Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
Interior Designer and TV Personality
Laurence Roderick Llewelyn-Bowen was born on 11 March 1965 in Kensington, London, to parents Trefor and Patricia Bowen. His father, an orthopaedic surgeon at Harley Street, died of leukaemia in 1974 when Laurence was just nine years old. He is of Welsh descent — his parents were from Newport, Wales — and it is from his father that he takes the distinctively Welsh double-barrelled surname he has made one of the most recognisable in British design.
From childhood his favourite subjects were art and needlework. He was educated at Alleyn's School in Dulwich and went on to study at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (now part of the University of the Arts London), graduating in 1986. After working for the interior design firm Peter Leonard Associates, he launched his own design consultancy in 1989 — and has barely stopped since.
Everything changed when he joined the BBC's home makeover show Changing Rooms in the mid-1990s. His extraordinary on-screen personality — flamboyant, witty, theatrical, utterly uncompromising — made him a household name overnight. His rooms were bold, his references historical, his colour choices unapologetic. Some homeowners wept. Others were delighted. Nobody was bored. The show ran for ten series and helped define British interior taste for a generation, even as the decluttering minimalist backlash that followed was in many ways a direct reaction to everything he stood for.
