Shortly after graduating from the Winchester School of Art in 1973, Christine Van Der Hurd had already started designing textiles for big names like Osborne & Little and Yves Saint Laurent. Four years later, she took a leap and traveled from England to New York—a short trip that turned into a decadeslong home. “That was shell shock. My first trip to New York was in January 1977 and I’d gone there to sell my designs. It was then that I fell in love with [my future husband] David and New York,” she tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “Let’s say New York first, and then David. It was five months later that I packed up my house and put everything in my 2CV and headed for London and got on a plane and went to New York.”

She and David Hurd (who had moved to America from England before her and set up a business shipping antiques to the States), opened Modern Age Gallery in downtown Manhattan, and she found herself rubbing shoulders with New York creatives like Robert Mapplethorpe, Annie Leibovitz and Andy Warhol—all of whom were patrons of the couple’s gallery. At the same time, she was designing textiles and rugs that got the attention of design legends such as Angelo Donghia and Jack Lenor Larsen. She eventually moved back to London and grew the textile business, now called Vanderhurd, to include wallpapers, cushions and flatweaves. Over the years, she has collaborated with some of the most distinguished designers in the industry, and last year she was honored with the House & Garden Lifetime Achievement Award.

Throughout five decades in the design business, Van Der Hurd has witnessed many industry changes. “I think people had a lot of integrity in those days,” she says of the decades when she was first starting out. “There was a lot of attention to detail. And I feel, for Vanderhurd, that’s where we come in. Each client is given as much time, whether they’re commissioning a small carpet or a whole project for an entire house. And I think that that’s one of the things that may be lost a bit today—in the design industry, people want to rush things too fast. [For an interior], you’ve got to layer it, you’ve got to find the pieces. You can’t just bash it out. I’m being brutal here, but it’s [about] adding a uniqueness to an interior. It’s finding that special piece. I think that often today, it’s a look that gets translated rather than built up and slowly making a beautiful interior. You can’t just do an interior. You can’t make an interior. It has to build. It has to grow.”

Crucial insight: Van Der Hurd was still running the downtown gallery Modern Age with her husband when her rug business started to take off. She quickly discovered that she had to speak up for her business interests. “David said to me, ‘You know, these carpets have to come through Modern Age.’ And I remember thinking, ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’” she recalls. “David was sort of saying, ‘You’ll get a commission,’ and I’m going, ‘I don’t think so.’ … I remember us having a huge falling-out over that, but I got my way, and yes, I built all the carpets, and if Modern Age sold one, they would get their percentage of it.”

Key quote: “I never compromise with myself. So I’m always looking for the right piece and always going to second-guess myself. It’s just my nature. Luckily, my wonderful team at Vanderhurd’s are there behind me, rallying me on, saying I’ve made the right choice.”

This episode is sponsored by Loloi. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.