What does “luxury” mean? Is it opulence? Extravagance? Sumptuousness? Lavishness? Indulgence?
When a panel of six interior designers who know a thing or two about luxury design was asked that question during the recent discussion of “The Evolution of Luxury,” not one of them used any of those common synonyms.
Instead, the designers said luxury is all about personalization, livability and comfort.
“I think (luxury) is allowing yourself to have a sense of peace surround you in your home,” said Anne-Marie Barton, founder and principal of Anne-Marie Barton Design, based in Holladay, Utah.
Jessica Davis, founder of Atelier Davis with offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York, and creative director of hardware brand Nest Studio, tied the idea of luxury to personality. “And by that, I mean expressing your personality … in your space,” she said.
Nikki Levy, founder of Nikki Levy Interiors in Boca Raton, Florida, defined luxury in home interiors as “exquisitely livable.”
The others on the panel were Adriana Hoyos, head designer for the AHC Group, which includes Adriana Hoyos Furnishings and Adriana Hoyos Design Studio Inc.; Rebekah Zaveloff, co-founder and creative director of Imparfaít Design Studio and KitchenLab Interiors, with offices in Chicago and Lakeside, Michigan; and Laura Umansky, founder of the Laura U Design Collective with studios in Houston and Aspen, Colorado, and co-host of the Design Dash podcast. Umansky moderated the panel, which took place Oct. 25 at the High Point showroom of Adriana Hoyos Furnishings.
The primacy of personalization
Hoyos said that she’s seen an evolution in how her clients view luxury over the course of her career — Adriana Hoyos Furnishings is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
“When I started my career, luxury was about shine, velvets, silks. Nowadays, I find people are looking for comfortable, personal living that’s luxurious. … They want to put their own personality into their homes … and designers will create the spaces where people can live and enjoy (their lives) — not places that look like museums.”
Zaveloff said her firm takes pride in not having a “signature look” — and that’s the result of the steps that she and her designers take to personalize each client’s project.
“(Our process) is intensely personal. It’s something that we’ve always done. That’s why people come to us,” she said. In the past, it was not uncommon, Zaveloff explained, for prospective clients to show her firm’s designers inspirational images they had collected on Pinterest or elsewhere and then be surprised to find that many of those projects were done by her firm.
“Each house we do is unique to our clients. Clients recognize that and they seek us out because of it,” Zaveloff said. “They know I’m not going to try to force my look on them. People really respond to that.”
Levy said she and her design team get to know their clients through an extensive, 200-page onboarding document. (Yes, 200 pages.)
And Hoyos agreed that a starting place for luxury design is getting to know clients.
“We do a very big interview and have interesting questions because, over a long time, we become very close to our clients, especially on high-end residential,” Hoyos said. “We ask, how many socks, how many shoes, how many handbags? And they explain and they tell us the story of where they got each handbag. So, we need to make sure we listen to those clients … because, at the end of the day, I’m not going to live there. In the past as designers, we liked to impose things. Not anymore. Now we guide them. I have a sentence that I use: ‘I’m going to make your dreams come true.’”
Materials matter
As a practical matter, luxury design also helps clients make a connection to the finishes and furnishings that will define their home.
“Luxury is so much about the five senses,” Davis says. “When I design hardware or any kind of custom piece for clients, it’s all about, how does it feel? How does it feel when you sit on it? When you touch it? It’s all about invoking the client’s personality.”
Barton focuses on “authentic” materials in her design work — natural materials, time-tested materials, imperfect materials that are full of character. (She does draw the line at antlers, she told the audience, soliciting a big laugh.)
“It used to be that we wanted the plainest, the simplest, and I would walk past many slab materials because they had too much character,” Barton said. “… Now, we almost demand that the slab material talks to us. It’s the same with woods. To me, luxury is being able to have something that will be classic, that will stand the test of time and that will show evidence of who lived there.”
A lasting impression
Whatever luxury design may be, the designers on the panel agreed that it is not trendy.
“No human being is a trend. They all have different backgrounds, different loves, different wants and needs and aspirations. And that’s what I latch onto. … It’s not about what’s hot right now,” Levy said. “It’s about one day, when you look back, are you going to remember how comfortable and wonderful and gorgeous (life was) as you sat and watched TV with your family and held your wife’s hand. It’s about creating memories.”
“We’re not an industry of trends,” she added. “We should be an industry of longevity.”
