“Windsor’s talent was not only artistic, it was intuitive. Her goal was to create a space for us to love in, not just live in.”- Gwyneth Paltrow
Windsor Smith is known as a tastemaker, influencer, interior, fabric, furniture and lighting designer and self-professed “odd sprout off the family tree.” Her highly anticipated first book reveals all of these talents, yet something more soulful beyond her artistic accomplishments. Friend and client Gwyneth Paltrow describes Windsor’s sixth sense in her foreword, “Windsor’s questions to me would often veer away from color palettes and curtains, and I came to know her essence through these queries…I started to see that a beautiful home is only truly beautiful if it is serving the togetherness of the family, a concept that previously I had never paired with good design.”
Her gorgeous new book celebrates her ability to mix old Hollywood glamour with modern practicality. She breaks down her creative process into five chapters focussing on her design intuition, sense of color, creating balance, mixing the past and present and creating all-embracing spaces for today’s modern family. The photography is not only stunning, but the story behind her designs is as captivating.
Becoming an interior designer was not intentional for Windsor. She says, “I sort of snuck up on it, and my journey was purely intuitive.” She grew up in Kansas and Texas, taught in Manhattan and Tokyo, and then landed in Los Angeles. She would frequent flea markets as a hobby to furnish her own spaces and this led to buying trips abroad and opening her own shop. She come upon the trade somewhat by accident helping her clients select pieces for their own homes.
As she worked with clients, she realized people were not always connected to their chosen lifestyle and she could help them bridge that gap. Windsor would create rooms for how her clients actually lived. She was more interested changing the way her clients lived in their spaces than just creating beautiful interiors for them.
An underlying sense of balance is evident throughout all of the rooms Windsor designs. She credits her dance background for her balancing prowess, “When I look back, I realize I had the perfect education without even knowing it. Dancers have a daily discipline of exercising both sides of the brain as they learn to dance with both sides of the body, reversing all movements and repeating them so there is no weaker side. Just holding a drawing up to a mirror will immediately reveal any flaws in its proportion and execution, the unique exercise of watching your dancing form in reverse trains your visual skills to identify what’s ‘off’ or not in line. That hyper-developed sense of balance means I see rooms and their contents as a series of lines: I can ‘walk’ through them in my mind and just know how the spaces should flow, how the elements connect and overlap and support the design as a whole, and finally, what will enhance the ‘story’ of the house and make it more compelling”
This book will be a must have for every design library! Click here to purchase.
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