People don’t have to exit their lives to get something done if they don’t want to.
We knocked the wall down so the kids could share a room. They have that kind of bond rather than being teenagers that go into their separate rooms and shut the door and be isolated.
S: It’s funny how the way we live in our home changes. We have bedrooms that are used as bedrooms for a while and then it will become an office while the kids share a room for a while. Our home is actually much more flexible than you would think it would be.
W: Yes, we have the same thing, and it makes our children more flexible as well.
Because you have to be flexible. It’s not cut and dry. It’s actually a wonderful concept to have rooms that don’t have traditional names.
We are the navigators of energy. Nobody really decorates because they love beautiful fabrics. It’s really about improving quality of life.
S: What do you mean by “We are navigators of energy?”
W: We can make a room an energetic space that people want to be in. We can also make lives different by how we design the space that they are in. Through color...
You can adjust the volume.
image via the Windsor Smith Website
B: So is that why you started doing Interior Design?
W: I think so. I got into this in a weird way. I was going to Europe to buy antiques, and I immediately started selling everything to decorators and editors of interior design magazines. So I got a certain kind of attention and validation that I was bringing interesting things back, mostly architectural elements: mantels statuary. My joke was that if it didn’t weigh 2000 pounds then I didn’t buy it!
Then people would start asking me to find certain pieces for their house, and then they would start saying “Well why don’t you just do my whole house”.
At first I wasn’t comfortable about it. I mean in my first house I had this enormous couch. I really had to learn about scale. I think that was the hardest part for me and the easiest thing to get wrong. Being able to have enough negative space too. So I had to learn all of that. Fortunately I had a couple really understanding clients. We would receive chairs and I would say “Oh, well that doesn’t look, right does it?” It really was a learning curve, but because I was so obsessed with it I learned pretty quickly. It has resulted in a line and being able to take a piece that isn’t really scaled well because it is so old and being able give it the proper scale. That lead into gaining enough confidence to start The Windsor Smith Home line.
The Harlow Tufted Chair by Windsor Smith Home
The Directoire Chair, the Chippendale Bench, the Brittany Secretary, and the Regency Settee by Windsor Smith Home
S: Were the first pieces for clients or were they created for the line?
W: Mostly for a client because it started with a need. I would find a beautiful chair but maybe it was at Bonhams and too costly. But it was the right vibe for what we wanted so I would do an interpretation of that. Or I find a great chair, but there was only one that I was going to place with a client. I thought if I had 30 of those I could place that chair over and over again, because I just loved that chair. I had this mentality that if I could use it then I ‘m sure someone else could use it.
The Elegant Chair by Windsor Smith Home
S: Some of you pieces are amazingly charming but a bit quirky. Do you sell a lot of the more quirky pieces?
W: Oddly enough the pieces that we sell are the pieces that you don’t see everywhere. The moroccan ottoman has a silly little leg. We have a new slim chaise that has a brass leg. People seem to gravitate to pieces that you can’t find universally.
The Slim Chaise by Windsor Smith Home
B: Let me ask you about color. I was looking at your projects and it seems like things are getting more colorful. Is that something you are focusing on?
W: I'm kind of funny when it comes to color. It’s sort of cyclical. There are times when I want everything to be Studio White. I seem to be on a bender with color the past couple of years, as long as there is a big dose of white. I’m always trying to find counterpoints to white, and lately I’m drawn to color.
image via the Windsor Smith Website
image courtesy of Windsor Smith
B: Are there certain colors that you are into right now? Have you moved on from this Pink?
W: Right now I’m into matte golds. Deep browns, grays and long as it’s mixed with something that is a surprise like a pale peach. I’m definitely playing with a little less in your face palette right now, but I love all of it. I am an equal opportunity color fiend. I love mixing color. I love putting colors together that become something else.
Image courtesy of Windsor Smith
Something really exciting happens when you put two off palette colors together. You get a reaction. It’s more about what happens when you put two opposing colors together that I’m into right now.
Windsor Smith finds inspiration for her projects in the artwork she collects.
B: That really does sound like a science experiment. Are you ever surprised at the outcome?
W: Yes always. I love acid yellow with browns and umbers. I am working on a room right now that is influenced by those colors.
B: Do your new fabric lines reflect your interest in those colors as well?
W: I am actually working on an outdoor fabric line and the colors are more Bahaman. It’s a very citrusy palette. I wanted to bring back a very Polynesian, hip, vibe that hasn’t really been seen since the 40’s and 50’s with the tiki bars. Nobody has ever really reintroduced it in a really fun way. I’ve been playing with textures: basketweavings, indian weavings mixed with canvases. I’m playing with outdoor fabrics that are soft and supple instead of rigid. I’m going for more linen textures for the outside.
B: Having comfortable fabrics outside makes great sense, especially where we live.
W: Well it’s a great way to expand your footprint. If you don’t have a really big house, you should look all around your house and see what space on the outside you can claim.
image via the Windsor Smith Website
I’m doing odd prints that don’t have an all over field. For this one fabric I used these turtles that I cut out of construction paper that look like labrynths. It sort of looks like it was pressed out of metal. These turtles are chasing eachother up one side of the fabric and nothing on the other side of the fabric. How great would it be to have a chaise with these turtles running up one side of the chaise? If someone is more linear, then they can put them in the middle.
I’m also playing with fabrics with borders, so that you can take off the borders and upholster in an interesting way. I was inspired by a Peter Dunham fabric that I buy over and over again for projects because it has the border on the side. There is so much you can do with that border that brings a level of detail to upholstery. It’s an old idea. They used to do this in the 50’s.
It almost goes back to a craft mentality, trying to figure out another level of detail.
The colors are an off color aqua, pale pale pink like Bahaman sand, and this deeper pink, and a citrus color, and a verdant green. It is really a hard color to find. And a few prints in chino and white, and a few prints in chino and turquoise. The inspiration was a placemat that I got at Cost Plus that was chino and turquoise. I brought it up to my office and just made many photo copies and started cutting them and taped them together to make Indian stars and removing the centers of them replacing the centers with white and doing them on grids. I’m deadly with a pair of scissors and a glue stick.
I was creating stripes by using ridged seagrass papers and gluing them together and making these imperfect stripes with them. Then we photo-copied them. Now Kravet will reproduce them as prints on linen....
The time we spent with Windsor flew by, and before we knew it, we had been there for almost 2 hours. Unfortunately, Windsor had to pop off to a meeting, but after all of the "hugs and thanks yous", I asked Steve to take a picture of me in Windsor's sitting room. I felt like an Elvis fan at Graceland!
Thank you Windsor for everything!