Designer Spotlight: Celerie Kemble

"In life as in design, it is not perfection you should be after. There's beauty in the faded and worn, the well loved, and the sentimental...After all, life has seams. Your home should be like a loosely woven fabric of desires, memories, practical, notions, and even compromises." - Celerie Kemble

Smart, stylish, quirky and resourceful, glamorous and a whimsical are just a few words that define the signature style of interior designer Celerie Kemble, Kemble Interiors. Celerie’s look is based on beautifully refined traditional design with a reinterpreted and updated approach that speaks to a new generation. Celerie lives a life as textured as the fabric swatches she's surrounded by each day. Her fabric line for Schumacher combines classic looks with very modern details and geometric patterning, using unexpected metallic finishes, exotic touches such as ikats and embroidery, as well as glamorous moiré, silk and velvet all in a rich and sophisticated color palette of saturated hues and subtle neutrals.

This year the chic designer also happily welcomed the arrival of her first child, Ravenel (affectionately known as Rascal), with hubby Boykin Curry. As the proud parents settle in with their little one in their striking apartment with sweeping views of Central Park, Kemble offers advice anyone can use when decorating your first abode, no matter what the landscape. "People forget that their own experience of their home is more important than anyone else's. I'm a big bather so my bathroom is where I put my biggest dollar commitment. The first expensive antiques I ever bought went in there—a great ebony closet and an antique marble tub from Argentina," says Kemble. So listen to your gut when it comes to making your house a home: "If it makes you grin, your stomach drop or something you see gets you giddy—buy it. Or, pull over, take it out of the trash and haul it home."

Kemble has written two books Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste: Creating Modern Rooms with a Traditional Twist and Black and White (and a Bit in Between) that are both available on Amazon.

Sources: www.kembleinteriors.com, www.sohautestyle.com/tag/celerie-kemble, www.fschumacher.com/collections/celeriekemble.apsx