Styleast: How Bridget Meier creates memorable design experiences
Based in East London, South Africa, Styleast is an interior design and decor firm that offers a turnkey service for decor projects where every aspect, from concept to final installation, is handled exquisitely.
The company was founded by Bridget Meier, an interior design professional with over 15 years of experience, including international experience, having worked in the trade in London and South Africa.
Bridget and her team believe in creating memorable, sensational, and aesthetically pleasing experiences through great design. As Home Fabrics has been part of some interesting projects with the Styleast team, Bridget shared some of her insights and a recent inspiring project.
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A: So when we start a project, we always start off with a concept. I believe that a strong concept kind of allows you to make all the decisions in the right way throughout the duration of a project. We do projects that sometimes can take over a year because we get involved from space planning right down obviously to choosing the art and accessories, styling right at the end.
Different things inspire us, whether it's the location, the clients' lifestyles, and from that we often get a good sense of the direction that we are wanting to take the project. But always it's a strong concept as the backbone.
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A: The last project we did was a high-end luxury home based here in East London. We worked on this project for over a year, right from conception of the project so, we got involved with space planning with the architect. We did all of the interior finishes, selected all the fixtures, fittings, right onto designing custom furniture pieces, along with artwork and accessories.
We used quite a lot of the FibreGuard range in this project. The fabrics needed to be high-performance fabrics because our clients had young children. Our whole concept and colour scheme was light colours. We used a lot of creams, light greys, golds, so we needed the fabric to really be durable. We were also looking for beautiful looking fabrics with luxurious textures. We used a lot of the velvets, bouclés and really managed to create a beautiful interior that was still be for our clients.
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A: Because we are based remotely and there's no local showroom, we rely lots on Home Fabrics to support us. Our local representative is based in Port Elizabeth and they come and visit us regularly, bringing us the latest samples, both in fabrics and wallpaper. We also do keep ourselves educated through Home Fabrics' social media and the blog.
We do both residential and commercial hospitality-based projects. So we need to use a wide range of fabrics and wallpapers for different applications. And what's so great is that the Home Fabrics range is so vast, there are fabrics and wallpaper that are quite specific to the different areas of work that we do, which is great. Also because we don't have access to a local showroom, we often download digital images of fabrics that we might want to use in a project for our project boards to clients. That is a very useful tool that we have found works for us.
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A: We obviously have our local representative that comes to see us every few weeks, brings us the latest fabrics that have been launched, shows us all the stories. And it's important that we know and keep abreast with all of those kind of things, which we do. I would say that as a design company, I'm always researching new things.
What are people doing everywhere else? How can we try and push the boundaries here where we live? And it also keeps it exciting for us as designers, but also our work then stays relevant and exciting. And I think that's the thing about trends; it's not jumping on the bandwagon, but making sure that your work is relevant.
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A: think that passion is the secret ingredient to creating great designs. For me, they go hand in hand together. I think it translates into the product that your client is receiving at the end of the day. And for you as the designer, if you're passionate about what you do, your clients can feel it, they can see it. And at the end of the day, you're going to get a fabulous product. So for me, I think it's the most integral part of the process.
The wow factor
Interior design doesn't have to be complicated - the goal is to create spaces that are highly functional, beautiful, express the homeowner's style and makes them say "Wow!" as they enjoy their space. This is what Bridget and the Styleast team achieve with all of their design projects, through a service offering that delivers unique interiors. To learn more about Styleast, visit their website at styleast.co.za
