The first week in July found me high-kickin’ it, with some very dear friends, in the Finger Lakes area of west-central Upstate New York (about a half-hour outside of Syracuse).  One of those friends is talented interior designer, television personality, and best-selling author, Thom Filicia, whom I approached about doing a series of interviews for ShulmanSays, culminating in a review of his most recent book, American Beauty – the story of the lakeside house that Thom lovingly rebuilt and restored (for his own use) in this idyllic region of New York.

ShulmanSays:  On a scale of 1-10, how collaborative are most of your projects with your clients – with 1 being no input whatsoever and 10 being all up in your grill and micromanaging?  Does anyone just come to you saying “Here’s the space.  Here’s our budget.  Here’s a check.  See ya in 6 months!”

Thom Filicia:  They do: It’s very rare, but they do.  And I think that years ago that might have been more likely than today.  People today know a lot more about design, and are exposed to it through television and the Internet.  So, I think people are much more involved.  I would say that most of our clients are around a 7 or 8.  And we like that – it’s where we want them to be; because we want them to be involved and to know what’s happening: we want them to be excited and happy.  So we involve them in what they need to be involved in, but we don’t worry them when we find-out that the legs on the sofa are gonna cause delivery to be a month late – we just find another solution.

I would say that part of being a good designer is keeping your clients in the loop, but also knowing when you don’t want them to be overwhelmed by what’s happening.

SS:  How important is it to imbue a project with the client’s personal style?

TF:  I think most people have a point of view (and obviously, there are many different levels), and my job is to take the client’s point of view and make it work with the architecture of the project, and elevate both to another level.  Along the way I do inject a lot of my point of view in there; and I think most people hire me, not because they want me to repeat a room that I did elsewhere; but because they like my sensibility or they like the way I approach design.  That maybe it feels livable, stylish, and sophisticated – whether it’s in the city or the country – it feels appropriate for where it is.  For instance, I don’t do a lot of leather, glass, and chrome, by the water.

SS:  What have been some of your favorite projects?

TF:  Oh!  The VIP Suite for the USA Pavilion at the 2005 World’s Fair in Aichi, Japan; working with Tina Fey; and most recently, the new Sky Deck lounges at New York’s JFK and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport that I was chosen by Architectural Digest to design for Delta Airlines.  I’ve been really lucky!

SS:  How important is function in design?

TF:  Paramount.  It has to be real.  It has to work.

Next time – Thom talks about how Queer Eye for the Straight Guy effected his career; bad taste versus no taste; and his book, American Beauty.

Thom Filicia
American Beauty
Click HERE for info

Get into it!