Nina Maya – RealLiving
Who lives here? Nina Maya, an interior designer, and her Maltese poodle, Fred.
Back to the beginning: While Nina used to work as a fashion designer, she actually studied design at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney. “While I was in London I was really lucky to be staying in beautiful homes, and I thought a move into interiors totally made sense. It uses the same skills in terms of colour and form. It seemed like a nice fit.”
Pull focus: When it came to dressing the interiors in her Elizabeth Bay apartment, Nina says: “I would find a focal point for each room and try to build the scheme around that.”
IT WAS AFTER living in London for a year that designer Nina Maya got some clarity on what she wanted to do with her life once she returned to Australia.
The former fashion designer was taking time out after a whirlwind six years whereby her launch collection had been picked up by David Jones and celebrities such as Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Hawkins and Megan Gale had worn her wares. She moved to London to regroup and work out what to do next. “I visited wonderful people’s homes and it cemented that working in interiors was my new direction, and that was when I decided to head home and set up my new business,” Nina says.
Not one to do anything by halves, she designed her next place before she landed back in Australia – even though she had nowhere to call her own yet. That didn’t stop her shopping her way through Europe, though, buying homewares for her “one day” house. “I had so many arguments with my boyfriend because I was buying glassware for the kitchen that I didn’t have,” she says, laughing. But, in her mind the design scheme was already all worked out.
