By seeking out under-the-radar vendors (and getting flexible with how she charges for product), New York–based designer Eneia White is maximizing a high-low strategy to deliver her clients a custom look.
How do you approach shopping for your clients?
Before, when I worked at other high-end firms, everything was super custom, and it took 24 weeks, minimum, to do everything. My firm isn’t quite there, but I like finding new resources to keep in my back pocket for when we can go there. For a bathroom we recently completed, we needed a custom-sized mirror that got installed into the ceiling and hangs in front of a window. To commission that in New York would just be obnoxiously expensive, but we found a small company in England that only does custom mirrors, and it was great. You can get really cool things for a fraction of the cost, but you have to really dig and do the research. My colleague Jessica and I will sit on the train and go down a rabbit hole for 40 minutes, finding these makers in the middle of nowhere that only have 12 followers on Instagram—maybe one other designer follows them and no one else really knows about them yet. Those are some of our best resources.
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