Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1543791
AT RIGHT Model and Muse Violeta Sanchez in F/W 1982 Saint Laurent haute couture from "Saint Laurent and Photography." "The Happy Home: Layered Interiors for Joyful Living," by Ariel Okin Ariel Okin calls herself an accidental designer. After getting her Master's in Public Affairs from Columbia University, she landed a job in New York writing education grants. In her spare time, she helped friends with home décor projects. "It was sort of like, Oh I love your apartment, can you help me with mine?" she says. "I was around 22; it was the era when my friends were moving in with their significant others or getting their own places to themselves. So I started helping them and then I quickly realized that I was spending more time doing that than I was at my day job. And I was doing it for free." Eventually she found clients who were willing to pay for her discerning eye. But the design work was a sideline, consuming her free time. After a luxury apartment she worked on was featured in Elle Decor, she finally had the confidence to switch to designing full-time. "I really tried to be very careful about it," she says of the professional leap. "I waited until I had enough work lined up for about six months." Now a decade into launching her eponymous firm, she's amassed an impressive portfolio of residential projects. She's selected 10 for her debut monograph, released by Rizzoli in February, showcasing her talent for channeling each client's particular personality. "Our three pillars are, Is it personal to the client, Is it functional and also, of course, Is it beautiful," she says. The book also highlights her versatility, moving from brownstone Brooklyn to New Jersey horse country, from beachfront luxury in the Hamptons to her own home in suburban Westchester. "Ariel's work is the opposite of everything we've come to expect from the interiors of the Internet," writes her friend Lena Dunham in the introduction to the book. "She revels in softness, specificity, and livability, while consistently surprising with her choices." Okin, who met the writer-actor-director through a mutual friend, has worked on two of Dunham's New York homes, including a new place in Chelsea. Most other high-profile clients, valuing their privacy, have kept their names out of the book. One prominent exception, Audrey Gelman, cofounder of the now-defunct private club The Wing and owner of the Six Bells Countryside Inn, in the Hudson Valley, showcases her antique- filled home upstate. Along with lavish spreads of these and other completed projects, the book offers inspirational design tips: on creating the perfect mudroom, on adding a "quirky dash of whimsy," on using "large-scale prints." "I really wanted it to feel instructional and not just pretty photos," Okin says of the book. "So, I tried to layer in the why and how behind what we did." "Our three pillars are, Is it personal to the client, Is it functional and also, of course, Is it beautiful," says Ariel Okin (above) of her eponymous firm's approach to design. P H OTO BY D O N N A D OTA N (O K I N ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F R I Z ZO L I