MONIQUE GIBSON

“Allow the architecture to tell you what it requires. Allow the client to imagine their most beautiful life. Then connect the dots.”

Influences: Jean-Michel Frank

Notable Clients: Elton John, Meg Ryan, Jon Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Jon Stewart

Monique Gibson is one of the hottest interior designers in the world right now, regularly being featured on the best interior design magazines. Based in New York, Monique Gibson is known as the interior designer of the rock-stars with her extensive A-list clientele ranging from Elton John to Meg Ryan and secured a spot in Architectural Digest’s prestigious AD 100 list. She masterfully combines the old and the new, the high and the low, creating sophisticated and elegant interiors. Gibson’s interiors are simple and relaxed, specifically tailored for her clients’s lifestyle and taste.

Born in a coal-mining town, Big Stone Gap, in the heart of Appalachia, Monique Gibson completed her major in dance at the University of Tennessee before moving to Atlanta. There, she started working for a prominent interior design firm, who had Elton John as their client. Monique Gibson was lucky enough to meet with Elton John, who became both a mentor and a friend, and gave Gibson one of her first projects as an independent interior designer to design his home in the South of France. Elton John was happy enough with Gibson’s work that he referred Gibson to Jon Bon Jovi and his own manager John Reid, a project that gave Gibson her first ever magazine feature in Architectural Digest. Since then, Monique Gibson designed houses for John Mellencamp, Meg Ryan, Jon Stewart and many more.

However, it would be unfair to tie Gibson’s success on pure luck. Apart from being a talented interior designer, she also knows how to network and make her clients feel at home. She takes the time to get to know her clients and become good friends with them along the process. “The only way I know to design is personally” states Gibson, “decorating is not about any style or strategy. It’s about listening to my clients and learning, and enabling them to discover, how they want to live ”. Before starting any project, she invites her clients to her Manhattan studio, where a visiting chef will prepare lunch, to get to know them on a deeper level. Her goal is not to just create high-end, good-looking homes but functional spaces that her client’s would want to spend time in and feel at home. That’s exactly why her clients come back to her over and over again, such as John Mellencamp and Bon Jovi, who both hired her to redesign five and six different homes respectively - is there a better measure of success than that?

Monique Gibson’s projects range in style and location, and since starting her own studio in 2001, she has completed wide range of projects including a London townhouse, a Charleston Penthouse and a New York loft to name a few.