“Consultancy work has started to land in our laps, too,” says Holmes. “Strangely enough, the paper company Arjo Wiggins Fine Papers asked us to develop some paper textures.”While Holmes works with knitted fabrics using an industrial knitting machine, Swindell specialises in woven textiles made on a loom. Their experience there – “we learnt how not to do things” – and a realisation that they shared a “common interest in light and transparency”, galvanised them to apply, successfully, for a Sainsbury’s scholarship.Thanks to this, they were able to set up a studio at London’s Oxo Tower Wharf. “The press quickly picked up on us – Elle Decoration featured us on its `New Talent’ page – and we got commissioned straight away,” says Swindell. Since then, Harrods has been stocking Salt’s ready-made blinds (from pounds 400) and screens (from pounds 1,200).

And the company, which has corporate as well as private clients, is currently kitting out the British Embassy in Moscow. Holmes, who has an MA in knitted textiles from the Royal College of Art, and Swindell, with an MA in woven textiles from Nottingham Polytechnic, bonded while working at a “loathsome, unprofessional” homeware company. Even so, agents still don’t know what bracket to put us in because we’re not textile designers in the traditional sense.”Not that the Salt duo – who also make screens – have always relied on agents’ help. The funny thing is, big furniture designers are now using highly textured fabrics: boucles and unusual yarns.

And there was: we discovered that people wanted different, interesting blinds.
“Contemporary design had been about furniture for the past 10 years,” continues Holmes. “But we’ve entered a new area, which we call `working textiles’ because our blinds are not only functional but also decorative, thanks to their textures and forms. “Blinds are a product no one had really looked at for years, so it seemed a logical area to go into,” says Karina Holmes, who, with June Swindell, set up Salt in 1996 “We had a gut feeling that there was room for our ideas. Blinds hazily reminiscent of trips to the Natural History Museum might not be everyone’s dream design discovery, but don’t be put off. Made of knitted and woven textiles in the subtlest of hand-dyed shades, the blinds are as beautiful as they are arresting.

Wake up to the sight of a blind from Salt and you might easily think you were still dreaming. It’s not hard to see why: in the half-light, the company’s organic-looking, three-dimensional creations could conjure up surreal visions of, say, a rockface smothered with barnacles, dinosaur vertebrae or tetrahedra. Aluminium stopper, pounds 8, Oliver Bonas (0171-627 4747 for nearest shop)

Bouchon de Champagne `Capsule’, pounds 17.50, General Trading Company (0171-730 0411)
Manzoni Pietro wooden stopper, pounds 4.45, David Mellor (0171-730 4259)Sterling silver stopper, pounds 48, Links of London (01483 450155 for nearest stockist)Plastic fish stopper, pounds 4.25, Graham & Green (0171-727 4594)Plastic star stopper, pounds 1.99, Tesco (enquiries 0800 505555). The Allied Dunbar Tax Handbook is one of the best established, while Taxbriefs’ Planning for Capital Gains Tax is a new guide to this complex tax.But do not leave it too long to get your tax affairs in order.