It's easy to see why Madonna is one of Jamie Drake's clients. His hallmarks are theatricality and bold use of color, what he calls "personality-plus design." A case in point: He's been known to combine fuchsia, chartreuse, olive, and coral-and make it work. Drake comes by his color lust naturally; his mother was a painter and his father was in the print business.
Among his memories are going to work with his dad and being fascinated by the vats of ink, intense and shiny, that he can still smell to this day. At age 11, he requested an all-black room, and by the time he was in high school in Connecticut, he was already working in professional design. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, he immediately opened his own design firm, where one of his high- profile clients is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Today he also designs products, taking his cue from "20 years of globe-trotting through centuries of brilliant ideas." For example, he has always loved the time-honored cabochon shape -that is, a gem cut in convex form, polished to a high sheen but not faceted-and he has incorporated it beautifully into fabrics and a rug.-Rebecca Christian
Jamie Drake's website:
www.drakedesignassociates.com
