Jamie Herzlinger cannot help but compare interior design to fashion. Hailing as she does from four generations of garment industry stars, she feels the pull toward fabric and style in her very cells. As a young woman, she could not resist the temptation to make her name in the world of the runway. It was a challenge for her to shed her connections and assert herself as an artist in her own right, and Herzlinger cannot resist a challenge. To her, a challenge is a mountain to be moved, and once she has shifted the mass, she keeps her eyes peeled for another mountain. So it was with fashion. With two simultaneous window displays on the prestigious crossover of 57th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, she had completed her mountain relocation and was ready to move on. She can see now that interior design was a natural next step. Her aesthetic sensibility, practical discernment, and fascination with casual glamour all pointed her toward her next figurative mountain to tackle.

“My style has an East Coast sensibility coupled with a fashion overture,” she says. “I have never given up my love of fashion. I just put it into my interiors. Both beauty and functionality is key in fashion, and Interior design works the same way. A sofa needs to be comfortable, but its fabric is important too. How does the skirt hang on the sofa? Can we put a silk charmeuse pillow with lots of pleats on it? Fabrics should be beautiful and durable. Bathrooms should be attractive and functional. My firm marries classical elegance with an approachable feel.”

Of course, architectural and interior design is most successful when it’s a collaborative effort, which is why Herzlinger works so closely with each architect and client.