The profession of interior design has been around for over 100 years. During that time, famous interior designers changed and shaped the art of interior design.
If you're interested in interior design, it's important to learn about its history and the designers of the past.
To help you learn more about them, we gathered a list of nine famous interior designers who made history. Keep reading to learn how they paved the way for modern interior designers.
Simply put, interior design makes use of art and science to enhance and customize the interior of a building.
Interior design may or not use modern technologies to accomplish a healthier or more aesthetically-pleasing environment for the space's users.
It's also a multi-faceted profession in which conceptual development is carried out as well as planning, programming, research, and creativity to ensure customer satisfaction.
Our world is always developing as technology grows, like fashion that introduces new clothing trends every year. In the same way, interior design trends evolve to fit in a world that changes over time.
A great example of how interior design evolves and changes as time and trends go around is with the invention of new technologies. The invention of the TV, for example, changed how people interact with their families.
These technologies back then also set the beginning of a new era for interior design as it was time for non-conventional thinking, wild bright colors, and free expression to flourish among family homes.
Behind every change in interior design was a designer. So, let's take a look at some of the people that have shaped interior design into what it is today.
Her full name is Ella Anderson de Wolfe. She is known as the First American Decorator. However, to get there she had to face a big challenge because, at that time, interior design was an exclusively masculine job.
Marbury and Sara Cooper Hewitt saw her potential and encouraged her to use her interior design skills as they both did. Soon, her remarkable way of thinking had innovated the interior design world.
Elise de Wolfe embraced the anti-Victorian taste, paving a new way in her generation. In 1903, de Wolfe and Marbury bought and began restoring the Villa Trianon in Versailles, France, which eventually became a focal point of their social lives.
Combining glamour and functionality can be difficult for any interior designer. For Albert Hadley, however, this was not the case since he was a pro at connecting them.
Hadley was also well known for his modern style. He liked incorporating a mix of design styles that, thanks to his innate ability to balance what works together, allowed him to create beautiful masterpieces.
Interior design is an art and a way of expression. And, like any other artist, an interior designer needs and craves inspiration.
Back in the 1930s, there was no other place to find exclusive art and inspiration than Paris.
Jean Michel Frank was the most celebrated decorator and designer in Paris back then. His works often included decorating rooms and areas with paintings by Braques and Picasso.
He is also known as a minimalist who restrained himself in furniture shapes that he designed. However, Frank founded the elements of daily life, the key to any space, and believed “perfect taste” to be a recipe for colorless areas.
Full of life, boldly colorful, elegant, and cheerful are the characteristics of the Draper touch.
Many people think interior design involves something deep and mysterious, or you need to know how to organize complicated details. Draper broke this stigma with one of her books, Decorating is Fun.
For her decorating is pure fun and involves taking delight in color and finding awareness of balance.
Draper protégé Carleton Varney couldn't say it better to describe her: “Dorothy Draper was to decorating what Chanel was to fashion.”
Billy Baldwin wasn't only an interior designer. In fact, he hated the term. This was in large part because of his approach to the home went far beyond his role as a decorator.
Comfort and quality were Baldwin’s top focuses. He considered the architecture of a space was more important than the decoration. Baldwin thought of spaces as the foundation to interior design.
"Scale and proportion give everlasting satisfaction that cannot be achieved by only icing the cake,” he said.
David Nightingale Hicks was born in England in 1929. He was a graduate of the Central College of Art.
Hicks was against the overly-precocious and stuffy decorating treatment often given to old English homes.
Instead, he innovated them by integrating a mixture of colors, patterns, and time periods of furniture. He used these to combine different elements that could've clashed yet now worked harmoniously together.
Dorothy May Kinnicutt is also known as Sister Parish. She was born in 1910 to parents with homes in Manhattan, New Jersey, Maine, and Paris.
Her style was different from the environment she grew up in and to her antique-collector father’s heavy dark brown furniture.
She chose to use stripes, glazed chintz, quilts, hooked rugs, and overstuffed armchairs instead of formal antiques in her decorating.
Mario Buatta was a country’s leading interior decorator who was also known as the Prince of Chintz.
Buatta was frequently referred to as an exhibitionistic, self-promoting, and entertaining. He was also serious about his profession, often working long hours seven days a week.
He was a longtime promoter of the English country home, a style he adopted with enthusiasm when he started his own business in 1963.
Lorenzo Mongiardino was an Italian architect and interior designer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction.
Despite the modern waves in the interior design world, Mongiardino stayed loyal to his art.
His style included the harmony of antique elegance furniture, the determination of space, and the search for a balance of proportions that must present in the decoration.
Now you know nine famous interior designers who made history. As you can see, these designers completely embraced the art of design by integrating form, function, and technologies available in their times.
If you're looking for a reputable interior designer in Texas, contact us today for an estimate. We have a great team of talented decorators with over 15 years of experience to help you turn your dream home into a reality.
When it comes to design, there are endless possibilities and directions you could go in. But if you’re looking for something clean and simple, there are three styles that stand out: contemporary, modern, and industrial. These styles are similar in some ways but have enough differences that you should be able to figure out which one is right for your home.
There are many different types of designs you can incorporate into your home. How do you want to feel inside your home...Let's talk about Warm and inviting design styles which includes traditional, rustic, and transitional styles.
Are you looking for some luxury master bathroom ideas? Luxury master bathrooms are a great way to add some extra style and comfort to your home. Check out our 6 favorite features for a luxuriously modern look.
Upon receipt of this form, our office will contact you to schedule an initial meeting to further discuss your design project in person.