I was lucky enough to have worked for a few distinctive designers when I launched my interiors studio in San Francisco back in 2014. I call them my Grande Dames, and we served a long-established line of clientele who had more traditional Northern Californian homes. Now, a “more traditional” Northern Californian home was a wonderful blend of rolling hills, a craftsman or farmhouse aesthetic, and a good collection of transitional, traditional, and antique furnishings. They were all eclectic in some way, and that’s what made them layered and interesting!
I’m Chris Shields, a Colorado-based design specialist creating and decorating homes that grow love and graciously welcome people in to create lifelong memories.
In today’s post, I’m going to share with you the idea that traditional design, while the headlines are reading “is back,” has been surrounding us all along. I’m going to share a tale of three florals that even the gents will take note of, and I’ll recap my experience and finds at High Point Market.
Just a Traditional Guy at Heart
My Experience & Finds at High Point Market 2026
First, a little background about design in general: design is a thoughtful process. That process gives the act of design a structure. That structure has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I’ve called the structure of my design process my method for some time because I’ve married my previous life in the sciences (think scientific method) with my education, experience, and aesthetics in the world of designing interiors.
In my design method, I start by leading my clients on my heartbeat journey to get to know them and help them discover and express their style, taste, and desires for their homes to me. I collect what I learn and put these requirements into clear language. This time of discovery is very exciting as I start to get a sense of the unique characteristics of my client and how their character is complex and layered. What I learn leads me to a fundamental principle of good interior design: The best interiors are layers of movement, materials, and objects that, when brought together, create something larger than the sum of its parts. The layers of my client’s character ultimately become the layers of my design concepts and my clients’ interiors.
So what does this have to do with traditional design? Traditional design has always been about the addition, or the inclusion of many layers in a space. Modernism has distinguished itself through subtraction, or the limiting of elements. Both styles or movements require a keen eye and use of restraint. What I’ve discovered over the years is that all of my clients are unique blends of many characteristics. They feel more strongly about certain aspects of their character than others. My clients often express some of their values in terms of traditional and some of their values as modern. I have used these unique blends to select and develop my clients’ interiors, which are often a blend, a conversation, and a contrast of these ideas and elements. I think the most interesting interiors are those with a sense of old and new, expressive and restrained, anchoring and sculptural, enveloping and exposing… and many other forms of contrast. Isn’t contrast everything?
So, if I’m designing for my clients relying on the many layers and complexities of their own character, shouldn’t that translate into a multi-layered interior (the foundational principle of traditional design) and hence a traditional design?
Consider a sharp and tailored or sculptural Holly Hunt sofa juxtaposed with leather club chairs with turned feet and casters, and surrounding an iron and marble cocktail table. Let’s add layers of draperies framing an expansive window with an outer sheer drapery for lighting control and an inner, patterned drapery for a decorative accent. Let’s add a pair of antique English end tables flanking the sofa with larger-scaled table lamps. Finally, let’s set all of this on a layered carpeting idea, including a foundational, patterned sisal carpet under an Oushak carpet. It’s a unique blend, eclectic, and a blend of traditional and modern styles. It's old and new ideas, and it’s one-of-a-kind. That’s my ultimate goal for all of my design projects.
I’m just a traditional guy at heart… with a modern sense of how to layer.
I have to be a little careful now that I’ve convinced you that traditional design has been around us all along, even as styles of furnishings have changed. Remember, it’s all about the layering! Well, I know that most people confuse a design principle with design style pretty easily. When I mention traditional design, I almost always hear this phrase first: “I do not want my grandmother’s brown furniture or drapes!” What’s that all about? That proclamation almost always goes back to patterned textiles… specifically, floral patterned textiles.
It’s time to refresh and reboot that perspective. Today, I’d like to challenge you with three palettes of materials that are grounded with a floral patterned fabric. I believe any of these schemes are combinations even a man could love! Remember, gentlemen, if your collection of fragrances doesn’t include a floral or mysterious, herbal blend, you are truly missing out (and your other half wishes you’d add something that wasn’t just spice and leather).
Have a look at the following three palettes and drop me a note to let me know what you think!
Earlier this year I attended High Point Market in North Carolina, a biannual gathering place for the furnishings industry to showcase the latest designs and creations from makers, artisans, designers, and dreamers from around the world. This is where we first begin to glimpse the ideas that will shape the homes we live in over the coming seasons.
This spring, one feeling followed me from showroom to showroom: a return to the traditional. Not in a rigid or nostalgic sense, but in a way that feels human. There was an unmistakable gravitation toward pieces that felt grounding and enduring - turned wood details, rich brown finishes, generous upholstery, layered trims, and silhouettes with history behind them.
Yet woven alongside these classical references were organic forms: sculptural sofas, tactile bouclés, undulating lines, and shapes softened by comfort. The result was something beautifully balanced. It was familiar, yet fresh.
For years now, we’ve craved homes that nurture us. Since the pandemic, comfort has become less of a luxury and more of a necessity. Now, amid another season of uncertainty in the world around us, I believe we are searching for spaces that remind us of permanence - spaces connected to craftsmanship, memory, and principles that can withstand time.
Traditional design, to me, is not simply about the past. It is about our foundation. It reflects the enduring ideas that help us feel rooted while the world continues to shift around us. And perhaps that is why these forms and materials are resonating again: they reassure us that beauty, connection, and thoughtful living still matter.
As I walked through High Point, I found myself wondering how we will continue redefining tradition for our own generation. With such an expansive palette of cultures, materials, artistry, and innovation available to us today, we are not simply preserving tradition; we are composing it anew.
If any of this - the layering, the old-meets-new, the traditional design that never really left - sounds like the home you're picturing, why not reach out today to set up a Vista Consultation? Or take a look at Villa Tuscana Redux, a past project built on this same layered, traditional-meets-modern idea.
Traditional interior design isn’t one look frozen in time — it’s a principle of layering: history, craftsmanship, and pattern built up in conversation with each other. In my own work, that usually means turned wood details, antique pairings, and pattern that earns its place rather than matching head to toe.
I start with contrast, not compromise. A sharp, tailored piece set next to something antique and detailed — an iron and marble cocktail table under a layered carpet, a sculptural sofa beside English end tables — lets both eras sharpen each other instead of canceling out.
High Point Market runs twice a year in High Point, North Carolina — a Spring Market each April and a Fall Market each October — with exact dates set annually by the High Point Market Authority.
For over 18 years, Chris Shields has approached his design projects holistically. He is analytical and inquisitive. Both qualities inform his understanding of his client’s needs, surroundings, and aesthetics, and both are called on when Chris creates interiors that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also profoundly personal.
