Dallas Interior Designer Michelle Meredith

Interior Designer Michelle Meredith

Syle Maker . . . Dallas interior designer Michelle Meredith just finished a glamorous small apartment in New York (pictured here) and she's busy working on the interior design for several projects including a contemporary house in Preston Hollow, a 6,500 square foot new construction in Cedar Hill, and two upscale senior living facilities. And check out her new website here.

I've written a lot about Michelle during the past two years (check out her gorgeous room at the Dallas Symphony City Living Tour and her chic design studio), so I know you're familiar with her work already. Here's what's new with her:

New York apartment by Michelle Meredith & Associates

Michelle Meredith & Associates does a lot of hospitality design around the world, and recently finished two wedding halls in Japan in conjunction with Dallas-based Three Architecture, which if you are getting married in Japan, is a big deal.

"Wedding halls are like country clubs in Japan," explains Meredith. "When a daughter is born, the family joins a wedding hall and pays dues. When she is of age, the family has built up enough money to have their daughter's wedding there." A Japanese wedding hall is much more than a bridal boutique, she points out. It's a whole universe built around the bride, housing stores that sell traditional wedding kimonos and Western gowns, china, crystal, dining rooms, wedding chapels, a florists, and individual rooms for the family and bride.

She took inspiration for the wedding halls' designs from the Carolina Herrera boutique in Highland Park Village, she says, hanging crystal Barovier chandeliers from Italy and lacquering the furniture and casegoods in white.

New York apartment by Michelle Meredith & Associates

New York apartment by Michelle Meredith & Associates

Not many people know that Michelle Meredith worked at Walt Disney's Buena Vista International in Los Angeles before landing her career as an interior designer. Mainly, she designed box wraps for videos, but it was her peripatetic childhood as a military brat that got her the job with Disney's international marketing department. Born in London, Meredith moved every two years. Eventually she ended up at Baylor studying social work and psychology, then followed her now ex-husband to California where he pursued film work.

"Disney sent me to UCLA at night to study graphic design," she says. "Taking the classes I realized I wanted to study interior design and ended up at UNT getting my design degree." After a few years working for hospitality design firms, including ForrestPerkins, she opened her own firm, Michelle Meredith & Associates, specializing in high-end hospitality and residential design in 2000.

New York apartment by Michelle Meredith & Associates

After years of working in hospitality, Michelle Meredith has an arsenal of design tricks of the trade that she uses in residential work.

Want your rooms to feel more like a spa? Here are some of her Tips for Soothing Interiors:

* Use of color is important for creating soothing environments. In smaller areas, you can do more of an impact of color, such as pale champagne accented with a dark mahogany, open grain wood. It's more modern to contrast the light walls with a dark wood.

*Use marble that has some organic movement to it, with beautiful grain. I love some of the new granites and stones that have recently come out. I used White Eagle travertine on a project recently -- it's creamy white with taupes, pale blues, and lavender tones.

*I love the pale colorations in succulents. I use natural succulents a lot, and I usually find beautiful ones from Grange Hall and Avant Garden. I love flowers, but everyone should have succulents. It could be an air plant in a beautiful bowl. At work, we all have a tiny succulent on our desks. It gives you the feeling of life and serenity.

*For a more spa-like feeling, my favorite colors to use are champagne mixed with pale aqua and celadon. We accent them with shades of lavender.

*Combinations of pale silver blues are classic and appeal to a wide variety of people. It's a personal favorite of mine. We accent silver blues with more modern touches, like a big graphic on a chair.

*On the City Living Tour, I used lots of rock crystal votives from Madison. The colors were clear to pale gray tones. With a candle, they put off the most beautiful light. Without a candle, they're the perfect natural accent, very sculptural and textural.

*I use a lot of polished, creamy white lacquer.

* The flow of a space makes it soothing. Flow can be created by using similar finishes throughout rooms, including the hardware on doors and windows. Keep the architectural finishes simple but beautiful. Polished nickel looks like silver and is one of my favorites to use.

Lamp by Meredith Miller Collections

Cake plate and server by Meredith Miller Collections

Dallas-based master glassblower Aaron Tate carries out the lighting and accessories designed by Michelle Meredith and Catherine Miller. See him at work, here.

New hand-blown kitchen glass pendants by Meredith Miller Collections

Michelle Meredith's design studio

"Luxury can be affordable. You can create a very resort like feeling with your own space," says Michelle Meredith. "Your home is your haven away from the world, which is why I created my design studio the way I did with the courtyard and gardens, to make it a respite from work." See more of her design studio here.

Michelle Meredith's design studio

Moura Starr at Allan Knight Showroom

A room at Allan Knight featuring designer Moura Starr's furniture and lighting

Text and Photography by Rebecca Sherman

Star Quality. . . some designers have it, some don't. Shelley Starr's certainly got the name for it. And a look at her newest lighting and furniture collection for Los Angeles-based Moura Starr, which Allan Knight has just brought to his Dallas showroom, reveals enough razzle dazzle to pave the Milky Way.

Heavenly allusions aside, this is one glamorous and exciting new addition to the Dallas design scene that you don't want to miss.

Shelley Starr, founder of Moura Starr,

when she was in town recently to install her collection at Allan Knight

Shelly Starr, a California native, spent years modeling in Europe and Japan before turning to furniture design. Her love of fashion was a huge influence. "I look at materials and how things are made. A Chanel coat, a dress by Carolina Herrera -- the materials they use are magnificent and the cut is obviously exquisite," she says. "But it's the nuances that only the person wearing it will see that make it special, that elevate it. I always believed my furniture should do that."

She founded Moura Starr 15 years ago. Early on, all of her furniture was built in the company's factories in Brazil. She's now moved everything to California, where her furniture is built by hand by local craftspeople.

A room by Moura Starr at Allan Knight

"I've always been infatuated with antiques and mid century furniture. But I don't want to live in a room full of antiques, and I don't want to live in mid century modern room either. So I redefined the look (of the collection) for how we live today," says Shelley Starr.

Moura Starr's Sibipiruna Coffee Table is made of hand applied waterfall

lacquer with a crystal top. A hand carved, exotic wood

"bracelet" is removable and adjustable. At Allan Knight.

"We used to pass things down from generation to generation, but we've lost that in American culture," says Shelley Starr, who designs her furniture to be collected as modern day heirlooms. "It starts with the use of fine materials. Everything is 100 percent sustainable. There's a lot of hype around that word, but it's not that way in Europe or with us. We won awards for sustainability six years ago, before anyone knew what it meant...

"...Sustainability is taking materials and knowing if our resources are limited, what will we do with them so they're not throwaway, like Ikea and Pottery Barn. There is a price to be paid for these cheap products because they deplete our resources," she says. "We build our furniture in a manner that will last. There is so little of that these days. If you think about it, who is making the future antiques of our day, the furniture to represent our time here?"

Furniture and lighting by Moura Starr at Allan Knight.

"There is a fine art to what we create," says Shelley Starr, who's patented her process of veneering, which uses metal structure underneath to strengthen. "I'm able to build in fine lines this way. Our furniture is sleek and beautiful couture, not chunky and heavy."

Moura Starr's crystal tabletops have a signature liquid look, full of depth and shine, as if they are pools of water that might be disturbed if you place an object on the surface. Starr says this effect is produced by the many layers of lacquer underneath. "It's not the same at all as coloring glass, which has very little depth," she says.

This stunning Moura Starr chandelier looks like hundreds of crystal flower

blossoms are showering down from spigots above.

Recently, Moura Starr began distributing lighting with the Munich-based company Windfall, founded by Dutch designer Roel Haagmans and German lighting innovator Clarissa Dorn.

Closeup of a crystal chandelier created in collaboration with Moura Starr and Windfall

Haagmanns and Dorn have essentially reinvented the traditional chandelier as we know it. While most chandeliers are lighted from electrical wires and bulbs from within, Windfall's signature style is to light them dramatically with tiny spots from above, mounted in ceiling plates. This allows the chandeliers to float like beautiful sculpture in the air, unburdened by unsightly hardware, explains Starr.

Room and Swirl Chandelier by Moura Starr at Allan Knight

Room and chandelier by Moura Starr at Allan Knight

"There's no such thing as filler in my line. As you can see, everything is thought through and has a strong purpose and reason to be included," says Shelley Starr, who notes that her design influences right now are classical lines, whether it's furniture or lighting.

"The interior design manager of Armani Casa, Joy Myler, called me the Chanel of furniture," says Starr, relating how Moyler told her that Armani Casa designers sometimes use Moura Starr pieces in design projects for certain celebrity clients and "friends of the house."

"It was such a nice compliment," says Starr. "I know couture, I love beautiful clothing. It's not just what people see or the fabrics, it's how they feel when they wear the clothes. It's the same with furniture: the way a leg curves, the small details a person who owns the pieces comes to learn."

Moura Starr's wallpaper and Leaf Chandelier. Both at Allan Knight.

Room by Moura Starr at Allan Knight. The chandelier is made of Swarovski

Strauss candles with silverplate tips, each hung individually,

with an adjustible drop up to 25 feet.

"We are very customizable. You can take a cabinet and do it in crystal and lacquer, or add colored crystal fronts," says Shelley Starr. "We have leather, eel, and stingray, and so many different beautiful finishes. Mostly what sets us apart are the lines of the piece, every inch sets us apart, but it's not something you see right away. The client knows they've seen something special, but often they're not sure why."

Optical illusions: Each arm of this chandelier is suspended individually and appears to float in the air; the crystal top on this table looks almost liquid, thanks to an effect created by multiple lacquer layers underneath. Shelley Starr is also experimenting with new finishes, including a white opal finish inspired by the color of the new Lexus, which she sourced from a manufacturer in Germany and had replicated.

Detail of Balance chandelier by Moura Starr at Allan Knight

Moura Starr chair detail, at Allan Knight.

Turkana chaise longue by Moura Starr at Allan Knight.

"I always tell our salespeople, don't sell our furniture. Just educate," says Shelley Starr, who sends customers away with a list of other top competitors for them to go see -- and compare -- after they've walked through her collection.

"I tell them to go shop around. If we are still on your mind after you've seen what the rest of the industry has to offer, then we're the right one for you. I didn't start out in this business to sell furniture, I wanted to make amazing things."

Dallas Design News!

Promemoria Dallas Furniture and Design Showroom

What's New... Promemoria, a luxury Italian furniture manufacturer, will open its first Dallas furniture and design showroom in late May. It's brought to us by showstopping showroom owner Mikyun Chun, whose now shuttered Haroo Haroo showroom made a splash years ago with Philippe Stark furniture and some of the most glamorous parties in town.

Promemoria Dallas is opening next door to Jan Showers & Associates on Slocum Street. Chun is also looking for a sales associate, so contact her at inquiry@minolochi.com

Dallas Interior Designer Kellie Cashon

She's young. She's talented. She's gorgeous. (She shot that great black and white portrait of herself with her Mac's built-in camera). And she's launching her own online design store this month, ShopCurio.com, kicking it off with an invitation-only soiree at the Carlton Varney-designed Stoneleigh penthouse mid-April. The new site shows off her great style. Love her blog, too.

www.shopcurio.com

The White Rock Home Tour

The White Rock Home Tour runs April 16 - 17, benefitting the Blue Ribbon School, Hexter Elementary. The tour showcases five modern homes near the lake, including the one above, a 1955 ranch remodeled by Dallas architect Jonathan Delcambre.