OUR HISTORY

From its inception, the Decorators Club has been a pacesetter in the industry. In the 1920s it participated in union negotiations for upholsterers and painters, introduced public decorating clinics and exhibited the first model rooms at Grand Central Galleries. The 1930s saw the club develop the first standardized interior design contracts as well as play a key role in the founding of the country's first national interior design organization. During World War II members designed drydocks and USO clubhouses. Continuing the momentum, it mounted an American-Italian design exchange in Florence in the 1970s and was the first design group invited to visit the People’s Republic of China before it was opened to the West. Past members include decorators Rose Cumming, Elisabeth Draper, and Betty Sherrill; textile pioneer Dorothy Liebes; and historic preservationist Nancy McClelland.

DECORATORS CLUB TIMELINE

1910s

 1914               The Decorators Club forms at a weekly tea by “a few young New York decorators” while sewing for the Red Cross.

 1917               The club donates an ambulance inscribed “Gift of the Decorators Club” to the Red Cross during World War I with the proceeds from a charity fair.  Pillows made by members are the most popular items.

1920s

 1920               The 19th amendment to the Constitution is passed, giving women the right to vote.

 1922               On July 14, the club is officially incorporated in the state of New York.

 1927               To enhance the club’s prestige and the decorating profession itself, the club holds the first exhibition of their work, along with the Chicago Women’s Decorators Club.  Members who participate include Ruby Ross Wood, Nancy McClelland, Diane Tate and Marian Hall, and Gertrude Gheen Robinson.

1930s

 1931               Furthering the professionalization of interior design, the club drafts and publishes the first standard contracts between decorators and clients.   The New York Times comments: “A most notable step toward establishing more businesslike practices in the profession of interior decorating has been taken by The Decorators Club…”

 The same year the American Institute of Decorators, the precursor to ASID, was founded.

 1932               The club joins together during the Depression to raise funds for the city’s Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee.  They run a Holiday Shop to benefit the committee as well as “adopt” a family for $15 a week.

 1933               Prohibition is repealed.  Franklin Roosevelt is elected president; and Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor and closes the Bauhaus.

 1935               Frank Lloyd Wright speaks, caustically according to The Times, to the club on the state of architecture.

 1937               Members Nancy McClelland and Jeannette Jukes, on behalf of the club, design and furnish a budget home prototype for the Women’s National Exhibition of Arts and Industry.

 1938–1939    The club embraces the World’s Fair in New York.  They host a symposia with Juliana Force, director of the Whitney Museum, and two officials from the fair, and later host 30 artists in the Decorators Club Gallery for informal discussion and demonstrations

1940s

 1940               The club locates Jean-Michel Frank, who has fled France during World War II for South America, and brings him to New York to lecture.  Walter Gropius also speaks to the club that year.

The Decorators War Relief Shop, run by the club in conjunction with the New York chapter of AID,  is “stocked and staffed with objets d’art to supply money, ambulances, food and clothing for British relief.”   On Theater Day, “stars of the stage” act as salesmen.

 1942               The Decorators Club Clinic is founded, offering advice at an hourly rate of $5.  Some clinic suggestions during lean wartime is to dye wool carpets and bleach dark wood to update outmoded designs.

 1943               A federal law is passed restricting the spending of more than $200 on construction or remodeling unless for defense purposes.  This impacts the decorating profession tremendously.

1950s

1952               The club awards its first medal of honor to Emma B. Hopkins, a past president and founder of the clinic.  Architects Philip Johnson and Jose Sert speak at the dinner celebration.

1953               Months after its completion, club members had a special tour of Lever House, “the top conversation piece in New York” and the United Nations.

1955               The Benevolent Fund to aid club members in need is started with an anonymous donation of $3000.

1957               The club joins the National Trust for Historic Preservation as an organizational member.

1960s

1960               Committed to supporting interior design education, the club awards its first scholarship.

1962               The club adopts the Old Merchant’s House, an 1832 house museum, as a preservation project and over the next twenty years ensures its survival.  It also took a firm stance against the demolition of Penn Station, expressing its views to Mayor Robert Wagner, son of the judge who signed the club’s incorporation papers in 1922.

1965               William Pahlmann is master of ceremonies at the club’s (belated) jubilee celebration.  A telegram from the First Lady, Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, is read.

1968               President Marjorie Heisel at the annual meeting exhorts: “We have witnessed professionalism as a perceptibly creeping movement from the time we began to replace the terminologies of customer with client and decorator with interior designer… I believe we have already proven than our contribution is not just a decorative dado around the edges of contemporary life.    We can contribute our specialized knowledge, our inherent understanding of how to enrich people’s lives, and assume our responsibility in shaping the quality of American life.”

1970s

1971              The Decorators Club contributes professional advice and interior furnishings to the new Women’s Prison on Riker’s Island.

 White House Curator Clement Conger takes forty-six members through the President’s residence as well as Blair House, then being redecorated by member Elizabeth Draper, and the State Department’s Diplomatic Rooms.

1973               Husbands and escorts were invited for the first time to the club’s annual holiday party.  “The traditional sherry party was noticeably extended to stronger drinks and a cocktail buffet.”

1975               New York/Florence Cultural Design Exchange is organized to showcase the best of American contemporary furnishings.  It is displayed at the Palazzio Vecchio for two weeks where forty-two members travel for the inaugural ceremony.

1976               The club’s scholarship is formally structured as an annual prize to students.

1977               The club visits China and is the second group of American women to visit the country since re-opened in 1971.  Nineteen member made the sixteen day trip, after pursuing language lessons and learning Tai Chi.    A seminar “Possibilities in the Design Field: How to Get a Job and How to Keep it” for students was planned with a panel that included designer Milo Baughman and Marion Gough of House Beautiful.

1980s

1981               The club travels to Italy, studying the Palladian villas of the Veneto.

1982               Sarah Tomerlin Less receives the club’s medal of honor.

1984                DIFFA, Design Industry Foundation for AIDS, established its original base in New York City and expanded nationally into a network of chapters and community partners throughout the country to become one largest supporters of direct care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

1984                Interior Designers for Legislation in New York (IDLNY) was founded and incorporated in the State of New York for the purpose of defining and promoting interior design as a licensed, recognized, legal profession in New York State. The IDLNY coalition began with six organizations: ASID New York Metropolitan Chapter, ASID New York Upstate/Canada East Chapter, The Institute of Business Designers (IBD), National Home Fashion League (NHFL), National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) and the Decorators Club

1985                Interior Design magazine initiates the Hall of Fame, an annual event benefitting the Foundation for Interior Design. Among the charter members are DC’s Barbara D’Arcy and Melanie Kahane.

1988                 Pauline Metcalf guest curates ''Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses’ at the National Academy of Design in New York.

1989                   Inge Heckel appointed President of the New York School of Interior Design.

1990s

1990                Legislation for interior designer certification is passed in California, New York and Virginia.

1991               The biennial Jacqueline Beymer Lecture Series is founded.  All proceeds benefit The Decorators Club Education Fund, Inc., which sponsors an annual portfolio competition for undergraduate students and awards monetary grants.

1992               The American with Disabilities Act is passed to become effective in 1992, mandating barrier-free design in public and commercial interiors.

1995                The Decorators Club Education Fund, Inc. sponsors a private house and garden tour at Winterthur, where member Mildred Mottahedeh gives a talk on “The Evolution of Dining" at high tea.

Bunny Williams elected to the Interior Design Hall of Fame.

Discovery of cave paintings at Chauvet, France, put things in perspective: if these are considered the oldest known examples of interior design, the profession is at least 30,000 years old.

1997                As part of the Decorators Club Education Fund, Inc. a reception was held at The Consul General of Sweden residence in 1997.

1998               The club advises Mayor Giuliani on the restoration of City Hall’s historic Blue Room.

2000s

2000                At the end of the century, 13,500 interior designers have been certified and certification laws are in effect in 19 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and in eight provinces in Canada.

2003                House Beautiful magazine presents Giants of Design awards to Adrianna Bitter and Murray Douglas.

 2005                An Affair with a House by Bunny Williams is published. Now in its 10th printing, she also penned Point of View, On Garden Style, and Bunny Williams’ Scrapbook for Living.

 2004-05         The biennial lecture series focuses on the Style Moderne in Brussels and Paris.  Adam Gopnik concludes the six-part season with “The Glass House Revisited.”

 2005 -2006      Honorary DC Member Iris Apfel’s fashion and accessories collection is exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection.’

 2006                Victoria Hagan’s ‘Perfect Pieces’ line of 50 home accessories and furnishings debut for the retail giant, Target.

Decorator Club authors also include Leslie Banker, Lady Henrietta Spencer Churchill, Elissa Cullman, Murray Douglas, Emily Eerdmans, Carolyn Englefield, Anne Fairfax, Maureen Footer, Mariette Himes Gomez, Victoria Hagan, Amy Lau, Pauline Metcalf, Wendy Moonan, Charlotte Moss, Amanda Nesbit, Jennifer Post, Suzanne Rheinstein, Katie Ridder and Stephanie Stokes.

2010s

2012               The club sponsors the reproduction of the curtains of Edith Wharton’s boudoir at The Mount in Lenox, MA.

2014               The club celebrates 100 years of women in design.

 Architectural Digest’s January AD 100 List of top interior designers and architects included Bunny Williams Inc., Cullman & Kravis, Inc., Gomez Associates, Jennifer Post Design Inc., Mark Hampton LLC, Suzanne Rheinstein and Associates, and Victoria Hagan.

 Elle Décor’s annual A-List featured Grandmaster:  Mariette Gomez, Charlotte Moss and Bunny Williams. Their “Talents Who Inspire Us Most” include Courtney Coleman, Carrier & Company Victoria Hagan, Alexa Hampton, and Katie Ridder.

 NY Spaces Top Fifty in September listed among its favorite designers Eileen Kathryn Boyd Interiors, Amanda Nesbitt, Victoria Hagan, Charlotte Moss, Katie Ridder and Bunny Williams.

The 21st Annual Scholarship Awards, sponsored by the Decorators Club Education Fund, Inc., were held at the New York Design Center’s SMART Technology showroom. Five scholarship awardees, each selected for exemplary creativity and execution of thoughtful, original design concepts and solutions were awarded with cash prizes. The winners include: Lisa Kim, a student at Pratt Institute, who received the $10,000 Centennial First Prize; the $5,000 Second Prize was awarded to Reut Ravhon at the Fashion Institute of Technology; a $3,000 Third Prize was presented to Chakeya Ottley, New York School of Interior Design; The Elsie May Gross Award for residential design with a prize of $1,500 was awarded to Mary Mills Thomas, New York School of Interior Design; and the Nancy Mannucci Award for Universal Design with a prize of $1,000 went to Amanda Navaro, a student at New York Institute of Technology.

The Decorators Club Education Fund, Inc. kicked off its Jacqueline Beymer Lecture Series Fall 2014 – Spring 2015 with a celebration of 20th century creative talents who illustrated that design knows no bounds in “All the World’s a Stage…” in IV Acts. John Loring, Design Director Emeritus of Tiffany & Co. and author of 22 books on art and design presented Joseph Urban, one of the early 20th century’s most creative and prolific designers; and Oliver Messel, acclaimed author and furniture designer, spoke about Thomas Messel, England’s foremost 20th century designers of the 20th century whose work spanned the worlds of stage design, film, and architecture.