November 2025 | Style, Unapologetically Lived

I learned to notice beauty before I learned how to name it.

As a little girl, I watched my mother the way children watch rituals—silently, attentively, instinctively aware that something important was happening. In every situation, no matter how ordinary or demanding, she admired details. Not in a performative way, never to impress, but with a deep, almost private devotion.

She drank filtered coffee from her favorite porcelain cup, thin-lipped and slightly imperfect, as if it had chosen her. She selected tablecloths with intention, each one reserved for a specific mood, a season, a moment. Attention to detail was non-negotiable—not only during the grand dinner feasts when our home was full—but most of all when no one was watching.

That is what stayed with me.

When we cleaned and refreshed our cottage for a New Year’s stay, the rooms were often heavy with dust, closed up for months. Yet on the table, there was always her cup. Her cup. A quiet declaration that care existed even before comfort.

I learned later that this attention was not unique to her—it was inherited.

My grandmother collected eggs from her chickens dressed as if she had stepped straight out of Glastonbury. Black clothes that moved effortlessly, a colorful silk scarf tied precisely at the neck, gold designer jewelry catching the light, red lips unapologetically intact. On her feet: mud-covered wellies. In her hand: her favorite traditional village-woven basket, always the same one.

That image is stamped on my mind. She was different from any other grandmother I knew. And as I grew older, I began to understand where the difference lay: in her refusal to separate beauty from daily life, elegance from work, style from practicality. Nothing was accidental. Everything was chosen.

Today, when I think about design, I think about how objects meet the body.

I often say that a house should be made for us, not for photographs or approval. It should give us joy. And for me, that joy lives in the smallest gestures: the weight of a beautifully designed brass door knob, warm to the touch and etched with subtle detailing; the soft, assured click of a light switch; the curtain hanger that glides without resistance; the door stopper that waits quietly, doing its job with grace.

These are not afterthoughts. They are punctuation marks in the language of a room.

A thoughtfully chosen door handle can transform a threshold into an experience. A well-designed switch respects the hand that reaches for it dozens of times a day. Curtain rods, hooks, stoppers—objects often overlooked—shape the rhythm of how we live. They are touched more than sofas, noticed more than art, lived with more than statements.

When these details are chosen with care, they create a subtle, constant pleasure. A tingling of joy. A sense that someone—perhaps you, perhaps someone before you—paid attention.

Appreciating small things doesn’t shrink beauty; it multiplies it. It adds more pauses, more softness, more intention to the everyday. It reminds us that elegance is not about excess, but about choice.

I think of my mother and grandmother often when I choose these elements. Of a porcelain cup on a dusty table. Of a basket carried with confidence. Of beauty practiced in private. And I realize that design, at its best, is not about rooms that impress—but rooms that care.

ELENI NODARAKI

Creative Editorial Director

Write to me on eleni@decorationrunway.com