Armed with 3,500-plus interiors masterminded by more than 100 of the world’s top designers and firms, 1stdibs has debuted a highly edited and shoppable section of its site. Each featured name presents its preferred furniture, art and decor picks from the 1stdibs global dealer network, making it seamless for customers to shop a selection of designers' looks. Customers can purchase the same pieces or shop with the galleries and dealers whose furniture, decor and other product appears. The site has already received more than 1,000,000 views of profiles and projects since its launch on April 7.

Designer Shawn Henderson of the eponymous firm, began sourcing product on 1stdibs back in 2004 and today has a number of projects on the site, among them a West Village townhouse and a Connecticut farmhouse. He shares, “1stdibs has created a platform that introduces my work to an incredibly wide-reaching audience. For my potential clients, it’s a one-stop resource.”

How can interior designers get involved? Sarah Liebel, general manager at 1stdibs, answered EAL’s burning questions about the new program: 

Tell us about the launch. How do you choose which designers appear? 
We are excited to launch, especially since we’ve fully integrated the interiors in nearly every aspect of our platform, including our marketing efforts to millions of discerning buyers and serious collectors. We want our audience to be inspired by both the project portfolio and hand-selected collection of items shared by each firm. 

Active members of our trade program are eligible to be nominated for a profile. Firms who have not already enrolled can do so here. Once active members, firms can express their interest in being profiled to their dedicated trade specialist. Designers cannot pay to participate—we carefully evaluate each firm, which makes it more meaningful to be featured on 1stdibs and more engaging for our customers as well. Over time, we’ll profile more emerging talent, providing more inspiration and allowing our customers to discover designers who are doing amazing work, whom they may not have heard of before. 

What is your process for selecting designers to participate? What are your criteria for evaluating whether their work fits with 1stdibs?
We select the finest dealers from more than 600 cities worldwide, and as a result, preeminent designers around the world count 1stdibs as a valued resource for discovering and buying beautiful objects. When identifying design firms to profile, we took the same selective approach. We have relationships with these firms, so we handpicked and personally invited each one to participate.

Our trade relations team works every day with designers who are sourcing these incredible design objects from around the world. It gives us unique insight into the kind of work that these designers are doing. That’s why, in addition to looking at the industry recognition a firm has received, we also look at the firm’s activity with the global network of dealers on our platform. 

1stdibs offers designers services like the option to request net price with a single click and to pay via wire for any order. Are there any other programs or features coming up that you’d like to share with us?
At the end of last year, we launched a unique new benefit… What we learned from our trade customers was that they wanted the ease of buying online but not the risk of winding up with a piece that doesn’t work. With each purchase, we’ve introduced a returns guarantee—exclusively for our trade program members and unique in the industry for one-of-a-kind pieces, which often cannot be returned. 

Designers are welcome to reach out to Liebel directly via email.