By Lindsay Field Penticuff
“If you ask me, what is helpful to creativity is training the eye to notice things, to observe closely and precisely, being careful not to make a muddle of it.” –Ian Graham, Archaeologist and MacArthur Foundation Fellow
According to “Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. It has specific goals of improving one’s capability, capacity, productivity and performance.
When thinking about our businesses, our skills, what we bring to the table as designers, odds are it didn’t just happen overnight. Some of us may have attended college and studied design, while others may have worked through a certification program or apprenticed with tenured interior designers.
But being good in our craft—improving our capability, capacity, productivity and performance—is something we work toward, training ourselves.
And training the eye was the focus for Jennifer Fordham, owner and founder of Pembrook Interiors based in Virginia, remembers being asked early on in grammar school what she wanted to be when she grew up.
“I wanted to be an artist, and I drew a picture of myself painting,” she recalls. “That was always what I wanted to do, and even in high school, I thought maybe I wanted to do graphic design or something like that.”
However, Fordham’s great aunt—who was a commercial artist and designer for Chanel—convinced her to study business and be the brain behind the operation rather than solely focus on art.
“Those words sent me down an alternative path in business,” she says. “I was in investor relations for a big energy company, and while I was up in New York (April 1999), I stopped to say hey to my great aunt and I told her I had wrecked my life, saying I really should have done design and I asked her what I should do now.”
To this day, Fordham has a handwritten note from her great aunt following that visit framed and hanging on her wall.
“She said, ‘Darling, you have to start training your eye. That’s where we’re going to start. From this point forward, only look at good design and read everything. Always look at books. Make sure you’re very careful about what you absorb in the design world.’”
Fordham purchased stacks of books about design, first homing in an interest in authenticating antiques and valuation.
“That was what started my research into furniture and good design,” she says. “Because of her advice, I knew I needed to be able to recognize good design when I see it—the training of the eye.”
She also took graduate classes in art history and eventually purchased her own interior design franchise. Fordham later founded Fordham Interiors in 2014, which was renamed Pembrook Interiors about three years ago.
“I had a successful career for over 30 years and just kind of dabbled in design on the weekends,” Fordham says. “It went really well, but I just always knew I wanted to do my own thing and have the creative flexibility to build my own business that was suited to the market.”
Learn more about Fordham’s journey and what leads her design direction with her interior design firm today in the Q&A below:
With your background in sustainable energy and Pembrook Interiors’ strong commitment to sustainability, could you delve into the key principles or strategies you incorporate into your designs to promote eco-consciousness while preserving elegance and functionality?
“I build on what the client already has. I don’t have a business model that’s just about selling stuff. I’m really selling an expertise and how we put it together. A lot of times, I’ll show up at a client’s house and it’s almost like I’m curating and uncovering what it is about their home; their lifestyle that really makes it work. It’s a huge amount of editing and refining, then building from there.”
Your journey from owning a franchise for 10 years to returning to education and becoming certified is quite intriguing. What inspired you to make that transition, and how has it enriched your perspective on interior design?
“Owning the franchise was how I did design while I had a whole other career … I spent a huge amount of time building ideas from scratch, then communicating those ideas and building buy-in and support, so I was selling ideas always. And that’s really what design is. You have to think of it, then you have to communicate it and get people to be on board with it.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was one of those moments, ‘If I don’t do this now, when am I ever going to do it?’ I’m going to go for it, and I wanted to do it based on everything I had learned from running the franchise. It was almost like a form of education in this business. Business was slow anyway with the franchise, so I just decided to cut it loose and rethink business and how I approach it, and that’s when I came across DSA and the certification process.”
Congratulations on scoring highly on your RIDQC certification exam! How has achieving this milestone influenced your approach to interior design, particularly in terms of sustainability and functionality?
“Had I known about DSA and the certification process nine years ago, I would have already made this transition from the franchise. I just wanted a chance to really approach the design business in a way that built on what I had already learned and the role I felt like I could play in the market, which was creating really unique spaces. I wanted it to be about more than just selling products and be about creating this environment for the client, where they love to be in their home and sit everywhere, use every space. That was the business I wanted to bring forward. …
“I really enjoyed the course, and the timing was really good for me as I was thinking through the business and what I wanted to be when I grew up. Being self-taught, you always wonder, ‘Am I doing this correctly?’ I do know what I’m doing … most of the time. It was kind of like the kick out of the nest in some ways. There’s always something new or a new approach with design—things change. Your view on what looks right even changes.”
With your extensive experience in residential interior design, what trends do you foresee shaping the industry in the coming years, particularly in terms of sustainability and personalized design?
“Not sure if it’s my hope or what I really see, but I think we are on the verge of seeing a shift toward quality, and people are to the point that they’ve experienced purchasing something online that was expedient and realized that it’s now not going to work for them. I think the marketplace is prepared to invest in quality, and they are starting to discern the difference. …
“Part of sustainability is selecting that piece you’re confident in and will last for 10, 15 years, and I think the market is overrun today with products that just aren’t built to last like that.”
As you expand into bespoke whole-home projects in the U.S. and the Caribbean, what unique challenges and opportunities do you anticipate, especially regarding sustainability practices in different regions?
“One of the things that was so surprising is how different it is in the islands. For example, in the Caribbean, even just how trash can be handled and picked up. If you’re unboxing products, getting those boxes collected can be an ordeal on an island. One thing that surprised me—at least on Saint Lucia—is that there’s not a secondary market for furniture. You cannot buy used furniture. The nice thing about it, the products that are there get used until they literally fall apart; never replacing anything. It’s kind of amazing to me. There, things are used and valued.
“When you’re doing an island project, it requires nimbleness, because products are very expensive to import. It can take forever to get the logistics ironed out and get products coming in. But on the flip side, you have some great artisans and people who are very skilled at making couch slipcovers, for example. It is very common there to redo a lampshade. I can do it in the U.S., but it can be harder to find someone who will redo a lampshade or recover a sofa or make a slipcover. On the island, that’s the norm. It’s nice to be able to tap into those experts.
“A lot of the properties are old, so it creates some opportunities to think outside the box and discover some things. In the U.S., we tend to discard things easier, and that’s just not the case there. … You spend a lot of time taking something that was already there and elevating it—refurbishing, repainting, rethinking the layout. There’s a lot of that because it’s so difficult to access products and what you can find on the island can be pretty limited, and you hate to import everything, so you have to get creative.”
Collaboration seems to be a core value at Pembrook Interiors. How do you ensure effective collaboration between your team and clients to achieve designs that truly resonate with the client’s lifestyles and preferences?
“The collaboration is happening on both ends – you have the trades that are involved in the projects, then collaboration with the client. I’m sort of in the middle, and normally when I’m working on a project, I’m bringing in the trades, which I found is key because the trades can sometimes get confused about the direction or where we’re headed and that way. I can kind of help keep that under control, and the client doesn’t feel like they are trying to talk to six different people. …
“We source and implement faster than an average consumer, but we spend a lot of time working with the client upfront about what’s important to them, what are the objectives to the home, what do they love about their space, what’s working, what’s not working. I’m going to peek in their closet and really try to understand how they live in a space. I ask my clients to tag pieces in their house they love and want to use, and I’m measuring everything and determining what’s going to go away for sure.
“Then, I will develop that design concept and work with the client on the style direction for the home. … We have a lot of discussions about the design concept and their objectives. I try to poke around inside their heads in looking at the things they already have. I’m communicating with a client weekly in a formal report—’Here’s what we accomplished over the last week; here’s everything that’s on order; this is what we took from your home that we are refurbishing; here’s what we took from your house and here’s the timeline.’ It’s a proactive communication tool. I work for a lot of executive women who don’t have time to try and run me down for answers.”
Nature and classic architecture serve as inspirations for your designs. Can you elaborate on how these influences manifest in your work, and how you infuse them with modern sensibilities to create timeless yet contemporary spaces?
“This gets to something I loved about the DSA course, and one of my key takeaways. I really love to look at a home and think about its setting. What’s outside and what, if I were walking into this home, would I expect to see? So, I’m thinking about the home’s lighting. Where is it coming from? I’m going to design the north side of a house different than the south side, for example. … I’m looking at it holistically, not just a certain room or just the interior.”
The launch of retail offerings like Pembrook Drapery Shop and The Pembrook Edit indicate a desire to cater to diverse design needs. How do these offerings complement your design services, and what value do they add to the overall client experience?
The Pembrook Edit: “I would get phone calls where people were just wanting a sofa, which is not interior design, and I encountered that quite a bit, so I wanted to create The Pembrook Edit so that I had a way for potential clients who were interested in products could just buy it themselves. It’s a little bit experimental. I just felt like everyone is not ready to dive into a full-blown design contract, so this is my way of responding to different interests in the market, because it doesn’t make sense for me to go spend two hours of consulting time sourcing a sofa for someone. There are a lot of products that are pretty shoppable, but I can screen some things that are shoppable and make them available through The Pembrook Edit so the consumer can source with perhaps a little more confidence. You maybe get a more personalized look rather than buying a page from a catalog.”
Pembrook Drapery Shop: “From a very young age, I wanted a drapery shop. My grandmother was a drapery worker and seamstress, and she taught me how to make draperies in high school. I feel like that’s something we do really well—custom draperies—and they are difficult to do well, and there’s so much you can do with them with the thermal barriers. Often, when I go into someone’s home, the No. 1 design mistake I see and need to correct are the window treatments, because they are so difficult to get right. My goals are to make it easy for the consumer to get properly scaled draperies that are semi-custom and to change the way the average DIY consumer purchases draperies.”
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations and plans for the future of Pembrook Interiors? How do you envision further integrating sustainability into your designs and expanding your reach within the interior design industry?
“Look for more from us on the drapery shop.”
“One of the best things that I learned through the DSA course was creating the menu of services. That’s been a key inspiration idea behind The Pembrook Edit and consulting services—how we provide transparencies and alternatives in the market.”
What advice would you like to share with new and seasoned interior designers?
“It’s important to develop your own point of view on design—have something that’s unique to you and what you do really well. Focus on that. I think there can be a lot of copying, and I think it’s important in this industry to bring something unique. What we are really selling is not stuff. It’s the design and the fact that we think of it. Developing your own point of view and having confidence in that point of view is really important.
“Practice creating a well-designed space with a very limited or no budget. That constraint is what develops the creativity and ability to think outside the box. Being able to rethink a floorplan can be hard, and forcing yourself to work without a budget and seeing what you can do can really help develop that skill.”
To stay updated with Jennifer’s latest projects and tips, be sure to follow her on Instagram at @pembrookinteriors. Don’t miss out on the beautiful transformations she continues to create! All photos credited to: Jennifer Fordham, Pembrook Interiors (@PembrookInteriors); Photography: Peak Visuals (@PeakVisualsUS); Styling: Kristen Alccorta (@kristenalcorta)
