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Interior Designer: NATHAN THOMAS
NYC—Hailing from Denver and steeped in fashion and architecture from a young age, NATHAN THOMAS is an interior designer’s designer. An FIT grad (BFA, Interior Design, ‘04) and winner of Bravo’s highly-rated reality TV show, Top Design, he is a true twinkling star who is forging his own inimitable path.
Galvanized by his mom who worked in architecture, Nathan’s life has been driven by an intellectual curiosity and constant exploration of his surroundings. “I observe and analyze buildings, structures and interiors non-stop. I look at shapes, textures, spaces and lighting and try to translate what I observe into a furnishing or design aesthetic. I can find beauty everywhere.” Having worked at some of NYC’s most elite design firms, he has recently set his sights on wooing clients and building his own cache in NYC.
“Working with Champalimaud & Associates gave me an understanding of classicism at its core,” he explains. Add to that a tenure at Nathan Egan Interiors as a senior designer under the wings of both partners (Wayne and Carol)—spearheading numerous high-end residential projects around NYC—and Nathan has fully and naturally cultivated a pluralistic aesthetic, aptly demonstrating his own ‘new age’ background and edgy point of view.
He’s into anti-establishment motifs and embraces the radical undercurrents of past and present. He cites Stephen Sprouse and Alexander McQueen as inspirations, has a penchant for Siouxsie And The Banchees and once aspired to be a bioligist. He obsesses over Comme des Garçons and is influenced by Marc Newson, amongst others. Nathan characterizes his aesthetic as “eclectic chaos”—a kind of ironic appropriation of things like Dutch/Flemish design (re: Maarten Baas) mixed with early 19th-century classical layouts and elements of proto-punk. “I love super-contrasts and violent juxtapositions; I have a thing for the whimsical, sub-cultural and the conceptually outré,” he says.
Some of his transformed spaces brandish drip-paintings reminiscent of Jackson Pollack and graffiti-inspired murals done in rave-y colors and cool stencils. Last year, Nathan found his moment when he went out on his own. He set up shop in Chelsea and founded his eponymous firm, Nathan Thomas Studios. With an impressive knowledge of art/fashion history (he once worked in the fashion industry as a make-up artist) and armed with a heretical vision, his approach to interior design combines discipline, spontaneity and creative induction.
Yet his vision is steady and he is utterly client-oriented. Clients get a more focused approach, but Nathan rarely designs spaces with a definitive purpose in mind, choosing instead to add and subtract pieces depending on mood, provocation, or the opportunity to take advantage of a better angle.
That’s because for him interior design is about participating in an evolution rather than following a standard protocol. “To me a concept is born through conversation, feeling, and trial and error. Concepts are amorphous to me—something that grows and mutates along the way. It’s similar to forming a tentative hypothesis and then, after lots of experimentation, a conclusion,” he says.
Nevertheless, he is fundamentally thorough and delights in adding his own sprinklings of the subversive and unorthodox —“the piece de la resistance,” he says. His Emotional Crime Scene Chair (below), for instance, is a testament to his edgy sensibility.
Fashioned from solid maple with horse hair filling, Nathan has transmogrified a classic arm chair into an ultra-cool bloodied decorative piece that even Damien Hirst would relish. His use of bold colors, repetition and provocation have become his signature, instantly delivering you into a type of pop-art-rocker heaven. Nathan’s attention to detail is impeccable, and cool juxtapositions of texture and style infuse his spaces and designs with tons of character and verve.
Nathan is a ‘young turk’ who represents a philosophical transition from the cold, sleek aesthetic that has defined NYC for the past decade. It makes sense, of course, that the pendulum is swinging away from this mute, chilly Minimalism (what he calls a ‘brutalist ideal’) and toward Nathan’s embrace of zesty colors, vintage revival and kitschy monochrome ornament (such as florescence with gold flatware). His own brand of ‘eclectic chaos’ marks a paradigm shift and he is cultivating it through collabs with SACCO and working with NYC’s chic clientele.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s got an influential and hip young fan base furthering the message, including FIT’s proud crop of rising talents. One such enthusiastic voice is Melissa Brasier (below), who studies interior design at FIT and is one of Nathan’s biggest fans. “He’s had tons of publicity from Top Design and is a creative tour de force that we all look up to,” she says. “I love that he represents fresh ideas and blends eclectic motifs like dance and fashion into his aesthetic.”
Not long ago Harper’s Bazaar Korea recognized him as a ‘rising talent’ and he’s been a guest lecturer at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum where he also debuted his super-cool upholstered chairs. He’s also involved in a TV project with the LOGO network.
For Nathan, whose work schedule finds him at a Lower East Side flea market one day, lecturing at FIT the next or visiting an art dealer in LA, there’s rarely time to come up for air. It all sounds glamorous and carefree, but the designer sees it differently. “Designing is a really tedious, detailed, sometimes vexing, mostly exhilarating endeavor,” Nathan says, “but to me the goal is to always find that ‘cool eureka!’ moment for the client and myself.” Check out Nathan’s rad work at:
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Whose that melissa chick?? shes so hot…I wanna go to fit.
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