WORKING LUNCH WITH ROS
Natalee Bowen - INDAH ISLAND
Award winning Australian interior designer, Natalee Bowen of Indah Island, has grazing down to a fine art. The woman who singlehandedly made Australian Hamptons’ Style, blossom from Broome to Balgowlah, often lunches as if attending a Southhampton cocktail party.
Today’s no different as she’s hosting guests at the Indah Island’s luxury destination venue, Hamptons Farm Estate, 100km east of Perth. So, she toys with a mini quiche and enjoys some impossibly shiny, coral red and juicy local prawns.
Bowen’s earned this canapé feast. For the past few months, she’s been on a strict regime of twice daily – protein supplement shakes a day, that are part of a formal weight loss plan.
“My daughter, who owns a healthy smoothie bar (which weren’t part of that particular diet), banned me from visiting her there or going on TV, looking the way that I did,” she shares. “I hadn’t realised that I’d put so much weight on until I saw some photos of myself.”
Once Bowen fully leant into her new routine, she was unstoppable. The kilos disappeared fast. She’s now on a maintenance diet of a breakfast smoothie and then she consumes the sort of meals that anyone who is either in their car or on a plane, might know well. It’s a healthy burger here, a toasted sandwich there and nibbles in between.
“Effervescent, glamorous and surprisingly down-to-earth for a woman whose day job is decorating the interiors of mega-mansions, Natalee Bowen is officially the Australian guru of good taste.
For instance, if she decreed that vaulted, electric orange ceilings were chic, you can bet there wouldn’t even be a smudge of citrus paint left in certain upscale suburbs.
She’s even diving into our wardrobes, heads first. This year she introduced her Australian Hamptons Hat collection – five exquisitely designed pieces that capture the essence of her renowned style.
“That was a no brainer,” she says, “because we’re all swanning around our .. entertaining spaces in our homes, we needed something to keep us safe from the Australian sun, while looking stylish.”
From a very young age, Natalee Bowen, who grew up in Western Australia, demonstrated her decorating nous. She was influenced by her dad, a builder, often going on site with him and collecting scraps of materials. She would take them home and make her own constructions. As a result, her doll collection was almost accommodat- ed in palaces.
She later styled her own teenage bedroom, always shifting things around and playing with the colour palette. So, becoming an interior designer was a natural progression to the way she had grown up.
Natalee Bowen takes credit for adding the phrase, Hamptons style to the lexicon of Australian decorating terms.
“It’s still the most Googled phrase when it comes to design,” she says. “Australians relate to clean-looking seaside destinations. The white-on-white coastal look, suits our lifestyle”.
However, there have been subtle variations over the years, especially among Bowen’s well-heeled clients.
“The new style is transitional modern, which is old meets new,” she explains. “It’s all built around the introduction of antique pieces that have a story to tell and build character. This could be a glamorous chandelier or an embellished sideboard.”
Other trends to watch out for, she says, include black wrought iron curves and more depth in styling with some colour to break up all that whiteness.
“Duck egg blue is the 2024 colour and next year it will be sage green,” she reports. “It’s more moody, and grounded, with heavier neutral tones including caramel and some woods.”
Indah Island has its own homewares collections including indoor and outdoor rugs and textiles, plus so much more, it’s like a one-stop shop for gracious living.
“I was getting a bit bored with having to search and find fabrics. My biggest conundrum was trying to find coordinates that would go with our hero pieces,” she comments.
“So, at Indah Island, we created a bespoke colour range that we could coordinate with our settings. Now we can utilise our own fabrics to upholster chairs and sofas, cover bed-heads and make curtains. Our next release will be a collection of wallpaper,” she promises.
Bowen’s also working with Australian building brands to introduce floor tiles, hardware and even mouldings for wainscoting.
“It just makes it easy for people to get the total look without having to shop around,” she says.
Indah Island also has a range of international projects, which have been easier for Bowen to work on since Covid 19 with many meetings now taking place on Zoom instead of having to go onsite.
She says that in the USA especially, they love the elegant, laid back style Australian style. Ironic, when Australians are talking about the local Hamptons style to the Hamptons.
Bowen’s advice for anyone thinking of starting out in their own decorating business is to “fall in love with what you do” and then everything will happen from there. There’s no point in going into anything half-heartedly.
“I love this work so much that I really don’t know what I would do instead,” she comments.
However, she does have a new project. Inspired by how good she feels with her own weight loss, she is starting Indah Island Wellness, which is set to become part of the brand’s Lifestyle Range and will be dedicated to enhancing client’s wellbeing, inside and out. Looks like Natalee Bowen, is taking her ‘interior’ design to a whole new level.
