To celebrate, we’re taking talking inspiration, the Dallas design world, and how she got started in the business.
D Home: When did you know you wanted to be an interior designer?
Jan Showers: I think it was something that was always in my DNA—I was interested in it from the time I was 8 or 9. When did I decided to actually do it? In my mid-20’s.
D Home: What was your first design job?
JS: Well, I was decorating for all of my friends and family for more than 10 years, but my first real job was around 1980 for Shellie Sills.
D Home: How doe you think the Dallas interior design aesthetic has evolved or changed since you joined it?
JS: It is much more sophisticated than in my early years as a designer. There was lots of “brown furniture” around in those days, and things were much more traditional. There were some wonderful antiques though, if you really knew where to look.
D Home: Where did your inspirations for the Jan Showers Collection originally come from?
JS: I was on a month-long vacation in Santa Fe in 1999. While having a second cup of tea one morning in the garden of the house where I was staying, I had the idea. I started thinking about all of the wonderful custom pieces we were making for our clients that we couldn’t find in any showroom and thought that I already had the beginnings of a wonderful line of furniture and lighting that didn’t look like anything else out there. It all seemed so simple and easy! I had no idea what I was getting into in order to make this all happen.
D Home: How has the line chanced since its inception?
JS: I think it changes and evolves on a yearly basis, but if you look at our top selling items, some of them are still early pieces that are classics. At this very moment, I am very influenced by all the curvaceous lines of Italian pieces that I see all over Paris and Italy from the last 1940’s through the 1960’s.
D Home: How will you be celebrating the anniversary of the Collection?
JS: Since the real birthday is not until September, I’m not at liberty to say, although I will say that we will be dong something special.
