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new world of not only eco and sustainable design, but especially modern design which is streamlined, fresh, clean, and begs to have warmth and materiality. This has always been my struggle, but what I try to do is bring a textural component to a modern space. You have to ask yourself a question - do you want to take a nap and live in this room or do you want to look at this room? Modernism is harder to decorate in that regard and I still think that there is huge room for improvement.” One of the places Platt keeps a close eye on for exciting design trends is China, which continues to experience a new age of architecture and aesthetic. “China used to have just old Italian baroque furniture, but every year they become more modern and streamlined. They’re catching on to what modernism is. They’re really the ones to watch now that they are free to think and design again. Italian furniture companies are doing great there.” Campion has been traveling to China for the past six years after first being asked to appear at an event as one of the world’s top ten designers in the Southeast part of the country. While abroad in the region, he began working on numerous projects, including a new major hotel. “China is a total boom town. They have three times our population and a new middle class with buying power who are keen on Western design. I have a ten-year visa so that I can work on my
ongoing projects there, though of course things have been at a standstill between Covid and the old tariffs from Trump. My projects basically just stopped overnight, but my Chinese partners are working with online platforms to bring Chinese products into the market here and vice versa. The scale is so much bigger there, so I really see it as a raw territory for so much fertile design work.” While vintage pieces might not be over, Campion contends that classicists will need a bigger budget, while modern world furniture can be more easily duplicated. Campion is also known to work around art collections. For one recent project, he worked with an art consultant to really look at the theme and palette and used specific lighting in the gallery hall. “It was sculpted like a museum for each artwork and sculpture.” Though he usually makes a line item budget for a project from beginning to end, Campion explains that $150,000 is a typical spend for a living room, also known as a primary room. In order to meet the $2.5 million budget for a recent client’s family home in the Hamptons, Campion used furniture from places like CB2 for the secondary rooms, though he warned his clients of the pitfalls of such purchases, including measurement issues, wear and tear, etc. A recent project which perfectly combined all of Platt’s passions was a palatial penthouse in Costa Rica. It all started with a cold call from a budding young
