Starr Miller Interior Design, Inc.

Fifty Favorite Designs - Day 14 - The Theater of Shopping

Retail was my life for many years.  My first job in High School was at the Holiday Marina on Lake Lanier stocking shelves and arranging ski and Topsiders at the Boatique. In college I worked at Worth's, Casual Corner and Hickory Farms.  When I graduated with my business degree I worked my way through the Macy's training program as a Men's department manager, as an assistant buyer in Home Accessories and as the senior merchant over the Home store, Kids and Shoes.  Next came merchant at Office Depot North America. 

Why to I bore you with all of this?  Simply put I have done my time in retail stores.  Shopping the competition.... putting together displays...planogramming the shelves and dressing the windows....designing a store format for downtown stores and frankly I have seen a lot of good windows!(Thank you NYC at Christmas!)

That being said - THERE IS NO ONE BETTER, DAY in and DAY out than ANTHROPOLOGIE!  They have taken the dream of a window display coupled it with the core of the company vision (found items) and made us celebrateagain.  Retail should be theater!  At Anthropologie they get that.  It is our escape.  We shop for entertainment.  All of those big department stores that we used to enjoy as children have become homogeneous clones of one another.  I go to Anthropologie for flight of fancy and a theatrical WOW!

 

Do not assume this store is just for the younger set.  Go in - it will make you rethink what retail should be and what creatively you should expect from a store that cares about thrilling you, its customer.

I Hate Monday's - What an Interior Designer does on Labor Day

Well I will admit it - I typically hate Monday's.  But when I find one that is meant to be free I get excited.  What should I do - old movie? "Yes!" ( Today it was "All About Eve")  Shopping?  "Yes!"  Go to mall? "No!"  Computer shopping?  "Yes, Yes - Double yes!"

As the seasons change I find myself hungry for my next bauble.  No, not the Elizabeth Tayor kind, the I can freshen up a tired outfit that I love with fresh costume jewelry kind.  It is like freshening up the pillows on your sofa.  Makes everything feel new without costing a fortune.

So here is my wish list of beautiful, sometime architectural finds from today.  You will need to scroll to the bottom to see the reason I am back to hating Mondays!

Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta and Stephen Dweck were my first crushes...

   
  

 

 

Can you tell I am into the subtle elegance of gray this year?

John Hardy and Konstantino caught my eye with their beautiful rings - they remind me of beautiful windows in a gothic church.

 

While we are looking at Rings I was intrigued by these rings... are they weapons or are they really cool?

The first one is by Elizabeth and James & the second is from Kara Ross.

  

I like that they feel special.  I wonder what they feel like on the hand...

Jose and Maria Barrera, Private Label Nested Horn Earrings and Oscar de la Renta know how to dress an ear.  I know they have corresponding necklaces, but isn't a fabulous earring enough?

 

 

This is the Page Novick Cobweb....Halloween is coming - this is how to do it with style!
 

No fun shopping experience in jewelry is complete without my beloved Alexis Bittar.  He always dazzles me with his take on lucite.  I know you have seen me wear his lucite earrings for the past 10 years, but aren't these bangles fun?

Now for the reason I am back to hating Mondays....

Good design whether it be in clothing or interior design is meant to express one's sense of taste and to show off an individual at their best.  I hate too much branding that shows of the designer and NOT the client.  Our true worth in custom design is bringing out the client's unique qualities and beauty with clothing or surroundings.  The following items are simply branding a client and not enhancing the client:

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is not necessary to brand your client.  If someone is reading the logo they are not looking at the entire picture.  This type of design makes me sad....

 Grrrrrrr

Thank you Alexander McQueen for giving us a way to express anger with sparkle!
  

I Hate Mondays - A Peek at an Interior Designer's Day.....

Those who know me well know that Monday is the day of the week that I do not see clients, I do not answer the phone and I do not go out.  Today my team dared me to give you a glimpse into my sacred Monday........

For 20+ years every Monday I had to get up early, and get all wide eyed and made up for the world to see......this is a good reason to hate Mondays

 Now I can look like this on a Monday...

Yep, I made it smaller because it just isn't pretty.  (And it is my blog and I can do what I want!)

Mondays tend to be no makeup, wet hair and a whale of a long staff meeting.   The team laughs because they know not to arrive one minute early because I could have curlers or a towel on my head.  No excuses - it just seems more efficient to me to skip the beauty routine one day a week and get the work done. And as you can see it needs to be done!  This is the joy of running your own company. 

Now what they didn't count on was that I would turn the table on them!

Good lookin' group don't you think?  I am thankful for them every day!  
  

The WhirlWind that was October!

Dear Blog Readers,

My deepest and sincerest apologies for abandoning you in October.  This past month proved to be the busiest on record!

We went for a weekend to our favorite getaway, St. Simons Island, GA so Tom could take some golf lessons at Sea Island and I could see my Father.

Then we had the Member Guest Golf Event at our club where our sweet friends John and Kathy Arnold joined us for 4 fabulous days!

The following weekend brought all that is High Point market!  I will go on and on about that in another post, but it is important to acknowledge that it is an entire city of furniture showrooms and I had a wonderful time looking for the new and unusual!

The week of High Point I was also chairing a fabulous fashion show, Dangerous Curves Ahead for the North Mecklenburg Woman's Club, where we entertained 200 and raised money to send women back to school! 

Our sponsors were the best! Dillards, Standpoint Technologies, Do A Little Floral, Jockey International, MJ's Sugar Shack, LKNSavings.com,Fifth Third Bank, The Style Merchant and the Grill Doctor are just a few!

 
We had fabulous auction items, over 80 in total!

 
 
Amazing fashions and models..

 
 
Below is Gina Story, our MC and one of our Fashion Show Captains, Denise Linerode, another of our Fashion Show Captains and Denise Carter, our President and another Fashion Show Captain.

 
Here is Deborah Maher, our Auction Captain, Brian and Tony of Do A Little Floral and Dianne Kolenski, our Fashion Captain. 

 

Fun was had by all!  In the end we raised a glass and cheered a job well done.

When this picture was taken they sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" - can you stand it?

The next morning Tom and I were off to Alabama for the Alabama-Tennessee football game.

It was the 30th anniversary of our first date and the 20th anniversary of our wedding.  We won the game, whew - in the last second!  This is one tired girl you see below, but if we are going to chronicle this crazy month we might as well show the truth!

 
And since this is a design blog that I scatter with my personal musings...here is a DON"T!

Thank you to all of my clients for indulging this crazy month!  Many of you were along for some of the ride, others were the focus of High Point.  We are back in the office full time and can't wait to catch up on installations!!  Woo Hoo!

I don't like quotes, but.....

I read something in USA Weekend Magazine that I really thought was profound...

Tim Gunn, fashion guru, former Chair of Parsons Fashion Design School (and you all know that I am an alumni and fan of Parsons!) and current Chief Creative Officer at LIZ said,

"Part of what was so unshackling was the whole aspect that when you are studying art or design, the answer isn't in the back of the book.  The answer's in you, somewhere.  It's a matter of tapping into the resources you have and being creatively untethered."

  Brillliant!

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the flowers iz?

Well this weather is so confusing!  Sunday night 3 weeks ago we had a 'thunder snow' which left us with 6 inches of snow.

     

By the next weekend it was 80 degrees and time for the Southern Spring Home and Garden Show in Charlotte!

I took pictures of the IDS spaces at the show....all done by different Charlotte area designers. 

Which do you like? Vote in the Comments Section!!

A)  Love the nail head detail! 

B)  Wonderful whimsy and notice the wall pocket for magazines! 

C)  Soft and Serene - nice tile work.
 

D)  Lemonade anyone? 

E)  Modern AND Warm!!  

F)  Can you believe she coffered the ceiling?  Nice touch! 

G)  Vibrant Color Contrast.