Making a killing with Malene's style Malene Birger is the much-loved Danish designer of easy-to-wear, but she also has a second, semi-professional career as an interior designer. It's barely credible but Borgen, the latest BBC Four plot to entice us all to move to Copenhagen, has pinpointed two Danish accessories even more desirable than Lund's jumper in The Killing. And they both belong to Birgitte Nyborg, Borgen's fictional female prime minister. The first is her witty, tolerant, enlightened, clever, handsome-in-an-offbeat-way, utterly perfect husband. The other is her light-suffused, Scandi furniture-stuffed home. On British TV, modern interiors end up looking like an MFI ad. When the Danes do them, they're convincing, albeit in a dream-like aspirational sort of way. Nyborg's life is so seductive that the Danes voted in their first female PM the year after Borgen first screened there. So what, apart from a bottomless pit of Danish mid-20th-century classics, infallible taste and an army of interior stylists, is the secret? "Symmetry, always symmetry," says Malene Birger. If the chunky thing is here, you need something chunky there. Then you need something very light to offset the chunky. It could be a beautiful lamp - but it's important the shade isn't too heavy. You have to think about it all very carefully. By way of demonstration, she's shifting the teacups and candles around on our table at The Goring Hotel, the Middletons' chintzy berth during the royal wedding. She can't help it. "I find myself reorganising the contents of the trays in airport security," she says. Birger is, of course, the much-loved Danish designer of easy-to-wear, romantic, embellished clothes, while also providing plenty of tailored pieces to keep it all looking sleek and contemporary - this season's blazers and trousers have a distinct Seventies swagger. But she has a second, semi-professional career as an interior designer. She has moved home 40 times, most recently to Majorca, where she lives with her British husband, and commutes fortnightly to Copenhagen. Life And Work: Malene Birger's Life in Pictures is a generously proportioned coffee-table book, full of stylish rooms that combine cosiness with rigour. Malene's house in Majorca and one of her spring/summer 2012 designs. "It's about grouping," she explains, returning to the teacups whilst instructing me how to do clutter without looking... cluttered. Start with a high object in the centre, then work outwards, smaller objects in front, always trying to keep things open. And display your collections on trays. It's not a huge surprise to discover she started as a window dresser. Then came a stint at art school and designing jewellery in the evenings. Now 49, when she graduated in 1989 she couldn't get a job. There wasn't much fashion going on in Denmark at the time. She ended up designing golf clothes. In 1997, she and a friend, Keld Mikkelsen, set up Day Birger et Mikkelsen, a line of clothes not wildly dissimilar from the ones she creates now. It was instantly successful, but a financial dispute prompted her to launch her own label in 2003 (they finally made up over dinner recently). Stocked on net-a-porter.com and malenebirger.com, it's available in 1,000 stores worldwide. Safe to say, it, too, has struck a chord with thousands of women who place eclectic styling above catwalk diktats. Birger is an ideal embodiment of her brand: tanned, big boned with Boris-blonde hair. When we meet, she's wearing a dark navy trouser suit and ethnic jewellery. Like her interiors palette, she favours monochrome schemes, plus a few hundred variations of putty, stone, caramel and chocolate. Even her off-white West Highland terrier considerately blends in. The effect, at home and in her outfits, is clean rather than stark, with generous rustic and antique touches, including scores of Indian chandeliers - the furnishing equivalent to the beading she likes to use in her collections. Birger takes inspiration from her interiors and injects it into her ready-to-wear line. The company's HQ look more like the lobby of a boutique hotel than a corporate office. I hate mess. No one's allowed to leave stuff lying around," she says, softening this chilling revelation by adding that she ends up cleaning up for everyone. Despite the azure Majorcan skies, she still appreciates the grey Danish moodiness evoked in The Killing. It's a wonderful series, but what I do isn't particularly Danish. I love my country's design but I think what we're best at is combining lots of different sensibilities and selling the results for a reasonable price. Shop: By Malene Birger Malene's top tips: