| Michael Tavano is an Interior Designer, Product Designer and a consultant to the design industry on their toughest custom decorating challenges. Often it falls to Michael and his team at MT Custom to help designers out of a jam, so you could say he’s the Expert’s Expert. From a quick fix to a full-on color consultation to window shades that go up and down with the push of a button, he gets a kick out of getting it done, fast and (of course) fabulous. He is also known for his outrageous and fanciful tablescapes. He designs elaborately themed pop-up jewel-box dining environments exclusively for Manhattan’s most intimate and elite occasions. He limits his party design to private dinners with no more than twenty guests, and no two parties are ever alike. He also blogs on entertaining on his just-for-fun site At Michael’s Table.His design inspirations, he says, come from all over the world. “From my travels to India where I worked with amazing craftspeople on a line of tabletop linens, and the Far East, where my silk embroidered fabrics are made, or to Italy where, let’s face it, pretty much everything is inspiring – from the espresso to the Uffizi – Italians just do it all right. Of course I love the UK, Harvey Nick’s was one of the first to carry my products way back when, so there’s a soft spot in my heart for the Brits, and for my new TV home-away-from–home, the amazing BBC!” Michael is a judge on the new season of the UK public television network’s popular series House of the Year. There, he says he’ll be looking for homes that are made to reflect their inhabitants. “What’s outside should be inside. If her closet is full of Chanel, the house shouldn’t look like Versace. If their musical taste runs to Lady Gaga the house shouldn’t feel like a Stravinsky waltz. I’ll be looking for color and life and vitality in design. Do not give me beige. Boring. Love color? Then come over here and sit by me.”The program is filmed in Northern Ireland, with its elegant rocky coastal landscapes and homes that are literally castles. But being a New Yorker, a lot of his best ideas happen here. After all, he quips, “This is the epicenter of the design universe. Right?” In his hometown, he has recently completed the design of the public spaces and two apartments in the luxury Harlem condominium building The Morellino, and he is currently at work on homes in upstate New York and in Manhattan. |
