Design by Jhane Barnes

If you’re good at pulling together an outfit, can you also be good at pulling together a room? Designer Jhane Barnes says yes.

By Kathleen McCleary

For almost three decades, furniture/textile/menswear designer Jhane Barnes has created rich, intricate designs for a line of high-end clothing for men. Lately she’s turned her eye–and her computer, which she uses to create the patterns for her fabrics toward carpet, upholstery, textiles and furniture. Barnes’ textiles grace the headquarters of Apple, Coca-Cola, GTE, Walt Disney, Hewlett Packard and IBM. Her furniture collection is available through Bernhardt Design, and she’s partnered with Collins & Aikman to create elegant carpets.

"I thought furniture was different when I first started designing it, but then I realized I know how to design a garment that starts with a flat pattern and then becomes three-dimensional, and furniture is also like that."

Here, her advice on the key elements of design, as they translate from the world of fashion to the world of interior design:

Color

Next: Balance

"There’s not a lot of difference between the colors you like to wear on your body and the colors you like to be around," says Barnes. The one big difference is that you live with your furniture every single day. "With interiors you’re going to be living with it for a long time. You can buy a brightly colored shirt but you don’t have to see it every day." Barnes, who loves rich color in both the clothing she designs and the clothing she wears, chooses to keep her interior spaces very neutral. "Almost everything is neutral in our house because so much of what I do is bright. You walk into the closet and there are all these colors," a marked contrast to the white walls, bluestone and wood floors, and neutral furniture. She introduces color into the house with vases and art. "Sometimes it’s just a pattern I’ll print out and frame and put up on the wall."

Above: While Barnes likes color in her clothing, her Juncture bench for Bernhardt is a sophisticated neutral.