Nationally renowned designer Nate Berkus was in Dallas last week to launch his line of LG kitchen appliances at Nebraska Furniture Mart. The new LG Studio collection of refrigerators, ranges, ovens, and more features industry-leading technology, premium materials, and design innovations Berkus has spent the last two years fine-tuning with the manufacturer.
We caught up with Berkus following a rainy morning spent shopping. (On his itinerary: Nest, LOST Antiques, and White Elephant, where he picked up a pair of candlesticks and a French chaise for his six-month-old daughter’s room.) Over coffee, Berkus shared his thoughts on Dallas style, two decades of his interiors business, and how fatherhood has changed how he views design.
Q: Tell me about your shopping excursion this morning!
A: I could’ve spent $50,000 today on Riverfront easily. And gotten, like, four houses’ worth of stuff. That’s the best part.
Q: What do you think about Dallas style?
A: I think it gets a bad rap, I’ll tell you. People don’t realize that shoulder pads and big hair and rhinestones was a long time ago. I think there’s an incredibly refined, sophisticated style in Dallas. And I like that women wear their jewelry. I like that women wear their good things to go to lunch. There’s something really beautiful about that.
I’ve been living in L.A. and New York for the last two or three years, and I’m turning into the new dad that wears yoga shorts everywhere. I’m like, “What am I doing? How did this happen to me?” My husband is like, “You need to step it up.” We probably need to move here.
Q: You just celebrated the 20th anniversary of your design firm. Did you ever expect that you’d be where you are today?
A: No. Definitely not. I started my design firm in my basement. I remember my first order for business cards: It was $120 for 1,000 business cards. And I remember standing in The Ink Spot, the place I ordered them from in Chicago, thinking, “I’m never going to need 1,000 business cards. Maybe I should just do the 500.”
My life and my career has been part alchemy and good fortune and a tremendous amount of dedication, and hard work, and perseverance, and work ethic, and being able to recognize an opportunity and not only capitalize on it, but also knowing when to walk away from things.
I think it’s really important if you’re in a career that has given you so much joy to live in it and exist in that and be conscious of it. And be not only grateful for it but be active within it. How can you make it better? How can you make it more fun? How can you make it more interesting? Without ever letting go of the reins. That’s the balance.
Q: There are so many design-minded individuals in Dallas. Do you have any advice for people wanting to get into the industry?
A: I was raised with a tremendous business background from my dad. A lot of the complaints I’ve heard from clients who’ve worked with other design firms over the years have been, “They were so creative, and they were so artistic, but they were so terrible at bookkeeping.” Or: “The follow-through was terrible, and I felt like no one was taking notes.”
My advice to anyone starting out in this business: Never go to a meeting without a pen and paper. If I have anybody on my staff who shows up with me in front of a client and they’re not writing stuff down, I’ll stop the meeting and say, “What are you doing?” Rule no. 1.
Design is a business. And it is most definitely a tricky business, where there’s lots of details and a million things that can go wrong. You have to stack the cards in your favor by being hyper-organized and vigilant about the details.
Q: Let’s talk about the reason you’re here: Tell us about your new kitchen appliance line with LG.
A: Two years ago, LG came to me and said, “We’d like you to help us get a better understanding of what higher-end appliances in the American marketplace need to be.” At first I was like…okayyy. I’d never done appliances. I spec and select them constantly, but I’d definitely never had my hand in the design of them.
It turns out it’s been a really fruitful, fascinating, wonderful partnership. LG, I think, represents the most innovative, forward-thinking in terms of technology, reliability, dependability—all the things you want appliances to stand for. And they also care very deeply about design. I worked with their designers and their entire research department and went through the details of almost everything aesthetically.
Q: What’s unique about the line?
A: The styling is very commercial. The knobs are hefty, and I took out all the rounded corners on everything. I mixed the controls, so they have the highest technology of touch screen blended with traditional controls, because I don’t like an appliance that looks like a spaceship; I like it to look like an oven. I don’t want that in my home so I didn’t imagine that anybody else would either.
This process has actually been me learning from the people at LG. I’d ask, “Why are there fingerprints on stainless steel refrigerator doors constantly?” And they were like, “If we run the grain of the stainless horizontally instead of vertically, it’s actually far more resistant to fingerprints and stain.” And I was like, “OK, well let’s do that!” Even little things, like trying to fill a vase to put flowers in—you usually can’t fill it from your refrigerator door because the opening isn’t tall enough. So we made it taller. And with ovens, the heat source is typically on the bottom. Ours is in the back so it’s more even, and it reduces the cooking time by a fairly significant percentage. As a new parent, I have far less time than I anticipated, and I think a lot of those innovations married with the timeless aesthetic that I was going for is really great.
Q: Speaking of being a new parent, how’s fatherhood treating you?
A: It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. [My daughter Poppy] is amazing. She’s willful and not cuddly and thinks very strange things are funny and throws her head back and laughs out loud. Honestly, it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I can’t believe how much fun it is. And I can’t believe I waited so long.
Q: Is a line of washers and dryers next? I imagine you’ve got a lot of spit-upon clothes these days.
A: Oh my God. I am so organized and clean. I’m a Virgo. So my homes are run like nobody’s business. There’s barely a junk drawer. I know where everything is at all times and what we need more of. And all of that is out the window now. I’m like, “We need wipes! We need wipes!” I’m at Target on a Sunday, in gym clothes of course, like, “Where are the wipes??”
Q: Has it changed how you think about design?
A: You know, it’s funny, a lot of the things that I’m reaching for now are prettier and brighter. My own personal style tends to lean toward masculine and archival. And now we have hummingbird curtains in the nursery in like 20 colors.
We haven’t baby-proofed yet. We’re going to find a happy medium, we think. Probably until the first emergency room visit, and then I’ll be living in a living room made out of foam.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: I’ve really been enjoying my collaboration with Target. We refresh the stuff constantly. I get excited for every new collection. All of it is done internally. So it’s really fun to take the temperature of what I think is exciting in design at the moment and be able to get that on the shelves in such a quick turnaround, and still have quality that I feel comfortable standing behind.
We’re still working around the country. Twenty years into it, I still get the same rush at seeing all these things come together, and then seeing people walk through their space for the first time. I guess that’s how I know I’m in the right business.
