Design Tribe: East Coast Hearts West Coast

Don't you love it when the magic happens with your tribe? You start spitballing ideas and before long, you're planning changemaking events for High Point furniture market. It started off as a little East Coast meets West Coast with a surprise guest at the studio this past week. Jaye Anna Mize—NYC’s trendsetting goddess— stopped in to see this former Brooklyn-mouse-turned-country-mouse. She peeked behind our magical curtain, hoping to find rainbows. Whelp—she found that and then some. Right after I made her paint, watch the sunset and have a pillow fight at my house with the boys. :-)

After giving her the grand tour and catching up on a little community tribal news and culture, we dished on color and fabric then headed straight for the beach. Because, when in Cali…

Ponto Beach at sunset

The following interview was done in the car - on the way to dinner.  

AS: Hi Jaye, nice to see you on MY coast. Did you pack flipflops?

JAM: I did not.

AS: 1 point, west coast. 0 points, east coast.

JAM: I have only formal dresses.

AS: Meanwhile I’m wearing a Fame sweatshirt (shoutout to Lux Barre!) and comfy Lululemon pants...Welcome to my world! What brings you to the beach dressed so fancy?

JAM: After attending the Arts Awards in Dallas I headed to Palm Springs to collab with the Scott brothers on Scott Brothers Global. It's been all about kicking off the year with some bonding, helping everyone shift, grow and align for next year as we dive into trade show season. And I wasn’t coming this close without seeing Aviva! Then I’m off to Las Vegas. 

AS: Speaking of trade show season, got anything brewing you can share?

JAM: Actually yes…with High Point furniture market in April, my team’s (Jaye is VP of Creative for Home Interiors + Design at Fashion Snoops, a global creative and forecasting agency) been asked to help them brand their new space called The Point. It’s the new place to be. All of the talks and panels will take place there, with different innovators coming in every day.

AS: Hello! Umm.. that sounds super smart, Jaydles. It's like town hall or something?

JAM: Exactly! We'll have really cool pieces exhibited, completely interactive, inspirational and aspirational. We want marketgoers to feel like they’re experiencing something. I'd like to have you live paint on upholstery fabric, and then the next day have a chair manufacturer come and make a sofa or chair out of it.

AS: LOVE this. The first thing that comes to mind is fabric, sustainable fabric. In fact, I am officially announcing now that I’m only painting on sustainable fabric. And any remaining scraps of fabric will be made into free lavender sachets. You know how we’ve been talking about doing something like this for awhile and we’ve just been waiting for our moment. Now it’s The Point. 

We continue to plan and mwa-haha...Then later that day we finalized all the surprises and engagements to layer in at The Point: live painting, giveaways, and a theme:  LOVE FOUND. If you are coming to the High Point market in April, watch for me at the new The Point! I'll be there painting - you should join me! If that's not your bag, come watch, get some free stuff, high fives and hugs... everyone loves those right?  xoxo aviva

#girlbosses #geterdone

Stay tuned for a conversation on furniture sustainability with Sustainable Furnishings Council board member Kathryn Richardson!