Forget January, the unofficial “new year” now starts in September, with the autumn equinox ushering in the cosier months. While clearing out what you no longer need and embarking on new challenges, it’s a natural time to rethink how your home is – or isn’t – serving you. And beyond the practical, it’s a good moment to see what designers and makers are creating, and how you might translate these ideas into your own home. Here are seven key interiors trends to know for autumn 2026.

The arrival of the nearly 70-metre-long Bayeux Tapestry in London has had everyone marvelling at its beauty, detail and sheer scale. Charting the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, its embroidered scenes capture everything from ships being built and horses readied for war to the Battle of Hastings itself.

Jasmine Fisher’s custom table.

Storytelling is increasingly popular in interiors, too, through woven art, hand-painted furniture, murals and bespoke decorative details. Interior designer Jasmine Fisher recently commissioned a table for a client (see above) incorporating personal symbols – from fish to radishes – that tell a story of family life. Meanwhile, Petra Palumbo used tiles depicting the Jataka tales – stories about Buddha’s previous lives – to transform a simple staircase, and Studio Hollond incorporated individual family members’ zodiac signs into dining chairs.

These details are unique to the people who commission them: a subtle, nearly secret way of weaving personal history into a home. The idea can extend to architectural details, too – think carved or painted timber panelling that turns an otherwise functional surface into a narrative in its own right. And for a simpler nod to the tapestry trend, look to Ceau Store’s new Tapestry Cloud lamp, in collaboration with Ludio, which launches in October.

Ceau Store x Ludio Tapestry Cloud Lamp.

Tile mania

If you thought tiles were reserved for floors, bathrooms and kitchen splashbacks, think again. Designers are finding increasingly inventive places to put them, like framing doorways, climbing staircases and even creating decorative headboards in bedrooms. It’s an intriguing way to bring colour, pattern and texture to unexpected corners of the home. Delft tiles are particularly popular right now, while Ca’ Pietra’s new collaboration with Sanderson translates the latter’s storied prints into ceramic form.

Petra Palumbo’s Jakata Tales tiles, documented on stair risers.

A little drama is de rigueur right now, with generous swathes of drapery and lustrous fabrics – velvet, silk and brocade among them – transforming rooms into something altogether more theatrical. Drapery is perhaps the most seductive way to set the scene: think cascades of fabric sweeping across walls, or beds cocooned beneath romantic canopies. Interior designer Hollie Bowden recently commissioned her friend Yaz XL to surround her daughter’s bed in softly crumpled cream linen – a stylish take on the classic princess bed.

The mood extends beyond fabric. Interior designer Pandora Taylor has noted a renewed appetite for decorative detail – tassels, fringes and piping – and unexpected colour combinations, while classical busts, scroll motifs, hand-painted murals and other ornamental flourishes are finding their way back into rooms. This isn’t about faithfully recreating a period interior, but rather embracing a little grandeur, fantasy and frivolity.

New scent rules

Have you ever considered how your home smells? Franky Rousell, founder and CEO of Jolie, calls fragrance a key “interior design tool”. Indeed, visit any luxury hotel and chances are its signature scent was considered long before the first guest stepped through the door.

While candles aren’t going anywhere any time soon, incense is having a moment: Google searches for “incense stick” are up 50 per cent in the last month, while a new generation of sculptural holders makes a case for leaving them permanently on display. Astier de Villatte’s César Incense Burner, crowned with imperial laurels, taps neatly into the theatrical trend above; Monoware’s collaboration with maker Byron Friesem is chunky and carved from solid aluminium; and Completedworks’s amorphous silver Incense Holder doubles up as an objet in its own right.

How about a stain?

One of the stains used to bring simple furniture to life.

White MDF shelves in need of an upgrade? A wooden table deserving of a new lease of life? Consider a stain. Atelier Ellis has launched a palette of 32 colours designed for use on everything from unfinished wood to stone, concrete and plaster, across floors, walls and furniture. Unlike paint, the stains allow the natural character and texture of the material beneath to show through, lending surfaces a richer, more tactile finish. Better still, they’re virtually VOC-free and designed to endure, whatever life throws at them.

Get folked

The spirit of folklore is very much in vogue, as handmade, imperfect interiors usurp years of slick surfaces and minimalism. Traditional craft techniques are enjoying a revival, alongside objects that proudly bear the mark of the hand that made them.

Think: irregular ceramics, hand-quilted and embroidered textiles, and wood that has been stained, scorched or carved to decorative effect. Rollo Dunford Wood’s debut Objects Collection, for example, reimagines the traditional technique of tramp art, in which discarded wood is painstakingly chip-carved and layered into geometric patterns. Artists such as Tabby Wood are bringing a similar folk sensibility to our walls, with paintings of animals, birds and flowers displayed in decorative hand-carved frames.

Elsewhere, interior designer Sophie Ashby has collaborated with Bert & May on a collection of folklore-inspired tiles, featuring a lion, bird and rabbit roaming through the natural world on charming fired-clay designs.

Sophie Ashby x Bert & May tiles.

Let there be light

There’s nothing worse than switching on the big light on a dark, cosy autumn evening. ’Tis the season, instead, for deploying an array of lamps and basking in the soft, diffused glow they cast.

The Kradat Table Lamp by Richard Henley.

A host of designers have launched excellent new lights. Heathfield & Co’s Cinder collection harnesses jewel-toned glass to create lighting that feels as warm as it looks, while Richard Henley’s new Kradat Table Lamps are possibly the sexiest way to add a little something to a room: from their crisp aluminium edges to geometric, hand-painted shades, they’re designed to turn heads in the most insouciant way. Or try Addison Ross’s new Chrome Rechargeable LED Lamps, which can be moved anywhere the mood takes you.

On walls, Original BTC’s Blossom Linear Wall Light and Late Afternoon’s Redonda Uplighter Sconces offer an atmospheric way to illuminate artwork, mirrors or otherwise forgotten corners. And if you must use the big light? Take inspiration from Jess Wheeler, whose bespoke, large-scale chandeliers bring motifs from the natural world overhead – proof that ceiling lights needn’t kill the mood.