GenuineFauxInterviews:

Jamie Drake

1. Let's get the obvious out of the way: What's your favorite color?
2. Favorite color combinations?
3. You design a lot in New York. Would you approach a project differently if it were in another city like Des Moines? 
4. You have an amazing gift for incorporating artwork into your spaces. What is your artwork selection process? 
5. Where's the best place to find affordable art? What would you call affordable? 
6. I tend to have one color I don't like for a decade. My 20's was pink. 30's was red. Do colors fall in and out of favor with you? If yes, is there a pattern or rhyme to it? (In case you're wondering...my 20s was in reaction to pink-filled teenage years. At some point my mom decided I was the traditional/girly kid and everything needed to be pink – including luggage. Airport bag mix-up was never an issue.)
7. You're really known for color, but we think your ability to use texture is equally amazing. There's something about the way you use shine that makes the color...well... better. How do you do that?
8. Is there ever too much color? 
9. Have you ever had a client that asked for all neutrals? Did you punch them?
10. How many fan decks do you own? 

For the real thing, check out a few of our favorite rooms by Jamie Drake or his book, New American Glamour available at Amazon:

New American Glamour by Jamie Drake

This bedroom is just the right mix of grown-up,
playfulness, and angst for a teenage boy.

This is our favorite Jamie Drake design. 
The painting is the Spirograph we all wish we had made.  

We love how Drake decided to hang this collection of silkscreens.

We love the energy in this jewel box of a dining room. 
Who wouldn't want to throw a dinner party in here? 

GenuineFauxInterviews:

Thom Filicia

Thom Filicia

1. Why the "h"?
2. You have an incredible ability to layer styles, textures, patterns, eras, price points. There's so much eye candy. Each visit to your spaces offer yet another discovery or detail. What is your process? Do you build your spaces in the moment or do you sort it out ahead of time? 
3. If a little bit of both, what percentage is completed ahead of time and what is in the moment?  
4. Toilet paper roll over or under?
5. If there could have been only 4 guys on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, who would you have eliminated? I think we're going to say the same person. Let's say it together on the count of three. 1, 2, 3...
6. You use a lot of birds in your work. How would you design a space for a famous bird like Big Bird?
7. You have a pretty impressive resume. Working with the likes of Parish-Hadley, Inc., Robert Metzger Interiors, and Bilhuber & Associates. What's the one most important thing you learned at each of the three firms? Answer both as a designer and then as a professional.  
8. What are your top 3 design eras? 
9. What's the one thing a client could do to make you quit the first day on the job?
10. The story goes that you and your dog were stranded inside your apartment elevator for a hour with another passenger. She was a talent manager, and called you the next day about auditioning for Queer Eye. Have you never taken a set of stairs since? 

Want the real thing? Check out this book by Thom Filicia: 

Thom Filicia Style

GenuineFauxInterviews:

Jonathan Adler

Jonathan Adler

1. When you are working with equipment – anything from a potter's wheel to the copy machine – and the equipment is not cooperating, are you the type of person that talks sweet to it or do you fuss and cuss at it? 
2. The 70's are so influential in your work. If you were born a decade later, how would that have impacted your aesthetic?
3. How much of your own work do you live with? 
4. When is the last time you ate dinner via a vending machine? 
5. If the machine took your money, did you talk sweet to it or did you fuss and cuss at it? 
6. Your work has a certain whimsy that implies a good sense of humor. Let's put that sense of humor to the test. How funny do you find the following things:
   • Someone falling
   • Laffy Taffy wrappers
   • Any joke starting with a priest, a rabbi, and a monk walking into a bar
   • Someone getting racked
7. You use a lot of mustaches in your work, which we love. Have you ever had a mustache? If yes, please show your work!  
8. In America, we are painting obsessed. What would you say to encourage people to use more pottery and sculpture in their homes and offices? 
9. Do you go to art shows? Is there a certain type of exhibit you enjoy most? 
10. Music or talk radio?

 Want the real thing? Check out these books by Jonathan Adler:

Happy Chic Accessorizing

Happy Chic Colors

GenuineFauxInterviews:

Tim Gunn

Location: Boucheron Bakery in NYC

Time: 9:30 a.m.

 

Tim Gunn, beloved
Project Runway mentor

1. Mr. Gunn (this may be fictional, but we still have our manners), you have an incredible gift. Do you think of your work as such?
       
2. Did someone in your life do the same for you? What you do for others? Guide? Teach? Inspire?
3. What would you do if you weren't a teacher?
    
4. Three parter – How old were you when you bought your first suit?  Who picked it out?  Was it a little boy suit (aka Mondo)?
5. What fashion ghost of the past haunts you the most?
    
6. You have such an incredible eye for fashion. Does that designer's eye extend to all areas of design such as interior, graphic, fine arts?
    
7. You seem to possess a robust vocabulary in both the visual arts and the spoken word. If the two – words and images – were in a wrestling match for your affection, which would win? This is a loser-leave-town-grudge match. You must decide?
8. If you were a paint color, what color would you be?
9. I was going to ask if you color code your closet, but that's like asking if a fish has gills so let me ask this instead. At a party, have you ever snuck into the host's closet to color code their wardrobe? Tell me who?
10. Now that your famous, how many times a day do strangers stop and ask you for your fashion advice?