Debating the all-white room

It’s no exaggeration say that white is our most controversial colour — and it’s not even a colour. White has elicited a feeling from every one of us, whether we’re aware of it or not: it’s either too cold, too basic or too soulless, the ideal foil for art or a too-stark contrast to furniture and fingerprints. When a signature shade emerges as the white of the moment, it practically becomes a household name. We will spend more time searching for the ideal white than all other hues put together, and with good reason. The right white can make an interior scheme, or break it.

White is so ubiquitous, so evocative of personality — or lack of it — that the author and academic Wendy S Walters wrote a treatise contemplating its influence, its associations, its role in and the collective psyche and her growing antipathy toward it. The book, A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint, has been nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in the US.

A Dead White wasn't coming out of nowhere. For a while there, white paint was fading into the background of the design conversation. The images we were fed burnished with tones of amber and stone, tea-stained silk and buttermilk. Deep jewel colours emerged as popular candidates for spaces that lacked natural light. Yellows, greens, pinks and blues were all over kitchens. And designers like Brandon Schubert built wildly popular schemes with shades of moss and goldenrod.

'I'm actually someone who struggles to use white in interiors,' says Schubert. ‘There is something about white that feels like such a missed opportunity... To me, colour is emotion, or at least the purest way to conjure emotion in an interior. We can, mostly, agree on what makes a calming or gentle palette, and likewise when something feels moody or energetic. Colour is deeply connected to emotion like that.’ He adds that white, though inoffensive, can create another impression entirely when used poorly: ‘lack of thought, inattention, carelessness’.

It’s enough to make one feel like a coward for choosing pure white. And yet there is reason to believe the white stalwarts will prevail. The buzz we get from colour-drenching our rooms only pales in time, while the satisfaction that comes from white against brick, wood or glossy trim is evergreen.

'I don't much like being in coloured rooms,' says the architect William Smalley, who also published a book of calm, porcelain-washed rooms called Quiet Spaces. ‘The colour can feel insistent. White tones seem truest to a true life — honest, without artifice… especially in the sun.’ Calling every white ‘white' is painting it with a broad brush, he says.

‘White is not a colour. It’s an absence of colour. It’s the reason paper is white. Painting a wall white doesn't make it aggressive or a cop-out. It's not trying to influence you. I could write a book saying the opposite [of Wendy S Walters], that white is true and pure and excess colour is false and not facing up to reality.' Smalley often uses natural clay plasters from Cornwall called Clayworks, which engage with light in a room for a soft, subdued look.

‘I remember an old whitehouse on a rocky point on the island of Sifnos, in Greece, in September,’ says Guillaume Alan, an interior designer who has used white liberally on projects across Paris and London. ‘The brown and rust tones of the rock warmed the white walls, and the sun reflected off the sea. It reminded me that white is shaped by the light and by everything around it. Place matters a great deal.’

Though in some cases an all-white interior can feel cold, balance is crucial, says Alan. ‘I often think of architecture and decoration as a musical score — each element has its own presence, but it is the balance between them that creates harmony.’

Fascinated by the range of whites on offer, five years ago Alan concocted yet another: a custom chalky white called Craie. Used in a Paris residence, it brings ‘contrast and luminosity’ in dialogue with raw stone, marble and white-brushed parquet. ‘I don't believe white should be the default for an elegant interior,’ he says, ‘but used with sensitivity, it brings simplicity and elegance. It also allows for play with lighting.’ In this way, whites are materials to work with, tools with which to pull together a coherent scheme.

It is worth noting the quiet, calming effect that only the right white can provide. When Pantone named a creamy white called Cloud Dancer its colour of the year for 2026, it was described as ‘an antidote to the noise and angst going on in the world.’

It takes trial and error to achieve that sort of ‘invisibility’, as Smalley calls it. ‘I want to walk into a room and not think,’ he says. For his office redesign, he achieved a milky tone with the help of London designer Marianna Kennedy, who added pipettes of umber and siena to a vat of white paint.

For the designer Alex Eagle, whose luminous, new studio and boutique are located in 180 Quarter along with her residential project 180 The Thames and hotel project St. Clement, the best non-bespoke whites are Farrow & Ball’s Slipper Satin and Lime White. They achieve the calming, clean palette of a cultural institution or gallery.

‘There’s something incredibly beautiful about white paint in a world where we’re there’s so much going on,’ she says. ‘We’re inundated with screens, bombarded with advertising and different aesthetics. There’s something appealing about the simplicity and minimalism of it.’

In her hands, white paint becomes a medium to play with and play off complementary materials. ‘We make them creamy or give them a specialist gloss or plaster finish,’ she says, ‘so that when there are paintings on the walls, specialist lighting and beautiful light switches, those rooms feel special.’ Yes, when it’s paid some attention, white can have soul.

They can even feel an essential element of a whole. Smalley tells of a friend he brought around a home he'd recently completed in Wimbledon, with oak panelling and pale grey carpets against the Farrow & Ball white walls. ‘He walked in,' says Smalley, 'and he just said, “Dior”.'

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