From Her with Love(5)
From Her with Love
When their younger daughter entered college, Joanna began her current career as designer. Her first project was decorating the beach-front home of a friend. “I told her I couldn’t do it, but she kept insisting,” says Joanna. Word traveled, and her own design business, JSP Interiors, was the result. Another business took shape when she was designing a villa for Vera Harrah (of Harrah’s Casino) and decided to use hand-embroidered drapery panels. “We did the designs, then sent the fabrics to India to be embroidered. We developed a sample line of these luscious embroidered panels and took them to showrooms,” Joanna recounts.
When 12 showrooms said yes, she knew she was in business. The Florio Collection, with business partner Janet Rodriguez, became a reality. Its fabrics fill Joanna’s home. “I love to find old fabric fragments in Europe, where they call me the pillow queen,” she says. “Pillows are like jewelry. You can make a Pottery Barn sofa one-of-a-kind with exquisite pillows.”
The chinoiserie corner cabinet shown here is one of a pair from Joanna’s Florio Collection. The weighty draperies balance the large scale of the furniture, including the antique French dining chairs
Sources
Corner cabinets (Chinoiserie); drapery (“Butterfly Vine’’/Moss and “Lady Slipper Vine’’): Florio Collection, 310/273-8003, floriocollection.com.
Drapery fringe: Westcoast Trims, 323/263-4421.
