An Instagram Brand Masquerading as a Professional Practice
We appointed Charlotte Findlater Design for what was supposed to be a premium architectural and interiors project with clear stages, clear deliverables and a highly managed professional process.
What we experienced instead was a project that became commercially chaotic, procedurally unmanaged and increasingly disconnected from reality.
Looking back now, the entire business feels far more “show” than substance.
The branding, imagery, social media presence, polished visuals, branded Defenders, office presentation and apparent “team” all create the impression of a large, highly experienced premium design practice. But once we got behind the curtain, the reality we experienced felt very different.
One of the things that increasingly concerned us was how difficult it was to identify any meaningful professional history for Charlotte Findlater herself prior to around 2021. We struggled to find evidence of a substantial prior career in architecture or interior design, or a significant body of completed client projects before the business suddenly appeared online with highly polished branding and imagery. Much of the publicly visible portfolio appears centred around Charlotte’s own homes and lifestyle projects rather than a long-established body of complex client work. In hindsight, the whole operation increasingly felt like a heavily marketed image of expertise and scale that simply did not exist operationally.
The project itself was one of the worst managed professional experiences we have ever encountered.
Costs escalated to extraordinary levels without transparency, meaningful cost control or proper client approval. We were repeatedly sent vague invoices referencing percentages of the proposal, while key architectural and planning stages remained unresolved and incomplete. Only once the relationship broke down were retrospective reconciliations finally produced, which themselves raised even more serious concerns regarding staffing allocations, consultant involvement, travel charging and uncontrolled fee escalation.
At one stage, according to their own reconciliation, the equivalent of approximately 371% of the original Stage 1 estimate had allegedly already been consumed before Stage 1 had even been completed or signed off, and we were never informed. The wider project position ultimately reached approximately 465% of the original Stage 1 and Stage 2 estimates while planning still remained undelivered and the project fundamentally unresolved.
Despite repeatedly stating, both in writing and during recorded meetings, that we did not want to progress interiors until layouts and planning were resolved, we were later told that substantial time and fees had allegedly already been consumed on interiors work regardless. The final “close-out” package ultimately issued consisted largely of moodboards, inspiration imagery, evolving layouts and inconsistent renders which did not even properly align with one another, let alone justify the level of fees being claimed.
Meetings lacked structure. Agendas were rarely provided. Revisions happened without proper consultation. External consultants appeared to be brought into the project without transparency. The project increasingly felt like an internally chaotic design exercise driven by branding, atmosphere and image rather than by proper professional management, sequencing, commercial control or client-led collaboration.
Most disappointing of all is that the actual design work itself ultimately felt generic, rushed and disconnected from us as clients. The promised collaborative process where spaces evolve around the client simply never materialised because the project never felt controlled enough for that process to happen properly in the first place.
We are now pursuing formal recovery of the sums paid.
Based on our experience, I would strongly encourage prospective clients to undertake extremely careful due diligence beyond the branding, imagery and social media presentation before committing substantial funds to this business.