Derek Frost trained with David Hicks and Mary Fox Linton. From 1981 he headed the latter’s Design Studio and from 1983 ran his own design business – Derek Frost Associates, which offered a full Interior Design service and gave particular focus to the design and manufacture of ‘one off’ pieces of ‘art furniture’.

In 1995, circumstances caused him to close his design business sooner than he might otherwise have wished – all as described in his 2021 memoir ‘Living and Loving in the age of Aids’.