DBTB Unplugged | Anderson Somerselle
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book, hosted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
Suzy Chase: Welcome to my new feature called Unplugged, where I chat with interior design tastemakers. Today I'm chatting with the fabulous founder and CEO of the interior design showroom, Somerselle, right here in New York City where we just had an earthquake. So tell me a little bit about your modern showroom and how you got started.
Anderson Somerselle: I made it through the earthquake. We now have this shared experience where we can say that we have survived an earthquake, and it's a really cool story now because it's like, "What were you doing when the earthquake happened?" I was like, "Oh, I was getting ready for a podcast interview."
Suzy Chase: Hashtag never forget.
Anderson Somerselle: Never forget. Never forget. I got into this business, the showroom side of the business, working at Holland & Sherry back in, I think 2015 is when I started with them. And it was interesting to be working with designers and going to our website at the time, and they were revamping their website to what it is today when I was there. And I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, this information that designers are calling for could be easily accessible online." I started in customer service. So there was this phone call after phone call, after phone call to answer the basic questions like, "Oh, what's the net price of this? And oh, how many yards of this stuff?" And I was like, "Oh, it'd be so interesting if people could just hop online and do that, but maybe designers don't want to do that." And I started going to industry parties and designers will ask, you'd usually ask each other, "What do you do? What do you do?" And I'd go, "I work at Holland & Sherry, blah, blah." And it started with a handful of designers going, "You know what would be really great? If some of the information I need could be online because sometimes I'm up late at night trying to get information." So I was like, "Oh yeah, that would be so interesting." So I remember going back to my boss at the time, Brian Dicker and saying to him, "Hey, could we put this information on the website and then all the represented lines, products on our website, instead of having to shuffle people to different sites?" He said to me at the time, he was like, "That's a really good idea, but that will be a feat. And we just finished revamping the website." To Brian's credit, at that time, he had literally just finished a painstaking overhaul of the Holland & Sherry website, and he was like, "I am not interested with anything that has to do with website right now." And then I moved on to John Rosselli & Associates. Holland & Sherry has their own product line. John Rosselli doesn't have their own product line other than their antiques that they've curated over the years. And so I had pitched the idea to them as well, and there was another showroom that had actually revamped their site to be something similar to what Somerselle is today. And I was like, no, this will be really good and people can get online and dah, dah, dah. And that was in 2019. At Rosselli, I came in my first day with the revamped mock-up of the website. First email I sent them ...
Suzy Chase: Oh no.
Anderson Somerselle; On my first day, I was like, I came off a little strong, a little eager. It didn't fly over very well with them, but they understood. And then I started to work with this company that really was helping guide me through bringing that vision to light. And I had put together this whole presentation, again, this is later on, after a year or so being John Rosselli. And I pitched it again, and it was actually at the time during the pandemic, and I said, "This will be perfect. This is the perfect thing. This is what designers are wanting." And I was told, "We'll table that for another time." So I was like, okay, okay. So it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to do this change that designers were craving for because I had talked about it with other designers and they were craving for something like that. They were like, "Oh my God, that would be really great." So when John Rosselli said they'll table it, I thought to myself, "Oh, I'll never be able to make any kind of change in this industry unless my name is on the door." So let that dream die.
Suzy Chase: No, the dream's living.
Anderson Somerselle: Yeah, but it was actually, someone had just mentioned, somebody had said to me, "If you could create your own showroom, what would it be?" And I had just spent six months working on this thing and I go, "Oh my God. It would be this. It would be this. A place where designers can go discover artisanal brands and get the information that they need at whatever time they need it." Because a lot of them work late at night and they just have to log in and everything that they need is right there. And so I had planned it, then I built it, then I launched it. And then here we are four years later, we are still, I like to say humming along because as building a business is a marathon. It's not a sprint.
Suzy Chase: So since you've taken this traditional showroom model and you've adapted it to the digital space, other than being a digital space, how are you different from the other showrooms?
Anderson Somerselle: Visibly right now, there really isn't a difference other than the fact that we are a digitally first showroom experience. And it's a question that we've been asking ourselves internally for the past year now, what else can we do because we don't want to be just another showroom? So now what we've been sort of reframing ourselves as is a resource. So we are currently working on a couple of things that make us different from the traditional showrooms that are out there. I can't talk too much about that. We're looking to build more of a resource for interior designers opposed to just another place to go to see beautiful fabrics. That will be at the core of what we offer designers but beyond that, the things that they really need help with. I'll give you just a little teaser. Things with workrooms, things with installers, we're working on a way to make that a little bit easier for designers to coordinate.
Suzy Chase: So do you find that you attract a different kind of client?
Anderson Somerselle: It's a mix. We definitely get the younger audience, a younger designer. We work with a lot of the established design firms as well, because the people who are really doing the sourcing for fabrics are typically a younger junior designer and intern. So they love the fact of popping onto Somerselle instead of getting their bag and making their rounds through the D&D. I think a lot of people love doing that, D&D to 200 Lex. They love that, but then they also, for the sake of efficiency and ease, this isn't me saying that. This is what other designers and design firms have said to us is that they tend to start with us. And because it's so easy to find things on our site, they can log in, they go, "I'm looking for floral." You type in florals, all of our florals pop up. You're looking for a geometric, all of them . So it helps make their sourcing a little bit more efficient. And then if they can't find something that they need here at Somerselle, then they venture off to other showrooms. It's quite flattering for designers to tell me that because that was the intention is to make it easier. So the younger generation, I knew that the younger generation was the ones that are going to be doing the majority of this sourcing and so on and so forth. So I'm a millennial, so I built it knowing that it was going to be our time.
Suzy Chase: How does the tactile component work? Because I love to touch the fabrics and I love touching the wallpaper. So how does that work with Somerselle?
Anderson Somerselle: I love this. I think for this question because for a hot minute, I felt personally attacked when things were opening back up from COVID, a lot of designers that shop with us too were on podcasts and articles being like, "Oh God, I can't do it all online. I need the tactile experience," so on and so forth. And I was like, "Oh my God. Ouch. Hold on, wait a minute, wait a minute. You don't lose the tactile experience." I like to say it's slightly delayed because you go on, you see the fabric, you see the thing that you like, and you put it in your cart, and then you get a sample of it. Typically, if you're in a New York area, you get it the next day. If you are a little further out, you get it I think in two days we send it USPS and we're tracking all that. So I say it's a little bit delayed, so you don't lose it. It's just delayed by a day or two. And the deep dive on that, for me, what I thought about was really looking at the process of how interior designers, who I believe truly are the salespeople of our industry, how they sell this fabric and they sell it based off of the sample. We find as long as they're getting the sample in a decent amount of time, very quickly, then they get to experience the tactile portion of our business, which everybody loves. And then also too, we've had designers who have seen something that they love and they were like, "Oh, can I get a bigger sample of that?" We've got bigger samples as well for us that we have hanging in our office that we can send. It might not be the exact colorway that you were particularly looking for, but it's the pattern, you get a better idea of the scale, of the repeat and how it flows, drapes, all of that. So again, you don't lose that tactile experience. It's just delayed. And it's funny because what I find is even in that approach, designers love it because then usually if they do request a larger sample, they get it at their office or they get it wherever, and they take that and they go furniture shopping with their client. So now you can have that big piece you can put over the furniture and your client is better able to visualize what it will look like on the piece.
Suzy Chase: Why aren't you an interior designer?
Anderson Somerselle: Because I'm not that talented.
Suzy Chase: Come on.
Anderson Somerselle: Listen. I tried it once in my career and it's not for me. One, people perceive me to be very patient. I do have a good tolerance. Well, you know it's not just about design. It's you're designer, you're part therapist, you're part logistics manager. I can't juggle all those things, so I know my lane and I'm happy to stay in my lane.
Suzy Chase: You moved around a lot when you were little, and so how does that shape your views of home and also interior design?
Anderson Somerselle: I grew up in the Caribbean. I left when I was 13. Even when we lived in the Caribbean, we moved around quite a bit. My parents owned a construction company and we bought a lot of different properties as well. So we moved around from house to house. So the sentimental value for home for me has been intensified because I've never really felt home. Home when I was younger was just a place to be. We really never got deep into interior design. There was this one time where our home got destroyed in a hurricane and we rebuilt it. I got to help my grandmother sketch out the floor plan for that home. But the sentimental value for me of home now has been very intensified, which is why I love what I do for a living, because I feel home is your safe space in this big world, no matter the square footage you have. So I know for me, everywhere that I have been in my adult life, when I first moved to New York, renting a room, as we all do when we move to New York, that room is your sanctuary. It's your little safe space in this world. Now I have an apartment, and again, it's like it is that safe space. And when it comes to interior design, I'm a bit more minimalistic in my design. My husband's a little bit different. He likes to collect things, but my ideal interior would be something very clean, very minimal, because I spend my day looking at so many different versions of interior designs, patterns, color, all of that. I like my surroundings to be calm. And I think that's what interior design really is. It's to be a reflection of you. So mine is very beige and basic.
Suzy Chase: I was going to bring up beige.
Anderson Somerselle: I love beige. I think beige gets a very bad rap. It's a good base. It's a good base. The best part of my job is I get to work with all these phenomenal artisans from around the world. Truthfully, just all of them have helped shape my perspective on life and just how I look at the world now. But every time I see their collections and they're working on their collections, I always go, "This is great. This is great. Where are the beige? Where's the neutrals?" For the neutral people out there in the world, I think it goes back to that calming vibe. It calms me. So more love for beige. I'm going to start that hashtag.
Suzy Chase: After the hashtag New York City earthquake, it'll be hashtag more love for beige.
Anderson Somerselle: More love for beige.
Suzy Chase: So I love this. You say your, "Responsibility in the design space is to be a beacon of light and hold space in a sector where there aren't many people that look like you." I would love for you to chat about that.
Anderson Somerselle: I fell in love with this industry years ago seeing Nate Berkus on The Oprah Winfrey Show. And I remember thinking that, "Oh, that's something that I want to do." But I didn't see a reflection of myself in the industry. I didn't see much representation of people that look like me. So for a brief a second, I thought, "I don't belong there." And it is interesting over my existence on this planet of how important it is for people to see a reflection of themselves because that is what helps you know or feel that the dream that you have for yourself is achievable. If you want to be the next great American designer, if you don't see somebody that looks like you in design, it makes it even harder for you to visualize that. So when I bit the bullet and to shift career paths to be more focused on home decor, and I grew within this industry, it wasn't until I was at John Rosselli and I had gotten that job where I really came to the forefront in the industry and really started to show myself on there. I think I was the first person of color to manage their textile lines, and I felt like that was very important to be out there. We did an Instagram series where it was important for me to be the face. I started at John Rosselli in 2019. Malene Barnett, who is the founder of the Black Artisan Guild had famously penned her famous post on Instagram talking about wanting more inclusion in this industry. And then shortly after that on my birthday, George Floyd was murdered and there was more call to action to see more people being represented. So I felt that in the position that I am in, in the rooms that I get to walk into, the people that I interact with, it's important for me to show myself so that people that look like me, I like to say little gay Black boys who can see that, "Oh, yes, I can have a career in this industry, not just an interior designer, but as somebody behind the scenes that is helping bring these collections that interior designers use to the marketplace." I found it to be very important. And I champion and scream for other designers of color, people of color in this industry in general that are using Instagram to show the work that they do and being behind the scenes and bringing that to the forefront. I am so happy to celebrate that and share that on my Instagram. We work in an industry that reflects beauty, and beauty is a mixture of all colors and patterns, shapes, sizes. That's what makes things beautiful. So if the industry's skewing one way, then you really aren't celebrating beauty. And so it's a personal mission and it just as simple as ... And when I'm sitting in these rooms, it's not that people are willfully excluding people of color. I have not experienced that. It just takes that one person in the room to say, "Well, the [inaudible 00:17:57] looking a little white. We don't have any Asian designers. We don't have any Indian designers that we can add because that's a different point of view." And it just takes the person in the room to have the courage to say that. And I'm happy to be the person in the room that has the courage to say, "Well, let's diversify this a little bit."
Suzy Chase: This might be giving a little bit of shade as the kids say, but there's something that really rubs me the wrong way about a designer who goes to India and lifts that motif and comes back and incorporates that into their fabric. And it feels like a little bit of cultural appropriation to me.
Anderson Somerselle: Yes.
Suzy Chase: Tell me about your process in the showroom, and if you agree with me, because I feel like I just said a big taboo thing in the interior design world.
Anderson Somerselle: No, I agree with you 100%. And it's something that behind the scenes with manufacturers, I've actually been working with, there's a handful of manufacturers that we have this very open conversation and they're being very intentional about addressing those kinds of issues. I'm talking about the people that print these products. And I think if I can hit and get the people who are responsible for printing these to say, "Wait a minute" and ask a couple of follow up questions, I feel like we're on the right path. For me in the showroom, and when we are looking at collections, this is what I do. One, for example, Indian Block print. I think that's appropriated all over the place. I wanted that collection so badly, I wanted Indian because I love that technique. When I was picking brands, I specifically went to a brand that is ran by people from India. And the reason of doing that became so much greater than I foresaw it to be, because when those people have agency over their traditions that their ancestors have taught them and have shared with the world, the money that they receive that's directly funded to them goes back into their community. And the brand is filling spaces. And those two women ran by two sisters, Polly and Anu, and I would be on Zoom calls with them and they'll show me their printing studio. And during COVID, they were like, "Oh, well, one of our block printers couldn't get to work. And so we got him a motorcycle moped bike thing so he can get to." And I'm just like, when you really take these things back to the people that originated them, those dollars go so much further than if it is somebody who was on a trip to India, lifted the motif and is now getting a print by a print house that is ran by white people, and it's not going back to the culture. So what I tend to do, and now Somerselle is shifting in the way that we represent brands just in general. I've partnered with some of my friends in the industry that I'm going to be working with people in different parts of the world that make these goods, and I'm going to be bringing them to the Somerselle platform. But I know that I'm working directly with the originators and the cultures so that when those sales are made, I know that that money is going back into that community. And it's simple as just simply doing-
Suzy Chase: I love that.
Anderson Somerselle: Yeah, it's so easy to just do your due diligence and say, "Okay, are these people being treated right? What are the working conditions like?" Really working with filling spaces. They had shared with me how the working conditions are at some of these factories that print for some of the biggest brands in our industry, and they're not the greatest. And every time we sold one of their fabrics, I got so excited about it because I was like, "Oh my God, Jimmy's going to get his moped." It just takes a little due diligence. And just with our culture too, we've got this culture of the race to the bottom, who can get it cheaper, who can do it cheaper, and that has an effect on things. So I'm with you on that. I'm not a big fan of cultural appropriation, so I'm happy that I'm doing my small part in trying to correct that.
Suzy Chase: So what sorts of design trends are you loving right now other than beige?
Anderson Somerselle: I love the moody palette. I love all the moody ... The mossy greens. I saw this, we're working on a Philip [inaudible 00:23:08] collection, and we did this terracotta color, which I just am obsessed with. Anything sort of moody right now is the palette and the trend that I'm on board with.
Suzy Chase: So what's next for you? Do you have anything fun coming up that you can talk about?
Anderson Somerselle: I have a very small, it's a very small little appearance in an upcoming TV show that's going to be on HBO Max. It was called Taking Back the House, but they since changed the title. So follow me on Instagram if you want to see more about that. That's exciting. That was fun to shoot. We shot it about two years ago. But what I'm really, really, really, really excited about, what I'm really, really, really excited about is the shift that we're doing at Somerselle, where we're moving away from representing in the traditional sense, the textile designers and their collections. And we're working with textile designers from around the world. We're still going to be doing that, but we are going to be in partnership with them for exclusive lines for Somerselle. So I'm really excited about that because then I get to be more involved in the process. The textile designers that we're going to be working with are going to design ... They still are going to design their patterns and things like that, but when it comes down to coloring the ground that is going to be printed on and all that, we work very closely with them. And then Somerselle will be producing those and bringing them to market. So I'm very excited about that evolution of our brand.
Suzy Chase: So now to my segment called Home, where I ask you to describe one memory of your childhood home, and please start by telling us where it was.
Anderson Somerselle: Childhood home, Virgin Gorda in the Caribbean. It was the first home my mother and father built from the ground up. I recently was there, and unfortunately it got destroyed in a hurricane, so it was just the foundation that was there. But I remember that home vividly because I remember seeing my dad who has since passed away up on the rafters doing that. I remember walking through the framework of it, picking out our room. But what I really love about it, and what is just remarkable about it is to think about my mother and her life's journey to get her to building her first house. My mother never finished the eighth grade. She was truly a self-made woman. And I remember watching her get up every morning and putting on her maid's outfit to go to one of the resorts to clean for the day and painstakingly working all day long, then she had a food truck and driving around to all the construction sites. So to watch her do that and build a home for us was just remarkable. And that was my favorite, favorite, favorite house because it was in the middle of this little neighborhood, my grandmother was up the street and my aunt was a year older than I was so we played together quite a bit. All the kids in the neighborhood. It's the quintessential memory for me of just having no cares, just going out, running around, playing about and doing all of that. So that's the one that I remember the most and I really, really, really loved.
Suzy Chase: So where can we find you on the web and social media?
Anderson Somerselle: Well, somerselle.com, it's going to be your favorite showroom, and you can follow me at Anderson Somerselle on Instagram and you can follow Somerselle the showroom on Somerselle_New York.
Suzy Chase: So Anderson, thank you so much for sharing your radical vision of the modern showroom, and thanks for coming on Decorating by the Book Podcast.
Anderson Somerselle: Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me.
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