Designing woman: Courtney Sloane gains clout with her alternative approach to interior design

Black Enterprise, July, 1995 by Tonia L. Shakespeare

For years, African American interior designers have been on the outside of the window of opportunity looking in. Basically, they were outside the deal-making loop. Commissions in this high-end luxury service industry were made mostly among white men on the golf course and at upscale, exclusive social functions. Black designers have traditionally had only a small piece of this business, which generates about $31 billion a year.

Fortunately, Courtney Sloane is one for bucking tradition. The African American, female interior designer is the president and founder of Alternative Design in Jersey City, N.J.

The four-year-old company renovates interiors and designs furniture for both residential and commercial clients. Blending European, American and African motifs into exciting living and work spaces, Sloane's work has a certain cultural edge. One design, for instance, was a bed made of African ribbon mahogany that was accented with a leather bolster headboard. Another of Sloane's creations was a 10-ft.-long conference table of one-half inch blasted glass with aluminum tapered legs and aluminum boardroom chairs.

The 33-year-old designer has gained notoriety, especially in the arts and entertainment industry. Her client list reads like a who's who, and includes rap star and actress Queen Latifah, MTV Host Bill Bellamy and Bad Boy Entertainment President Puffy Combs, to name a few.

Sloane, who is as expressive in her language as she is in her work, derives her unique designs from her clients' personalities. "Living spaces and work areas should read like an engaging novel," she says. "Every room should tell a different story, and each threshold should invite new and exciting twists while maintaining continuity."

Alternative Design's revenues tell a story of steady growth, with last year's sales reaching around $350,000, and projections for this year at more than $550,000. Sloane is quick to attribute the company's success to the strength of her design team: seven employees including an architect, a full-time designer and a project manager.

Sloane has come a long way since 1991 when she started the business part-time while working as a design consultant for Formica Corp., a Wayne, N.J.-based building products company. Sloane, who attended Rutgers University, the Fashion Institute of Technology and Pratt Institute, says she never saw furniture design as a career option. The reason was she didn't know of any African Americans in the field. In fact, the Washington-based Organization of Black Designers estimates that only 2% of all interior designers (there are more than 70,000 in the U.S.) are black.

Government contracts sustain most black design firms because they lack networking opportunities. However, Alternative Design has survived solely on commercial clients. "I would never get the opportunity to do what I like to do if I had to follow the specs requirements for government procurement," says Sloane, who enjoys having creative autonomy.

At one time, Alternative Design relied heavily on word-of-mouth marketing and black clients. Now, roughly half of its clients are white and Asian, and Sloane is getting some major play in the press. She is the first African American and one of a handful of female designers to participate in Metropolitan Home magazine's "Signature of Style" campaign for the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS. Sloane will stand head and shoulders with such industry virtuosos as Vincente Wolf, Glenn Gissler, Albert Hadley and Victoria Hagan.

While Sloane is attracting more sophisticated customers, she says that disparity still exists in the industry. There are no ground rules in the billing percentage of interior designers, unlike in the billing practices of architects, who receive a set percentage. Most interior design firms can command anywhere from 10% to 20% per design gig, averaging about $4 million a year. However, the average black design firm commands less "work for work" and "dollar for dollar" than its white counterpart.

Which is one reason Sloane is going global. Alternative Design was recently commissioned by a licensing company to design a commemorative watch for South African President Nelson Mandela.

Sloane is also exploring licensing deals for her desktop accessory collection, which features sleek, satin-finished aluminum Rolodexes, stationery holders and paperweights. Sloane is also looking to lend her signature to a furniture manufacturer.

In addition to a full roster of interior projects, including several Manhattan restaurants, Sloane is currently designing a major studio complex for Sony Music Entertainment's hip-hop and R&B recording artists. Andy Kadisen, Sony's vice president of studio operations and programming, says Sloane's ability to break with tradition is what attracted the company to Alternative Design. "Courtney's willingness to take risks, her creative eclecticism, responds to our needs."

Although Sloane is a visionary who can blend the old and the new, she views herself as one who "improves upon tradition," rather than as someone who breaks with it.