WILLIAM WICK
San Francisco
Does fashion influence your design?
Almost every space I design is heavily influenced by fashion. I probably read as many fashion magazines as I do interior design ones. My first claim to "local" fame was at the 2004 San Francisco Decorator's Showcase house. I designed the gentleman's dressing room and based the story on an English dandy. The walls were upholstered in men's flannel suiting fabric, the trims and crown a crisp, off-white like a freshly starched collar, and the cabinetry, a rich caramel walnut burl in faux bois, like a well polished pair of Italian leather wing tips. The cabinet knobs shone like grandfathers cufflinks. Can't wait to do the ladies dressing room! I see midnight organza and pearls . . .
What aspects of your work would you describe as traditional?
While most people looking at my work might not consider it traditional, most everything I create come from an idea based in the past. I like to jostle loose a traditional concept and play with it until it's just different enough to call my own, but so that it still has the essence of that thing I started with. Take a traditional English library, wall to wall books, floor to ceiling, wafting of mahogany and moldy book spines. Poorly lit but in a few warm spots, next to the cracked leather Chesterfield sofa, and the occasional art light illuminating the volumes of unread prose.
I might turn the bookshelves to blackened steel, not pack the shelves with books but adorn them with antique hat forms, interspersed by tied bundles of French textbooks, and drop a dramatic industrial chandelier in the middle of the room of industrial propeller parts and candelabra bulbs. I might stack firewood on the fireplace wall from floor to ceiling, inside, and out of the fireplace. You'd walk into the room and know you were in the library, and yet be surprised at what you're seeing. You might even say to yourself, do I untie the books to get to one for a read, or should I just grab my laptop?
How are you incorporating green design into your work?
Well, my degree is in Environmental Science, not Interior Design! So, not surprisingly I have been interested in the green design movement for a while. But, not until meeting Zem Joaquin of eco-fabulous and working on numerous green projects, did it become a focus of mine. A wonderful team, myself included, completed the first "Gold" Leed certified med-spa in California, Epicenter Med Spa.
Did you decorate your childhood room?
Well, not sure about childhood so much other than my beautiful antique 4-poster bed with the horsehair mattress from my great-grandfather juxtaposed by the poster over the headboard of let's see . . . Gumby, replaced by John Denver, then Elle McPhearson, Grateful Dead . . . you get the picture.
But, in college, I really went for it, and created a virtual Ralph Lauren window display out of my room. I had the oversized Kentia Palm in the corner, a blue and white Brazilian crochet hammock hanging wall to wall, and all white linen bedding with a salon style collection of photos, sepias and paintings clustered on the wall over the bed. It was a RL tropical/safari thing. I was hooked!
Is there a palette you are drawn to?
So, I've been ripped apart on blogs and comment boards time and time again for this one, but I really love a monochromatic color palette. Often times a subtle color story lends nicely to showcasing colorful art, or a spectacular antique piece of furniture. I find it much more difficult to show restraint when building a color palette. The tendency is to introduce at least 2-3 colors into a room and start the interplay with neutrals. I recently did a room and chose yellow, gray, and white. The only yellow in the room was a large bold painting in the room. The rest was gray and white . . . quite a challenge, but what a successful outcome.
Wick Design Group
San Francisco
415/437-0125
wickdesigngroup.com
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