Putting on the style

Get the Look. It's an expression that has become part of the lexicon of the lifestyle media in the past few years. As people like me fill the pages of style mags and Sunday supplements with beautiful pictures of aspirational interiors, this little user-friendly phrase is sure to follow one step behind, persuading you that if you buy this piece of furniture, that lamp or those oh-so-sculptural ceramics, 'your home, too, can be a temple to cutting-edge taste'.

It's all done with the very best intentions, of course, but these short-cut shopping lists aren't particularly helpful. There, I've admitted it. While a quota of fashionable furniture may impress your impressionable friends, it can't make your home stylish on its own. Stylishness, happily, is a far more elusive, far more democratic quality that has less to do with what you have than the way you treat it. 'Presentation,' as Max Clifford would say, 'is of the essence.'

Just as William Hague comes over better with his head shorn and his voice dubbed - why was I watching that Party Political Broadcast? - so any living space looks sexier when it's been prinked and preened a bit. Those perfect, uncluttered magazine interiors are a case in point. They look so good (and so unlike our own) precisely because they are not, generally speaking, photographed au naturel. They have been made up, polished and prepared for the camera (even those nonchalantly discarded trainers on the sheepskin rug have been put there on purpose) by the unseen alchemists of the interiors world - the ubiquitous stylists.

Now, let me make it clear. I am not talking about those old-fashioned, heavy-handed home dressers who drown interiors with unnecessary finishing touches (the champagne bottle on the table; the rose on the pillow; the tassel on the curtain) but their modern, subtler, far more sophisticated equivalents who can seamlessly transform very average homes into eye-catching feature-worthy spaces (thank God). Being asked to write a book on the subject has given me the perfect opportunity both to pay tribute to these talented people and, at the same time, to make up for lost time by examining, at last, how to really Get the Look in your own home. Claiming that I've demystified the stylists' craft may well land me in 'Pseud's Corner' but, well, that's what my aim has been. Rearranging one's domestic bits and pieces isn't rocket science, but to do it well demands a good dose of thought and vision. Stylists don't simply tweak the bedlinen and straighten the pictures, they (the good ones at least) apply the same creative principles and conceptual nous to a living space as any artist does to his painting or architect to his building; and by using their tricks we should all be able to make a dramatic difference to our own homes.

So, to the book. To make things easy, I extrapolated four general styling 'principles' and devoted a chapter to each. The first, 'Keep it Simple', gives tips on decluttering your home and also ideas on how to simplify it, aesthetically, with colour, texture or just one bigthematic idea. The second, 'Display', discusses balance, symmetry, repetition, shape; the things we all know about but rarely apply to our mantelpieces (and, really, they can make such a difference). The third, 'Lateral Thinking', is about shedding those decorative clich?s and adding a quirky, unconventional and impactful edge to your interior (by displaying very mundane objects, for example, or by kitting your home out with old factory fittings). The fourth, 'Fashion Statement', gives hints about how to keep your home up-to-date. And scattered throughout (just to keep you on your toes) are some stylists' 'Quick Fixes' ? instant and easy design ideas to set you straight on the styling path.

While I wish you all every success, I have to admit that my motives here are not entirely altruistic. By writing this book and laying bare the professionals' trade secrets, I am simply doing all I can to ensure that I have a steady supply of beautiful, aspirational interiors to write about. So, keep them coming.

Get the Look: How to be a Stylist in your own Home by Rebecca Tanqueray is published by Kyle Cathie (020 7692 7231) at £25.