Sophisticated handmade textiles--pillows, duvet covers, sachets, albums, vases--are what Brooklyn-based designer Aviva Stanoff creates in her studio. Products that are gorgeous, upscale, drool-worthy to the likes of necessarily frugal writers like me. (A $1000 pillow?!) But I knew Aviva long before she found her design niche. As a little girl, she lived next door to me and often played in my back yard with her sister and my own kids. I can still see her concentrating intently on her kid-sized art projects. Even then, she knew how to enter creative flow...
Q: I recall you enjoyed arts and crafts as a little girl, right? You and your mother and sister were always being creative with a variety of art supplies.
A: It's true that I always had an affinity for color, fabric, texture. This was encouraged by my Japanese-born mom having me study Japanese flower arranging, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. I also remember doing tie-die in the house pretty regularly as a small kid. Then, every summer we spent in Japan at my grandfather's Buddhist temple. The gardens there helped inspire my sense of design.
Q: How did you know it was time to go professional?
A: Though we had these artsy classes and extracurricular stuff going on as kids, strangely, my mom and dad greatly pressured me to choose a white collar major when I was an undergrad. So I chose international political science, but for grad school I chose to do an MFA in Applied Textile Design, focusing on Luxury in Home. I think I realized that I was good at the color, texture, aesthetics side of my brain. It came easy to me, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I realized that this was what I wanted to do professionally. It was hard work to think in analytical terms, but easy to communicate well via color, fabric, and art. I guess you could say I took the easy road for me.
Q: When in the process do you enter a flow state? That is, when time seems to stop and you lose self-consciousness and feel, perhaps, part of something larger?
A: Our design process includes research, inspiration and designing itself. My design process does have a part where I lose myself, almost lose track of time, and really I'm only thinking of color, pattern, the season I am designing for, the customer I'm designing for, and how this new collection of pattern and color will complement and coordinate with past collections. This is specifically when I am choosing colors and patterns and dealing with very subtle differences in the color palate.
THE BUSINESS OF ART
Q: When you're trying to come up with ideas for new stuff, at what point do you look into production costs and other practicalities in order to decide if the ideas are actually feasible?
A: I try to keep production costs in mind all the time. But really, I don't care what it costs as long as it is beautiful. My pillows sell at the department stores upwards of $325--this customer isn't shopping by price, but by design. I design what I want, then start crunching numbers: can we find the fabric a bit cheaper? Can we find a factory where we can negotiate better terms, etc. But at the end of the day, I'm selling design, and not a price point. In this way I'm lucky. That being said, I will work backwards, work with a fabric I know is affordable, a factory or technique that is affordable, and design using only these elements to keep costs down. My homework right now is to design a $1000 pillow.
Q: How much of your work is by commission, someone with specific ideas in mind who wants a custom piece? Does that feel as creative as starting from scratch with your own ideas?
A: We do quite a bit of custom work, but they work within our parameters of pattern and color. I don't execute other people's designs much anymore. The last person I did that for was Donna Karan, when I worked on her runway projects. I have been a Designer for about 11 years. The first six of those years I sold my concepts to other designers and worked freelance for them, executing their concepts for them. Ever since I launched my own line, I stopped selling my services in that format.
Q: How hard is it for you to separate the creativity from the rest?
A: I have had to learn how to balance running a business and being the creative brain behind it as well. More and more, unfortunately, I spend time on developing relationships with customers, doing shows and selling, and a smaller amount of time designing. It has forced me to design quickly, efficiently, and to keep my eyes open to be inspired at any moment.
- Aviva Stanoff's designs have been featured in numerous periodicals, such as Modern Bride's Top 100 Favorite Things, Summer 2007 issue; featured artisan in Home, May 2007; cover, Home Accents Today, Winter Market Issue 2007, and many more, some of which can be read on her site.
