I’ve lived the life of a 70-year-old designer,” says Nina Seirafi, who graduated from Parsons School of Design in 2001 and, in her words, “hasn’t come up for air” since.

Her first year out of school she worked with a designer on a number of projects. For the next several years she set a torrid pace as the sole interior designer for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Gluckman Mayner Architects while burning the midnight oil on side projects before founding her own practice in 2004. “That responsibility at times felt heavy and tough,” she says, “but it built me.” Among the influences reflected in Seirafi’s designs are 1960s and ’70s French and Italian films, Audrey Hepburn (particularly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s ) and The Great Gatsby . “I find fashion to be very inspiring,” she says. “Things happen a lot faster in fashion than in interior design and architecture, revealing a window into the inevitable future of people’s aspirations.”

Nina Seirafi

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