Interior designer inspires students
Inspiration can come from many sources.
For Charlotte Moss, it came one morning during breakfast and she saw the shadow the balustrade cast and she said she thought, “That’s a carpet design in the making.”
Moss, a nationally recognized interior designer, was the final guest lecturer in the Caine Lecture series put on by the Interior design department at Utah State University. Moss spoke to students Wednesday about inspiration and where people can get it.
“You truly can be inspired by everything,” junior Julie Yates, an interior design major, said. “And people like Charlotte are an inspiration in and of themselves. To see how they got where they did … and to know that you can do great things with your life too.”
“She’s definitely one of the grand dames of design,” Darrin Brooks, a faculty member in the interior design department, said. “We want to expose our students to really the best design has to offer [and] she’s definitely the biggest designer Utah State has ever had.”
Brooks began working in February of 2004 to bring Moss to USU. She was unable to make it to the lecture series that year, but Brooks kept in touch.
His persistence paid off when Moss contacted him and said she would be available to come this year, and then the planning began.
“It was a year of hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, a visit to New York and various other things that brought it all to its culmination,” Brooks said.
Showing pictures of her travels and many of her designs, Moss said one of the most important lessons to learn in her field was to observe, she said, because it doesn’t cost a dime.
The award-winning designer said she has found inspiration the world over, but she said one of the greatest sources for inspiration has been people.
“I think people are one of the greatest untapped resource for inspiration,” she said. “I can’t stop drawing on people for inspiration in my work.”
She talked about several women that she has looked to over the years. Design-great Edith Wharton and Audrey Hepburn were just two of the women she said she admired.
Her colleagues have called her the epitome of a professional designer, and Moss is trying to use that to her advantage by changing one of the reigning philosophies in design today.
“Moderation is so overrated,” she said. “I will be vindicated with more and more as a philosophy of decorating yet.”
Something that has really stuck with Moss over the years was a quote that said a woman’s home easily reveals what she is like. Moss said her mother was a perfect example of that. When she would go on trips with her family, Moss said she would always find her mother inside fluffing pillows one last time before they left.
The Virginia native also said her home in New York says a lot about her personality as well. She said her home would let people know, among other things, how much she loves chairs.
After graduating from the Virginia Commonwealth University with an English degree, Moss went to Wall Street. That was here her career as a designer began.
“I left Wall Street … took my bonus and went to England. I bought a container of antiques and I started a shop,” she said. “My first boss from Wall Street called me to decorate his apartment and it just went from there.”
After that, it was only a matter of “working longer hours than the next guy” to get to where she is at today.
Moss said after spending three days with students in the interior design department, she has learned a lot from the students and it has been a great experience for her.
“If I can sort of advance somebody’s learning curve by giving them the benefit of some of my experience, then I feel that’s what I am here to do,” Moss said.
The students weren’t complaining.
“She’s so personable and has truly taken an interest in us as students,” Yates said. “She so wants to spread her knowledge and is so genuinely helpful. She’s not a person that sits at home. She’s incredibly busy.”
“It’s a very unique opportunity to have someone of this caliber come to Logan and share her knowledge,” said Janelle Fairbanks, also a junior in the interior design program. “It’s really an opportunity that people with better access don’t get. It’s really marvelous.”
“This was once in a lifetime, I’ll never forget this,” Yates said.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu