Just as Thom Filicia, one of the stars of Bravo’s makeover series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” deftly straddles the worlds of mass media and high-end interior design, he has created a signature vision blending classic simplicity and contemporary flair.
At the core of that design balancing act is a belief that unveiling your sense of style can be as simple, and surprising, as starting from the bottom up — with what you roll out on your floor.
That philosophy, as well as his easy-going approach to showing others how to pull it off, makes him the perfect ambassador for Karastan, the American luxury brand leader in rugs.
“It’s all about starting from the bottom with a beautiful rug on the floor,” says Filicia, whose travels across the country coaching ordinary folks on how to develop that sense of style brought him to Chicago last month, “You find a piece that really speaks to you and use that as inspiration for the rest of the room. It is a great place to start.
“It’s not that different than going out shopping with that scarf or that tie to decide on what kind of shoes you want to buy. That piece gives you a lot of inspiration,” says Filicia, who is also the host and driving force behind The Style Network’s show, “Dress My Nest.” Under his guidance, the show offers complete room makeovers inspired by a homeowner’s favorite outfit and personal style.
While in Chicago, he talked to us not only about decorating from the floor up but also how to develop your overall sense of style along the way.
Q. What are some new ideas for this season?
A. If you’re in a situation where you can do painted floors around a beautiful rug, you frame it and give it a crisp new look. I see that a lot in New England. I love floors that are white, charcoal gray, or even tomato red. If you think of a floor as a fifth wall, you can do a lot with the concept. I’ve seen spaces where there are all white floors and walls, and you roll down a rug in that room and it becomes like a piece of jewelry in the room.
Q. Do you see all-white showing up in interiors today?
A. I certainly think crisp, fresh white is back, not only in fashion but in interiors. If there’s a lot of pattern and detail [in a rug], fresh white is a nice counter-balance.
Q. Where can you go after you get the rug down on the floor?
A. Get some new pillows that coordinate with your rugs. Pull those colors out of your rug — great pops of color, fresh crisp reds and strong yellows. Certainly painting a room is the easiest way to bring color out in a room. It’s not only about matching colors [in the rug]. I recommend being daring and taking a risk, something stronger than you think you might be able to live with and have fun with it.
Q. What if a rug is not in the greatest condition?
A. You can cut old rugs into pillows. I inherited a rug, an Ushak in really bad condition, and it was just falling apart. It had been in storage. I cut it into pieces in different ways. By the time I got it, it was already cut down a little.
Q. What if you have several smaller rugs rather than one large one?
A. I also like mixing rugs if they are small. You can roll down a great sisal rug and put the small rugs down on top.
I love rugs hung on the wall or on the back of a sofa, or taken out on a deck.
I love making outdoor living spaces, so they feel like an indoor room. At my lake house in the Hudson Valley [he also has a one-bedroom SoHo apartment in New York], I have a rug that I take out on the deck in the summer. It is a flat woven kilim. I use tree stumps as tables. It is a real mix of interior/exterior.. … You kick your shoes off at the end of the night, roll it up and bring it in. When you’re doing that, you don’t want to use something too big. Use four smaller ones that are the same. I suggest that to college students, too, use small rugs that are easy to throw in the trunk of your car.
Q. Have the style lessons experienced by the makeover guys in “Queer Eye” stuck with them?
A. We’ve gone back and found 4 out of 10 not only stuck with it, but they’re making more changes. They’re going to the gym and working out, they’re eating healthier, they’ve painted additional rooms. All of a sudden, they looked at themselves in a different way and it boosted their self-confidence. The more self-confidence any of us have, the bolder the decisions we make.
Q How does one develop a sense of style?
A My biggest suggestion for people who are looking for style, instead of looking in magazines and the windows of stores, look inward at themselves for solutions and ask, ‘What do I like?’ Whether or not it is in vogue, you decide: It is something I like, and I’m going to incorporate it in my life. When you have that great sense of confidence, that is what people can see in you. That is when you can wear something that makes other people say, ‘You can wear that.’ If you’re comfortable with it, then you own it.
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