Kitchens, houses, furniture are solid long-lasting things with an air of heritage about them. They do not have a the whiff of fast moving, responsive, mood-of-the-times fashion. Kitchen renovators might be scared off if their kitchen designer mentions cool new trends that might be short lived. They expect to be co-habiting with their kitchen for years, not changing with the latest catwalk creation.

Does home design need fashion? A need for renewal and fresh thinking is always welcome. On the other hand, the more we become aware of ecological damage and shortage of resources, the more we need to make longevity a priority. We need changing landscapes. Summer, winter and spring would have to be invented if they did not already exist.

The relationship between fashion and design is historical. Would the French Aristocratic women have come up with Recocco style – the first fashion inspired movement that affected interiors? Osbert Lancaster’s feast of send-ups in ‘Here of All Places,’ the most famous historical cartoons of interior styles, demonstrates an easy transfer of style ideas between home décor and fashion.

Fashion me a kitchen that picks up the chatter of contemporary conversations, but don’t let it take over the design. Plan the kitchen to work around our instincts, look carefully at new research coming from a solid foundation like neuroscience and then, for icing on the cake use, use objects of decor that can be changed easily. Add you own utensils, the clutter of a busy household, and the necessary accroutrements of survival,  and you will quickly be in touch with the land of now. For me that is the essence of being fashionable.

The Art of Exactitudes: Tribalising Fashion at Selfridges Ultralounge was an exhibition I was sorry to miss. After reading Peter Yorke’s piece in the Independent magazine (29th March), a man with a sharp eye for the comings and goings of cultural undercurrents, I was reminded how stale so many interiors feel – how disconnected from their owners ‘emotional mind-space’.

I enjoy how nuanced people are with their dressing habits, what trouble they take to send out the right messages. Constructing your look for the day requires prediction on everything from who you are going to meet to what the climatic conditions are to what mood you want to propel yourself – its like a self created spell. Dressing is an attempt to make oneself feel comfortable. The world of home décor is an incremental extension of this but with added elements of practicality, shared opportunity for expression with loved ones albeit complicated by longevity and high cost of fiddling with walls and furniture.

Next time I flick over a fashion page I shan’t be dismissing it as just another frivolity I will be thinking Oh it’s a sign of people engaging with life and wanting some fun and subtle interpretation. Cultural sub groups are a sign of a really healthy and free society. For sub group read the new ‘local’ spirit rather than product (more removed from our inner lives) and for free society think of the banning of fashion in communist or fascist regimes. Décor can’t display a daily or casual sentiment in the same way but it can be a charming expression of people’s feelings, history and collections of life experiences as 3D record. People should be braver about doing up their homes to reflect their passions and telling us their personal story.