Designers Share Insight on High Point Market Panel

April 23, 2014  by in Designer Weekly   

Barry Dixon, Mariette Himes Gomez, Alexa Hampton and Charlotte Moss provided insight into the realm of interior design along with the inspiration behind the products being introduced here this week that bear their names. All four are known for their residential and commercial interior design work and have written numerous decorating books. Dixon has long created upholstery for Tomlinson, while Hampton and Gomez preside over extensive eponymous collections at Hickory Chair. All three are adding to their existing lines, including upholstery and wood furnishings. Moss is unveiling her first furniture collection this week, a dozen pieces for Century Furniture including upholstery, a bed and several accent pieces.

The crew was part of a designer panel hosted by the American Home Furnishings Alliance during the market.

All four related that their work in the product arena is a natural evolution of their interior design career paths.

“There was never really a big ‘aha’ moment that led me to product design,” Dixon said. “I was never inspired to write a business plan where I said, ‘At this stage, this will happen, and then I’ll do that.’ Rather, it was an organic (process) that evolved over time. I was originally approached by Tomlinson about creating an upholstery line, and that led to fabrics with Fortuny, and then to a collaboration with C2 paints. It was sort of a series of mini ‘a-ha’s along the way where I thought, ‘Aha, there’s something I can do.’ ” 

Gomez agreed. “I was at Rhode Island School of Design  and was drawing goldfish in a bowl and creating infinity in a box, and I thought, ‘I don’t know about this.’ I transferred to New York School of Interior Design  where I studied under Alexander Breckenridge, and I found my calling. I lived and I worked in brownstones and later started making my own furniture. I would shop for clients, and I guess I was inspired by those clients to keep going.”

Moss said designing things and creating things with her hands came naturally. “One thing led to another, and then more opportunities arose. If anything, it was, ‘That was a great chair. There shouldn’t be just one. I should make more!’ ” 

Hampton said her inspiration for product design has often come from architectural details. She recalled being compelled to design lighting fixtures after observing the flush mount lighting on the ceiling while taking a bath.  “I picked up a pencil and started drawing flush mounts and lighting sketches,” she recalled. A few weeks later, she called a designer lighting resource and convinced them to view her sketches.  “I don’t wait for people to find me. I’m scrappy, and I call them,” she stated. She signed a deal with the resource shortly after they received her sketches. 

Inspiring Minds Want to Know

All four designers said they are bombarded with inspiration for product designs. 

Moss said inspiration comes at her “sideways, from behind, dead ahead, everywhere. I think the most important thing to do is just to be aware of what’s going on around you; to be in the moment. (Inspiration) could come at you from anywhere. It’s reading, it’s traveling, it’s other people that inspire you.” 

Gomez concurred. “I see everything. I don’t remember names and numbers, but I see everything. Everything! It might be something as small as half-an-inch in size, but when you’re a visual person, that’s how keen your eyes are. You just can’t get away from it.” 

Dixon noted that inspiration also comes from the “pantheon of successes” that came before him in the world of design. “I think that, as a designer today, you are constantly tweaking things to make them relevant for now, to make them work for us. I think that’s the evolution of design, and I think we’re all part of it.”

Dixon, whose home is an expansive farm in the Virginia countryside, said he also is inspired by the natural world.  For his paint line, he walks his farm with an iPhone in hand, taking shots of colors that catch his eye, from “close-up pictures of the roof of my henhouse, where there’s sort of a grape color, to my pond, to the eggs from every exotic hen that I raise. Then I mix colors until I have what I want. I didn’t create that color; that’s a copy of color. The world gave us those colors, and that’s my inspiration.”

Indeed, at this Market, Dixon noted his roll-out at Tomlinson is driven by color and environmentally friendly paints. The 16 chairs and sofas feature exposed wood painted with a choice of 84 colors inspired by nature and classified within the four elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water. 

What designers or consumers won’t see in his designs are heavy, out-sized furnishings that cannibalize all the visual space in a room. “One thing with the new pieces that we’re creating is that we’re attempting to defy gravity with things that are large, so that they appear to levitate and not feel so grounded and heavy to the floor,” Dixon explained. “As I get older, I like the thought that I can lift myself up a little bit, and that’s transferring to the furniture. So imagine a large-scale sectional that has cantilevered elements that seem to float above the carpet.”

At Hickory Chair, Gomez said her favorite new piece is a wood-based console table covered in wicker. “It’s an inside piece, not meant for out by the pool, that looks like it has been draped in fabric.” Other interesting details on her upholstered pieces include horizontal pleating on the skirt of a fabric sofa and a leather sofa with trampunto stitching, a technique that leaves a raised design – in this case a series of squares, one inside another, on the ends of the sofa. 

Hampton, meanwhile, said that her designs this spring were inspired by mid-century European or mid-century French Empire furnishings. “I have some really high-lacquer, empire-looking mirrors and a colossus of a coffee table, because I want the latitude to do spots of modernism.” 

Moss said her collection grew out of a chair fetish. “I have a warehouse where I put things I buy because I know they are going to have a life at some point,” she revealed. “Whether I copy one for a client, or keep it for myself, I don’t want those chairs to go away because of their beautiful shapes. So I’ve taken some of the chairs out of my house – my own desk chair and another by an architect with gorgeous shape that I had in my library, for example – and worked with the team at Century (to recreate them).”

The designer was quick to point out that the resulting collection was a collaborative effort. “It’s not like you as a designer come in waving the fairy dust, and you’ve got a collection,” she said. “It was a huge team effort and I feel very lucky that we had this diversity of French, Italian and English designs and the whole thing came together. I think what all of us do as designers is take all those ideas that have been around for 100 years, and we bring something to it, our style, and our energy.”