By Ethan Tucker
Perhaps it’s forgivable that Venus Williams’ career as an interior designer has been overshadowed by her other accomplishments. With 90 Grand Slam appearances and countless titles, it may surprise some to learn that the former number-one tennis player is also a star designer.
Her firm, V Starr, has been designing high end residential interiors in South Florida for 20 years, and recently has expanded to include a broader portfolio of hospitality and multifamily projects. Despite their rising stature, they’ve never designed a product collection — until now. When the opportunity to collaborate with textile manufacturer Wolf-Gordon arose, Williams, who serves as the firm’s CEO, couldn’t have been more excited to take on the project. “I have a natural love for textiles, right down to the thread,” she says.
That love for fabric is present in the collection, which is defined by a matelassé effect created by stitching the pattern into multiple layers of fabric sandwiched together. To develop the three patterns, Williams and V Starr principal Sonya Haffey developed ideas, produced sketches, and sent them to Wolf-Gordon to be digitized and produced in a high-performance polyester-and-nylon blend that contains post-consumer recycled material and is suitable for many different applications.
