Home is more than a place to live, and Interiordesigners are more
than mere arbiters of taste. They're psychologists of a different
stripe.
Like many intimate relationships, the ones arranged by Karen Fisher
begin in the dark. Fisher, whose company, Designer Previews, matches
interior designers with potential clients, gives a slide show to people
who want to decorate their homes. Then she sits back to watch--not the
slides, which picture a parade of bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, but
the viewers' reaction to them. A nudge, a grimace, a widening of the
eyes, can tell Fisher what she needs to know. "Many people have an inner
sense of what they want space to do for them, but they don't have access
to it or can't put it into words," says Fisher. "I help people visualize
their dream--when they don't even know what it is yet."
After extensive interviews with the would-be clients, who are
mostly married couples, she recommends an interior designer with whom she
thinks they will work well. All this homework is necessary, says Fisher,
"because decorating is about much more than fabric swatches and paint
chips. It's about how people see themselves and how they want to be
perceived by others." Designing a home can be a surprisingly emotional
experience, she observes, and the relationship between designer and
client can become intense.
People may find out all sorts of things about themselves in the
process of decorating: that they prefer a rustic porch to a sleek home
office, that they can't live without walk-in closets, that despite their
advancing age, a house like the one they grew up in is the only one that
feels like home. They may even discover that to their spouse, home means
something entirely different. "I've had so many clients split up on the
day they move into their dream house," says Fisher, ruefully. "The design
process forces them to outline their vision of the future, and then they
discover they don't share that vision."
The relationship between designer and client is itself a kind of
marriage, which at its best is built on mutual trust and understanding.
"If the process is really successful, the client feels like he's a
partner of the designer," says Fisher. But this isn't always a marriage
of equals: while the client is the one who pays the bills, the decorator
often calls the shots. He's got the practiced eye, the well-honed
judgment, the fluency in the foreign language of aesthetics. "The
designer is educated, and he educates the clients," Fisher explains.
"He's asking them to be visionaries, to grow into the space he designs
for them." Perhaps a parent-child analogy is more apt.
Or shrink-patient. The act of making a home is always
psychologically fraught, laden with memories, fantasies, and
expectations. "Decorating brings all kinds of feelings to a head," says
Fisher. "It doesn't create feelings, but it stirs them up: feelings about
one's own life, about one's partner, one's parents." Most people have
strong emotions about the space they occupy, even if they don't realize
it--and designers must divine those feelings and channel them in a
creative direction. "All the top designers are good psychologists," says
Fisher. "They get hired because they know what people need."
PHOTOS (COLOR): Room of their own
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