Studio Shields, Piazza del Duomo, Milano (2026)

14/10/2026

PROFILE 🐂💥✨

Recently featured in Habitus Issue #67 with the guest editor Jase Sullivan has pulled together a fabulous mix of people & projects & where Gillian Serisier interviewed me for a profile piece and, safe to say, we got a bit deep.

We talked about the whole messy trajectory ~ from advertising art director, to chopping off my long blonde hair, dyeing it red and essentially rebirthing myself as Ruby Shields. About being told I was “too much”, being a bull in a china shop, and eventually realising that maybe being too much was actually the whole bloody point.

We talked about originality, fiercely protecting ideas, why I refuse to copy + paste interiors, the weird little personality quiz I make my clients do, my passionate dislike of white and beige interiors, how art is a starting point rather than an afterthought, and throwing our savings (and basically every ounce of myself) into Synthesis by Studio Shields for Melbourne Design Week.

There’s also crying in the shower, sex-toy coats of arms, Schiaparelli, Kelly Wearstler and the immortal Australian phrase: “I wasn’t there to fk spiders.”

So, quite the profile really.

But underneath all of it is something I feel incredibly strongly about: building a studio with a distinct voice and creating interiors that could only belong to the people who live within them. Not another version of something we’ve already seen. Not something designed for everyone to like. Something specific, layered, personal and hopefully a little unexpected.

As I apparently told Gillian:

“We’re all fighting for our piece of the pond. When you’ve defined yourself, you have to hold that line.”

And I think that pretty much sums it up.

A huge thank you to Habitus Gillian Serisier for giving me the space to tell the story ~ bulls, love bombs, wrecking balls and all. ❤️‍🔥

Habitus Issue #67, out now.

Images captured by the formidable Martina Gemmola featuring Synthesis, Joy Haus & our home The View.

12/10/2026

•SYNTHESIS ~ WHERE IT ALL BEGAN•

It started with an idea.

What if we took the objects we usually experience individually at design weeks, on plinths, against white walls, removed from any real sense of living, and put them back into an interior?

Not a showroom. Not a traditional group exhibition.

A home.

For MDW, I wanted to create a space that showed Australian art and design as I believe it is meant to be experienced: in conversation with one another.

So I took over the Bishop’s Parlour at Abbotsford Convent and began building a world.

An extraordinary heritage room became the framework for something entirely contemporary. More than 45 Australian artists, designers and makers came together across furniture, art, lighting, textiles and objects, woven into one immersive interior.

And Synthesis was born.

What happened next was bigger than I could have imagined.

Over 20,000 people moved through the space during Melbourne Design Week. There were drinks at the bar, bodies on the sofa, conversations between strangers, makers meeting makers, people touching things, sitting amongst them, asking questions and staying far longer than we ever expected.

It became exactly what I hoped it would be: alive.

And somehow, it kept going long after we closed the doors.

Synthesis found its way into Yellowtrace Vogue Living , Belle magazine Channel 9 News and far beyond Australia. Images travelled. Conversations continued. Months later, people are still talking to me about that room.

That might be the part I’m proudest of.

Because Synthesis wasn’t created as an aesthetic exercise. It came from a very specific idea about what an interior exhibition could be and a belief that interior design has the power to bring completely different creative voices together and make them feel like they have always belonged in the same room.

I conceived and curated Synthesis through Studio Shields, alongside an incredible collective of Australian creatives who trusted me with their work and helped turn a slightly bonkers idea in my head into something very, very real.

Synthesis by Studio Shields || curated by Ruby Shields for National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne Design Week 2026 || Captured by Martina Gemmola

07/10/2026

•HOTY 2026 ~ SHORTLISTED!•

This one feels enormous. Our home, The View, has been selected as one of just 27 projects shortlisted for Habitus House of the Year 2026.

To see our little house sitting amongst the work of some of Australia’s most renowned architects and designers, practices and people whose work I have looked to and admired for years, is incredibly humbling.

A bit surreal, actually. Which I have said a lot this year... I know. But I still can’t quite get over it all.

The View is so much more than a project to us. It is seven years of PATRICK SHIELDS and I making, changing, salvaging, experimenting, learning and slowly figuring out who we were as designers and makers. We built so much ourselves, often because we simply couldn’t afford to do it any other way. What we lacked in budget and experience, we filled with ideas, resourcefulness and a very enthusiastic “let’s give it a go.”

Somewhere along the way, our DNA became woven into every part of it.

The View became the place where Studio Shields really began. Almost everything I believe about design now ~ colour, craft, collecting, storytelling, resourcefulness and making a home deeply representative of the people who live there was learnt within these walls.

It is colourful, imperfect, handmade, collected and deeply personal.

Pat’s hand is everywhere. Mine is too. It holds the work of artists, designers and makers we love, alongside things we have made ourselves, things we salvaged and things that have simply found their way home.

We will probably never make another house quite like this one. And I think that’s what makes it so special.

To have Habitus recognise it, and place it within this extraordinary collection of Australian design, means more to us than I can properly put into sophisticated words.

A very special home. A very special journey. And a very, very special little moment for Studio Shields.

People’s choice voting is open! And you should VOTE FOR US!!! ✨🧚‍♀️

You can read our Q&A with Dakota Bennet which gives a little more insight into this home ~ Link in Bio

Thank you Habitus 🤎
Photography by the ever talented Martina Gemmola

06/10/2026

•WISHLIST•

A little peek inside my current (uncut version) shopping wish list for The Design Files feature today 🌷🍒🧚🏼‍♀️

Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the jasmine filling the air, or maybe it’s the new 2026 ERDEM spring collection ~ florals! stripes! bold colour! but I am DEEP in my folklore, fairy, whimsical era right now.

My eyes are wandering towards things that feel a little strange, sculptural, nostalgic, mythical and full of personality. Vintage Isparta rugs next to contemporary Australian design. Earthy browns with hits of lime.

Beautiful art from Renée Estée , weird little creatures by Lilach Ben Sasson Mileikowski , chunky forms like the Stanley lounge from Dowel Jones , sculpted forms like the bark stool by Jacqueline Kaytar (which I am currently paying off) whacky Murano glass chandelier and things that make absolutely no sense together until suddenly… they do.

Because that’s really how I love to build an interior. Thread by thread, story by story, collecting things that make you feel something until you’ve created a world that could only belong to you.

My current wish list is a rather delicious mix of pieces for home, pieces already making their way into Studio Shields projects and a few dream acquisitions I’ll continue staring longingly at until my bank account catches up with my eyes & heart.

Thank you The Design Files for letting me indulge my inner (affluent) bowerbird 🐦‍⬛✨

05/10/2026

•IN THE PRESS•

Our beloved Joy Haus is in the new issue of Houses : Kitchens + Bathrooms issue 21 and this one has put a very big smile on my face.

A home that really does live up to its name ~ bold, expressive and bursting with as much personality as the beautiful family who lives within it.

Colour became a way of telling their story throughout the house. Blues echo the nearby ocean, burgundy draws from the richness of the earth, soft yellow amplifies the morning light and bright orange appears as a little wry smile 🧡 a reflection of our clients and their fabulous outlook on life.

The kitchen sits at the heart of it all. Cork underfoot, Cherry Blossom marble, stainless steel, colour and plenty of room for the rhythms of family life ~ breakfast, homework, cooking, a glass of w**e and friends gathered around the island.

As you move into the more private spaces, the palette deepens and the mood shifts. The primary ensuite becomes immersive and calming, while the children’s bathroom goes in the opposite direction ~ powder blue, chunky bulbous forms and little handles that look like sea creatures emerging from the joinery. Over the top, bright and FUN 🛁🫧

Each room has its own personality, but together they form one chromatic journey through the home ~ balancing place, people, mood and a little element of surprise.

It’s incredibly special seeing Joy Haus captured in print and having the story behind all that colour told so beautifully.

Thank you HOUSES for capturing the heart of this project so beautifully. And forever grateful to my wonderful clients for trusting me to make their family home a little bit wild, a little unexpected and very, very joyful ✨

Project~ Joy Haus, Mount Eliza
Featured ~ Houses
Words ~ Rebecca Gross Interior Design + Decoration ~ 𝗥 𝗨 𝗕 𝗬 𝗦 𝗛 𝗜 𝗘 𝗟 𝗗 𝗦
Built by ~ INNER URBAN GROUP
Photography ~ Martina Gemmola
Stylist ~ Jessica Rayment

30/09/2026

•SEPTEMBER WRAP•

Well, September didn’t hold back. Like a true Virgo, she arrived and said, “hold up, we’ve got BUSINESS.”

We kicked off with the most beautiful oil painting class with CASSANDRA LYNCH | Australian Artist highly recommend, such a gorgeous evening. Then, quite literally the next day, I was whisked off to Sydney at 5am for the Australian House & Garden Top 50 Rooms Awards where, in a very surreal turn of events, I WON the Colour category alongside GREG NATALE ~ a true design icon. A huge pinch-me moment made even sweeter by receiving a benmazey trophy and finally meeting Britt Ross , Rising Star of the Year!

Then September got a serious spring in her step.

New projects kicked off with Bought Agency . Casa De Ember, (Fitzroy project) is in full swing with curation, tilling & painting. Eliza Legal is nearing completion with art and lighting going in. SOAK.BAR Sydney is heading into construction. Stitch (Beaumaris project) is at sign-off for window furnishings and custom carpet colours from Halcyon Lake , Howitt St (Canberra project) has finished installing all our vintage & Volker Haug Studio lighting. AND we squeezed in a trip to Castlemaine to see Mrs Finch as the keys were handed over, ready for her transformation in the next month.

Somewhere amongst all of that, our Belle magazine feature with King Living went live shot by lana landsberry AND The Nest (Syd project) landed on The Design Files A very big month for seeing our one woman show, Studio Shields out in the wild.

Mix in gallery visits, collection launches, sourcing, site visits and a dinner with Hothaus glass studio Amanda Dziedzic STUDIO ECLECT that were both genuinely a year in the making… squeeze in some painting, some design book research… and that was September.

And you’ll laugh, because October is somehow going to be even more chaotic. Then straight into November. So grab the reins, we’re going for a ride 🐎

There are also LOTS of new faces here lately, and I’m so bloody excited to have you here. Welcome to the Studio Shields universe 🧚‍♀️✨

27/09/2026

Our Sydney project “The Nest” featured this week on The Design Files ~ a white box apartment transformed into a home through colour & curation 🤎

18/09/2026

•SMOOTH OPERATOR•

Two weeks. That’s it.

From the initial briefing to spatial planning, full design direction, colour, furniture, lighting and a complete specification schedule - Smooth Operator for Bought Agency came together in two very big, very fast weeks.

We went HARD.

But sometimes those are the projects that just click.

Bought knows how to work a room. They’ve got confidence to the way they operate and that became the starting point for the whole design.

So, naturally, I gave it a soundtrack.

Smooth Operator.

Inspired by Sade’s 1980s classic, we wanted to take that warmth, swagger and polish and translate it into a workplace that felt unmistakably Bought.

Rich timber. Tactile fabrics. Expressive colour. Chrome. Sculptural lighting. A little gloss. A little sexiness.

More late-night jazz bar than corporate boardroom.

Because this isn’t an office that needs to wear a suit to prove it knows what it’s doing.

Upstairs is where the operator gets to work - bold, bright and hardworking. A space for the calls, negotiations, research, collaboration and general daily chaos of getting the deal done.

Then downstairs, the tempo changes.

Richer. Moodier. A little more seductive.

Deep colour, warm timber, layered lighting, and furniture with presence create a space for client meetings, conversations, podcasting and content.

Talk property at three. Pour a drink at five.

This is the kind of work we bloody love doing at Studio Shields - getting under the skin of a business and translating its personality into an interior that feels completely and utterly its own. Takes me back to the ad days where you’d work on 24hr pitches.

Two weeks. One clear idea. Full send.

A special thank you to BIANCA FIELD for trusting my instinct and direction on this one. Can’t wait for everything to start taking shape in the next couple of weeks ✨

06/09/2026

• IN THE PRESS•

Okay... this is the one I’ve been teasing.

In the latest issue of Belle magazine you’ll find SIX whole pages created in collaboration with King Living shot at our home, The View.

And this one brings me a LOT of joy.

The challenge? Taking a brand with its own established design language and weaving it into mine ~ without either losing its voice.

I wanted the King pieces to feel like they had always belonged here.
Woven amongst vintage finds, Australian art, pieces Pat and I have made, collected objects, rich timber, muddy colours, pattern and texture. Nothing screaming SHOWROOM! Everything becoming another layer in our story.

Like a bloody good lasagne, it’s the layers that create the richness.

Before interiors, I spent six years as an Art Director in advertising, and that brain never left. I’m still thinking about narrative, composition, brand, colour and the hundreds of tiny decisions that make something feel unmistakably you ~ weave that with my design language and you have some serious MAGIC ✨

My colour. My layering. My curation. My voice.

And seeing that point of view ~ something I’ve spent years developing, refining and learning to trust ~ across SIX PAGES of Belle feels pretty bloody special.

A huge thank you to the beautiful teams at Belle magazine and King Living for trusting me to do what I do & share that with your audiences. A special thank you to Tanya Buchanan for thinking of me 🤎

What a bloody moment!!!

SIX! PAGES! IN! BELLE! 💥 Issue is out now with some incredible talents.

Design, art direction, curation & styling 𝗥 𝗨 𝗕 𝗬 𝗦 𝗛 𝗜 𝗘 𝗟 𝗗 𝗦
Photography lana landsberry
Words Hannah James
In collaboration with King Living X Belle magazine

20/08/2026

I had so much fun curating this edit for Bonnie and Neil🤎💚 our home The View looks absolutely delicious ~ full of texture, colour & pattern. Read the full story at Bonnie & Neil Journal ✨

Studio Shields

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