With a discerning taste for both contemporary and classic styles as an interior designer, Nevine Soliman has managed to offer a brilliant variety of options for home décor to her clients. In addition to her style consulting services, she has a showroom in Zamalek, where she regularly exhibits unique items and furniture available for customization or direct sale. We sat down with her to talk about her relationship with her clients and found out her top tips for great interior design.
What are your biggest style inspirations?
There is beauty all around us. I can be inspired by something as simple as a flower or a door knob at a museum, even travel. When it comes to things, the website 1st Dibs, and home décor publications- in particular the book by Carlos Mota, A Touch of Style.
How would you describe your style?
We simply help our clients live in beautiful surroundings, whether it’s an eclectic style, contemporary, traditional or minimalistic. It just needs to be personal, timeless, airy and functional.
How did you first start your business?
After working many years as an executive for top business corporations in the US and Egypt, I finally pursued my passion for interior design and studied at the New York Institute of Art & Design, then moved back to Egypt to start the business in 2016.
Tell us more about your showroom…
The place has a beautiful positive vibe that is furnished like a home with a mix of vintage, reproduction pieces and beautiful art on the walls. Our showroom is like our second home (We even bring our dogs!) and is a platform for Egyptian contemporary artists, designers with made in Egypt furniture pieces and home décor items.
How do you select pieces for your showroom?
Each piece has a story behind it. This includes the vintage pieces that we search for and find in interesting places, those by artists with unique talent, and the new furniture that we design ourselves.
Which design project are you most proud of?
It’s really all about the client. Most of the projects we worked on are very special to me, starting from the contemporary look we gave to one of our very dear clients’ traditional home to the renovation of a long-time closed apartment and it transformation into a livable, expressive space to another beach house interior design project and another home styling project in Washington DC.
For clients with high expectations and picky personalities, how do you best suit their needs?
The starting point is to recognize that the relationship between an interior designer and his/her client is a very human one, where we help them express their most fervent dreams, hopes and goals. Always remember that the home is an expression of the image one wants to project to the world. Therefore, we listen to our clients carefully, get to learn about their lifestyle, help them define their own likes and dislikes, and then try our best to have a clear approach both visually and financially, while contemplating with them what could be done. Thank God, this works for us most of the time!
What do you think makes you stand out from other interior designers?
There are so many good designers, but I think our clients like how we blend old and new to bring personality to a space, and in doing that, create a happy home.
What is the greatest challenge about what you do?
Trying to steer the client in the right direction and the quality control efforts we have to encounter to receive the deliverables by the standards we want.
Nevine Soliman’s Great Design Tips
- Just like a great outfit, every room needs a finishing touch, and in interiors, that touch is lighting. It pulls all the other special elements together. Invest in the good stuff.
- Flowers are like the icing on the cake when styling a room and makes the home feel more inviting.
- Find your focal point. Find that one item that will be your natural eye focus because it will instantly bring the room together.
By Sarah Guirguis