Emily Macki

EMILY MACKIE

Chicago

A Texas native, Emily Mackie grew up surrounded by beautiful things. Inspired by this desire to create special surroundings, she moved to Chicago to attend the Illinois Institute of Art, where she graduated with a B.F.A. in Interior Design. From that moment, her career took off with an impressive range of projects in her portfolio. In 2003, Mackie found her niche working in residential design. By 2004, she founded her own luxury design firm Inspired Interiors, and CovetED is all about inspiration and so will you with this exclusive insight.

By building her firm and her team, Mackie has created a work environment where women can realize their professional dreams without sacrificing family. A mother of three, Emily balances family and work life with motivation and dedication, and her own work ethic and passion surrounding this feeling has she explained, “I love creating spaces that transform people’s lives”. She also believes that with a supportive and uplifting network, we can all succeed. Building and thriving to skyrocket her career, Emily states that, besides every challenging time in her career, she has always been prepared for anything and considers herself to be a problem solver. And with such a fierce thrive in mind she also replied that “As someone with an infinite desire for achievement I will be trying to reach new heights until the day I die.” Joyful and amiable, when asked about what dreams she was lingering on to, Emily gave us a quirky and humorous answer: “A client that doesn’t want any changes to design work.” Feeling fulfilled when her vision turns into reality but furthermore when her clients use and feel the spaces as they were intended to be is the work motto for Emily. “HEARING FROM A CLIENT THAT THEY USE AND ENJOY THEIR OR SPACE I DESIGNED IN ALL THE WAYS I INTENDED THOSE SPACES TO BE WHEN I WAS CREATING THEM. FOR EXAMPLE I RECENTLY DESIGNED A GENTLEMEN’S LOUNGE COMPLETE WITH AN EXTENSIVE BAR FOR A CLIENT. THEY RECENTLY REPORTED BACK THAT “EVERY TIME WE GO OUT TO DINNER WITH FRIENDS EVERYONE COMES BACK HERE TO HAVE DRINKS. IT’S THE NEIGHBOURHOOD BAR!” - EMILY MACKIE

Keeping her designs unique from project to project, Emily and her studio try to break barriers and achieve new and exciting results and always with the client’s personality in mind. Currently working on several multi-family unit buildings across the East Coast, she considers this type of work completely different and interesting to create a personality for a building and portray that personality through a design. “Kind of the opposite of residential design since we are hoping to attract people who want a particular type of personality.” she added. “I don’t love talking about trends because a trend is just a conversation topic. What actually works for people in their home may not be trendy. It’s like skinny jeans – they don’t work for everybody. Trends come and go but designing for a personality is timeless.” - Emily Mackie

With a fresh thought on design and her own beliefs and views on interior design, she appreciates the type of client that is in their late 30s or older, with a short lead time and that has ideas to turn their home from basic

to a tailor-made experience driven space with wow-factor design from wich Emily is known for. “They don’t feel the need to subscribe to what is cool and want to march to the beat of theIr own drum.” Emily said, the ideal client is the one that will hand over the key to their home and trust her vision completely and they just lay back and enjoy the show happening before their eyes. Adventurous and lively, Emily has built this trust relationship with a lot of her clients who already know and enjoy her work.

When asked about the future, Emily believes that energy efficient and completely self-sufficient homes are very intriguing and that’s something to keep an eye on. Regarding her own future and the future of her studio, she has a lot of surprises and upcoming projects, but, using her own words “is too early to spill all the details”. CovetED will definitely keep an eye on her next news and inspirational work, and so should you.