Opportunity knocks - but for whom? - careers in interior design - includes related articles on resource information and what designers really do - Cover Story

Black Enterprise, Feb, 1994 by Suzanne Riss

Elegant and outspoken, New York architect Jack Travis boasts a client roster for the interior design aspect of his business that includes fashion designer Giorgio Armani, filmmaker Spike Lee, actor Wesley Snipes and the Sbarro family. Yet the 41-year-old entrepreneur knows only too well that for man other talented African-Americans, the road to success in this field has not been so clearly marked or so smoothly paved. In fact, few topics get Travis as animated as the glaring lack of ethnic diversity in the interior design industry.

A man who lives by his convictions, he resigned from the American Institute of Architecture last year after the group cut funding for its Minority Resources Committee Task Force. "The people in power just don't understand that African-American children need to see faces that look like their own in the positions they aspire to," says Travis. "We have to make ourselves more visible." The fact is, African-Americans are all but invisible in both interior design and architecture. Two years ago, BLACK ENTERPRISE reported that less than 1% of all of the licensed members of the American Institute of Architects are black. (See "Blueprints for Success," February 1991.)

Though this is starting to change, slowly, the number of African-American interior designers is also outrageously low. According to David Rice, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Organization of Black Designers (OBD), at best, about 1,500--roughly 2%--of all interior designers are black. Despite the efforts of Rice, Travis and others to draw young talent into the field, the number is only creeping upward.

The interior design industry, generating about $31 billion a year, is one of the few creative fields projected to expand in the coming decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By the year 2005, the ranks could swell by 12.2%. This would mark a jump from the current 66,289 to 74,380 interior designers.

Why is less than one in 100 designers black? Harley Jones, an interior design professor for 2 5 years at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., speculates that some avoid the field because they mistakenly view it as "a game of the wealthy servicing the wealthy." Though the money can be dazzling, the work itself is "not fluff," says Shauna Stallworth, executive director of the Organization of Black Designers. "Interior design deals with the safety and welfare of people."

Not surprisingly then, it can be a lonely place for those African-Americans who do enter the field. Stallworth recalls walking through the cavernous halls of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, a massive wholesale design center with 1,200 showrooms, wondering where the other black designers were hiding. "I felt so isolated."

Without exception, leaders of the industry's trade organizations acknowledge the dearth, yet they seem totally baffled as to why it exists or how it can be changed. Joseph Pryweller, a spokesman for the American Society of Interior Designers, the largest such professional organization in the world, says he knows of only a handful of African-Americans among the group's 30,500 members. "We want more minority members," he says. "We don't know why their numbers are so low."

"I don't think people understand the depth of the problem or they don't see how they can help," says Travis.

While the industry at large is lagging in its efforts to attract minority members, African-Americans are making their own opportunities. In addition to OBD, the Society of African-American Interior Designers was founded last summer by Los Angeles designers Lisa Comfort, owner of Interior Obsession, and Beverly Miller of Beverly Miller & Associates. Such groups seek to attract young designers to the field and to increase public awareness of the black talent already out there. According to Comfort, 70% of the designers in her group have their own businesses. Many African-Americans start their own firms because salaries are low in-house and because it's still difficult for minorities to get hired at all.

"There is so much talent in the black community," says Comfort, "and the doors are opening, but, whereas others knock on 10 doors, we need to knock on 100." She encourages those with talent to go to design school and get the credentials employers want to see before they hire. "We also need to educate our own people that interior designers are not necessarily expensive--in fact they can save you money," she emphasizes. Retail markup is usually double, whereas designers, who purchase at a discount, typically charge a client just 30% above the wholesale price--"and save you from making mistakes," adds Comfort.

Whatever the reasons for the dearth of African-Americans in the profession, there is plenty of room for their contributions. The growing importance of workplace issues, health care and senior housing markets--coupled with the current crossover trend of Afrocentrism--render this field ripe with opportunity for blacks offering specialized services.

JACK TRAVIS: DIVERSITY ADVOCATE