This week we connected with our friends and Michigan showroom representatives, Tami Ramsay and Krista Nye Nicholas of Cloth & Kind.

Krista and Tami are interior designer partners of their Cloth & Kind studio with offices in Athens, Georgia, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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To listen to the complete conversation, tune into our IGTV here.

Here is an excerpt:

1 – How did you get together and start your interior design business?

TAMI: Apropos of our times, bizarrely we met through technology. We both were early adopters to Pinterest and at that time it was still, if you can imagine, very small and relatively intimate. You followed people and I would sit down, have coffee, and look through their pins. The person that frequently came up was Krista! I had pinned something that was a chaise longue that I was planning to use in my living room. (This was long before private boards!) Molly Andrews that owns Chairloom had also pinned it, and then Krista who followed Molly also and knowing that Molly refurbished old furniture assumed that it was something that she was selling, and so commented “yup, that’s exactly what I need for my new living room”. And Molly said, “Actually, that’s not mine but you should meet Tami, you’ll have a very similar aesthetic.” And that was it, it was kind of Kismet. So it was a chaise longue brought us together!

We had a very similar aesthetic and a passion for textiles specifically. So we talked on the phone and then decided to travel and meet each other at a design conference to meet in-person and stay with each other for the first time. We were rooming together, which is crazy, and then by the end of those three days, we decided to go into business together.

KRISTA: We shared all our dirty secrets and were like, “this is what you need to know about me, and this is what you need to know about me. Okay, I’m in! I’ll take it.”

TAMI: Yeah, it was very much kind of a whirlwind love affair that fortunately worked out. But logistically it has definitely been something that took a fair amount of organization and has certainly scaled and grown over the years. But essentially, it was Krista and me for the longest time collaborating on everything until we were in a position to hire more people and the rest is history.

2 -What has been your favorite design project? And what is a dream project for you?

KRISTA: One of our favorite projects has been a large historic home that we did in St. Louis, Missouri, which belongs to the Chancellor of the University. We worked on the design in partnership with Wash U, and the Chancellor and his wife. It is a beautiful home, to begin with, but it was really wonderful from a creative standpoint to have the exposure to art from the Kemper Museum of Art, from which, we were able to make selections for the home. It was a total collaboration across both of our offices and all of our team members. We still haven’t photographed it yet. We had plans to and then COVID hit, so now we’re hoping we can photograph it in the Spring. It was a magical project and interestingly quite traditional, so design-wise a departure for us. We dove deep into red like we never had before and were immersed in traditional European antiques.

For creative people like us, it was a dream come true to have the opportunity to explore a totally new different genre and spend time learning. We both came out of it really appreciating reds so much more than we ever have!

TAMI: A future dream project would be a boutique hotel. That would be really, really fun. Something that allowed us to totally trick out a space with a theme. We have done a few set-design type things before and although that’s not the same as a boutique hotel, the similarity is focusing on a concept and repeating it in different variations throughout the space. I think that would be really fun!

KRISTA: It’s going to happen, putting it out into the universe!

3 – What influences and informs your design aesthetic?

KRISTA: When we met, we spent a lot of time talking and discovered our mutual love of textiles first and foremost, specifically artisanal textiles. We were really drawn to the block printed and hand screen printed textiles, like your line.

We talked a lot about travel and its major source of influence and inspiration for so many creatives. That was something we had in common. We had both had the experiences of living overseas in different cultures and that influenced us and our own personal design aesthetic for our own homes. And it’s the confluence of how our experiences have come together and melded.

4 – How did you expand your business into your very own boutique showroom in Ann Arbor?

KRISTA: From the very beginning, we wanted to have a boutique showroom. Initially, it was to be a shop or retail experience that focused around textiles, which evolved over time into our trade-only showroom. Tami being close to Atlanta has proximity to ADAC, which is an exceptional design center. By contrast here in Michigan, I felt like we just didn’t have that. We sought out the textile lines and we would work with showrooms in New York like Studio 4, or Harbinger or Nicky Rising in LA. We would reach out to whoever had the lines. I really struggled with that as we were buying a lot of artisanal textiles, and were not a small client, but it was hard getting memos or any attention.

So Tami and I gave it some thought and felt it was a great opportunity to support the artisanal lines that we loved while filling a need to cover the middle part of the U.S. that was being ignored.

It’s been fun and is ramping up slower than we thought, but being about 2 1/2 years in, we are past the learning curve and it’s starting to take on a life of its own and is just wonderful.

As we are not in a major metropolitan design area, we have gotten really creative with seeing people on the road, and these days in virtual appointments. It is important for us to make it really easy for designers to shop. One of our biggest pain points is not being able to get the needed information in after business hours, which is inevitably when work we are all working.

This led us to soon be launching a password protected portal for to-the-trade shopping. We are beginning with 3 lines and seemakrish is one of them! Clients with approved trade accounts could shop the lines based on our approved territories of representation. They could shop memos and get quotes. We are excited to be rolling this out shortly!

We have to ask, what are your favorite seemakrish patterns- textile or wallcovering?

TAMI: My first contact with you was because I wanted some pillows in the Breach Candy pattern in blue. I love, love, love that color. I still have and love the pillows. And yours is still one of my all-time favorite textile lines with the combination of the block-print and the kantha stitch. It’s just beautiful.

KRISTA: From your latest collection, it’s the wallcovering Edgartown. I am blown away, it is absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to use it.

TAMI: It reminds us of India, some of the big public palaces that we visited where we would see these beautiful and elaborate patterns. It evokes that experience.

KRISTA: My original textile fave s probably Chowpatty. I just love it. I was originally introduced to you by my mother, who has always been a design enthusiast and lived and breathed for the next issue of House Beautiful! When I was getting started, she pointed me in your direction. I hadn’t yet heard of you and so I checked out your line and was immediately obsessed. I ended up ordering Chowpatty in Peacock Blue for my mother, and it is on their kitchen roman shades. Then I ordered a custom colorway of it for a guest bedroom in my house. Beautiful as well. Love it!