Editing, Joanne de Guardiola maintains, is as essential to good interior design as it is to good writing. “You wouldn’t wear your whole clothes closet all at once. Why throw everything into your living room?” To avoid such a mistake, de Guardiola recommends enlisting the services of a talented and knowledgeable designer, one who is capable of creating and implementing “effortless and harmonious” spaces down to the smallest detail. The New York-based designer’s own interiors, which draw on her extensive travels in Asia and Europe, are marked by rooms of classical proportions and scale. She frequently enlivens them with a “fresh twist on materials”—woven leathers, straws, and textiles that incorporate beads are just a few new options she looks for—and contrasting textures.

The designer allows a space’s art and antiques “to play off one another,” adding a layer of dynamic visual tension. A Louis XVI chair might be placed on a polished-concrete floor and joined by French pieces from the 1920s or ’30s, alongside important modern and contemporary art. This is not to say that de Guardiola, who is at work on apartments in New York City and houses in Florida, believes interiors should be of the cookie-cutter variety. She looks forward to a time when Americans will feel confident enough in their own design skills to let their individual personalities shine through in their homes.

Joanne de Guardiola

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