What's Hot! Top Design (continued)
You’ve seen the winning room. Now get the backstory on Top Design winner Matt Lorenz’s family-friendly loft. Designer/lead judge Jonathan Adler asks the questions
JA: Did you ever think about laying out the loft in a more modern idiom?
ML: No. It has great bones, and I wanted to play that up. Although I could have gone more Christian Liaigre, which would’ve looked great.
JA: But Liaigre might not have looked so great on TV. Did you think about how it would look on camera?
ML: No, I was so naive. I would have painted everything gray. But I felt that you guys knew my personal style, and that you’d register it right away [if I had done something solely for TV].
JA: You didn’t dumb down your aesthetic for the show. It’s been my philosophy that I shouldn’t compromise my sensibility for anything, such as a licensed line. You did the thing you meant to do, and that’s what came through.
ML: My five-year-old daughter is still asking for that damn pink room.
JA: I want her room too. It was so cozy and cute.
ML: It worked in the traffic-flow pattern. I thought a lot about adjacencies. If people came over, what did I want them to see, what should I hide? To me, the bathroom should be a destination. I hate when the bath is visible from the living area.
JA: Was that an Arbus console in the bath?
ML: Yes. But I thought the bath was the least successful room. I wanted more art on the walls, and I didn’t love the way the console felt in the space.
JA: The scale was weird, but it was memorable. That’s one of the greatest things design can be.
ML: I really wanted to use a Ralph Pucci vanity with a pop-up mirror, but I ran out of money.
JA: That’s very sad. So, were the judges mean?
ML: I’d rather hear the truth, even if it’s harsh. But you guys were always nice to me, though the criticism from some of the guest judges seemed a little too personal.
JA: We all loved that grid of family photos.
ML: The only art that we were allowed to use was family photographs or art that we’d made ourselves. I love black-and-white photography; I think it fits into any environment. In the foyer I hung photos taken by my grandfather that I had reproduced at a copy shop with orange ink.
Subscribe to ELLE DECOR magazine
MORE DECORATE ARTICLES
