Clodagh

Designer We Love: Clodagh

Website: Clodagh Design

Quotable Quotes: "The eyes are the most promiscuous of all the senses."

"I'll turn down clients who aren't willing to get rid of what I call stagnants. I hate stagnation. I want their closets cleaned out because it affects their lives and their thinking."

Background:

Born in Ireland

Age 17, she started her own fashion business, and by age 19 was a leading Irish dressmaking diva

Next career stop: architectural design and hotel, spa, landscaping, and interior design projects

Evolved her signature philosophy of creating total environments as "art to live in"

Feng shui plays a major role in her designs and approaches to projects, as well as appealing to all the elements and the senses

In 25 years, her Clodagh Design studio has taken on a variety of global projects in the commercial, residential, retail, office, salon, spa, and corporate image spaces

Began Clodagh Signature, licensing and product designs for furniture, bath, hardware, textiles, carpets, lighting, accessories; also designs packaging and graphics for packaged good such as cosmetics

Her Clodagh Collection Showroom opened in Manhattan with gallery and retail showroom space showcasing furniture, fine art, accessories

Named as one of Architectural Digest's "World's 100 Leading Interior Designers" and Interior Design magazine's "Top 100 Interior Designers in America" and their "Pioneers of the Industry"; inducted into Interior Design's Hall of Fame in 1997

Clodagh’s work has been widely published in Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Elle Decor, Metropolitan Home, Vogue Deutsch, Brides and New York Times Magazine

Media work includes "Ultimate Kitchens" on Food Network, "Interiors by Design" on HGTV, and CNN's "Style with Elsa Klensch"

What We Love:

How eclectic can one person's career be! Clodagh amazes us with the variety of her projects -- from a jazz-themed restaurant in LA and a conference center for one of Japan's largest ad agencies to the luxe Woodlands Spa and Resort and an Armenian countryside hotel.

There is nothing more wonderful than applying thoughtful design to stimulate and inspire good health, relaxation, and rejuvenation.

Natural materials are front and center in every Clodagh design. Every interior and detail is as "green" as possible. What could be more important?

Have you seen Clodagh's design studio? Dogs trotting on the floors, natural brick walls, excellent library of resources, imaginative work stations -- a designer's Disneyland!

Being true to yourself and to your sense of style is difficult in this PushMe/PullYou world of fickle trends and fads. Clodagh has managed to maintain her strong identity and signature style in everything she has tackled through the years. For that alone, she has our great admiration.

Clodagh Sampler:

Photo Credits: Washington Spaces, Amazon, Forbes, New York Social Diary, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, Interior Design

Bunny Williams

Designer We Love: Bunny Williams

Websites: Bunny Williams Interior Design, Treillage

Quotable Quotes: "Rooms should never be boring, yet nothing should hit you over the head. I think a room comes alive when there is a spontaneous mix of different periods, raw materials and high quality design."

"Decoration is not enough. Good architectural design is always the first consideration."

Background:

Virginia childhood, growing up in horse country and traditional decorating influences

At 16, began self-study of architecture

Boston training in interior design

First job in NYC at Stair & Company, antique dealer

22 years at Parish-Hadley Associates, starting in 1967, first as assistant and shopper, then to designer working alongside Albert Hadley and Sister Parish

Opened up Bunny Williams Inc. in 1988

Started Treillage Ltd., high-end garden ornaments and furniture -- "My second love is gardens." -- in 1991 with her partner, antiques icon John Rosselli, on East 75th Street in a former blacksmithy and stables

1995 inductee into the Interior Design Hall of Fame

2000 "Design and Business Award," Edith Wharton Restoration honor for women of outstanding achievement

Author of On Garden Style and An Affair with a House

On board of directors in The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, The Garden Conservancy, The Institute for Classical Architecture, The Humane Society of New York -- and c0-founder of not-for-profit Tails In Need with fellow designer Kitty Hawks

Residential projects featured in Architectural Digest, Veranda, House Beautiful, House & Garden, Garden Design, Victoria, British House, Southern Accents, Elle Decor, NY Times, Town and Country, New York Magazine, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens, Quest, Gotham, and W

What We Love:

Her professional ethics; her business seems to be beautifully organized -- three design teams, each headed by a seasoned senior designer, strives for close attention to client service and buttoning down the zillions of details inherent in our business 

Bunny Williams' passion for gardening gives us the gold standard of a designer who looks at interiors and outdoor spaces as a unified whole 

We love her professional partnership with John Rosselli, sourcing unusual antique and new garden ornaments and furnishings around the world in their Treillage venture

She's a reader of fiction and starts her day off with an hour of reading in bed

Her passion for the humane treatment of animals is inspiring, as witnessed in the Great American Mutt Show

An Affair with a House beautifully details how Bunny brought to life a sadly neglected old home

In politics, they say you vote for the person you'd most like to sit down and have a beer with; Bunny, you're the designer our Design2Share staff would very much like to sit down with and talk design over a cold one!

Bunny Williams Sampler:

Photo Credits: Bunny Williams, Harry N. Abrams Books, Linda Plato, Panache