This Former Lawyer-Turned-Designer Is a Pro at Creating Classic Interiors With a Modern Eye
Breeze Giannasio attended Harvard Law School and worked in private equity at a top firm for a decade, but she has always been a designer at heart. "I recall designing Ewok villages in the trees of my childhood home, constantly redecorating anything having the semblance of home, and even insisting on the particular shade to be used when repainting my parents’ car when I was three," says Giannasio, who was born in the small town of Lanikai, Kailua, and started her own design studio in Los Angeles before branching out to Honolulu and Washington, D.C. "I decided on a Kelly green if you can believe it."
Her parents allowed her to flex her creative muscles at a young age, and she gave herself permission to do the same later on. "Leaving law and pivoting to design was really more of a delayed homecoming—a move driven by aligning my life with my nature rather than with convention and expectation," she says.
Since then, she's gone on to design countless classic interiors for the modern eye—including the Maui vacation home featured on the cover of House Beautiful's Outdoor Issue.
Read on to learn more about her style, career, and what's on the horizon for the designer.
Q&A
How do you balance the creative side of your job with the business end?
Leaving time to just be tends to be where the magic finds me. That said, after 10 years as a corporate lawyer, the business side of design never seems onerous. For my first several years in practice, I did literally everything from accounting, contracts, HR, and strategic analysis of growth/client acquisition to the nuts and bolts of the creative process. Over time, I’ve built out a team to take over where I no longer want to invest my time, giving me the bandwidth to devote myself more fully to the design side, which is what I love. I truly have an even split of left and right brain, though. I find that clients appreciate someone who is a clear communicator and unabashed about advocating for what [they] think is best, someone who adeptly understands the financial side of the endeavor, anticipates project flow, manages expectations, and then brings the hammer if issues arise with contractors, vendors, etc. Years in the ring negotiating for billion-dollar private equity funds makes design negotiations less intimidating, to say the least. Few realize how many hats small business owners wear, so it's a good thing that multi-tasking is a skill I have. For someone who likes to retain a lot of control, outsourcing and trusting the team that I've built and nurtured over the years has been a leap but one that has paid dividends to the process and outcomes.
What advice, early in your career, has really stuck with you?
The journey is the destination. It's an abiding principle that permeates my work and my personal life. It helped guide the transition to design, certainly. On the design side, my mentor, hospitality icon Michael Bedner (founder of HBA) taught me so many important lessons–how to make an amazing martini, to always break for a proper lunch (with cloth napkins!), and that you should bring your A-game, passion, and joy to every project. There will always be challenges—budgetary, personality, communication, timing, the list goes on—but in expert, passionate, seasoned hands that care and advocate for the design, the project will soar. Each one is like a beloved child: unique and the product of a sometimes pathological level of love and care.
How would you describe your style?
Classic interiors for the modern eye is an abiding principle of the firm. I appreciate things with soul, warmth, patina, and texture in my own home. I always love dynamic juxtapositions of new and old that create tension and contrast. I would say I curate interiors with the eye of an artist, resulting in a diversity of environments that are cohesive in being collected and eclectic. I pride myself on channeling my client’s sensibilities, packaging and elevating their dream through my filter. You’ll often hear me saying, “Don’t fight your house.” It’s about working with the architecture, not rubber-stamping some formulaic trendy image from Instagram or applying a monolithic branded look. The amalgam of person and place commingling into something unique is the wonder that lives in creation. Design is intelligence made visible, as they say, so I’d like to think that people would describe my work as smart, personal, warm, and inviting.
You love beautiful homes. So do we. Let’s obsess over them together.
What’s the best part of designing peoples’ homes?
Giving people well-designed spaces that enhance their life, mood, health, and outlook. It’s a gift that never gets old. Each client has a different story to tell, and I take the responsibility very seriously. There’s nothing more sacred than nurturing your own garden, and I help people do that through design.
What's the trickiest part?
When someone tries to micromanage the process or take over the design process/execution, it can become quite tricky!
Where do you look for inspiration when you’re in a rut?
I like the maxim: When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. When I hit a wall, stepping away for a moment and changing my perspective is where I go. Sometimes a quick beach walk, a meditation session, or flipping through something totally unrelated but inspirational is all it takes. I think of my subconscious as my own personal super-computer that presents connections and solutions when my ego or trained pathways are at an impasse.
How do you recharge and stay positive?
Community, creativity, and cosmos are my big three C’s. Throwing myself into nature will always be the most important form of inspiration and insight. You’ll often find me on solo dates to art galleries, museums, libraries (I think of them like temples!), quirky markets, and the road less traveled. Inspiration is everywhere.
What are you looking forward to this year?
I feel so satisfied with the now of it all that it’s a funny question for me. While hibernating for the past two years has offered myriad silver linings and revelations, I’m really looking forward to in-person gatherings with clients and the design community, and getting back to my globe-trotting ways while holding onto the stillness and balance that has grounded me during the pandemic. I’m also so excited to catch up on documenting my design work, which has been so gratifying to complete but, at this point, I’m dying to share this arsenal of hidden treasure with the broader design-loving community! On the personal front, I’ve been researching eco-villages and co-housing and am on the hunt for an amazing property to bring together permaculture, sustainability, and amazing design in a community-centric model—looking to Danish innovators for inspiration. Aligning our priorities with how we live, how we build, and how we design fuels me every day. Stay tuned!
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