuss the biggest news in the design world, including RH’s Q1 earnings report, the latest housing market numbers and this year’s Elle Decor A-List. Later, executive editor Fred Nicolaus joins the show to discuss his findings from the 3 Days of Design festival in Copenhagen.

This episode is sponsored by Loloi. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.