The clothes we wear and the houses we live in are all expressions of the people we are. For interior designer and fashionista Natalia Zubizarreta, the respective fields where she has made her name are unified by her creativity and her desire to help create a more beautiful and harmonious world.

“Interior design will always be my first love,” explains the 37-year-old from Spain. “I lost my father to brain cancer when I was only eight, and I think that early tragedy ignited a desire in me to exert control over my environment and create a world where only beauty and harmony existed. Through interior design, it is possible to build that world.”

As one of the hottest and most in-demand interior designers in Basque Country, Zubizarreta has been hailed as an artist who keeps it simple yet is not afraid to blend styles and someone with a modern mindset but with a classic touch. Like anyone who is extremely good at what they do, Zubizarreta has a habit of making the complicated look effortless. However, she’s the first to confess the amount of hard work that has gone into her chosen craft.

“Hard work has characterized my life because I learned early on that anything worth having comes at a cost, but if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more than willing to give your sweat, blood, and tears to pursue it. And if I’m passionate about anything, it’s helping people design the sort of surroundings that complement their uniqueness and enable them to find inner peace, calm, and an appreciation of just how aesthetically pleasing their home can be.” 

Zubizarreta adds, “I believe the aesthetic sense is perhaps our most underrated and undeveloped sense. There are such beauty and wonder in this world, but we often fail to appreciate it fully. My role as an interior designer is to unearth that beauty and wonder in people’s homes in a way that appeals to them as individuals. I pride myself on my empathetic traits. You need empathy in this job because if you didn’t, how would you be able to capture the personality traits and preferences that make a person unique and weave them into the very fabric of their home?”

On her interests outside of interior design, she says, “I often think if I weren’t an interior designer, I’d be a psychologist. Both roles contain a degree of getting to the fundamental core of a client and introducing an element of light, balance, and well-being to their world.”