Stainless steel and chrome furniture filled the New York apartment Sasha Bikoff grew up in, an austere contrast to her Iranian grandmother’s glamorous, maximalist aesthetic. Her Long Island residence mixed “European antiques with Persian rugs and big silk puddle drapes. And her home in Miami was very Scarface,” Bikoff recalls. “It made my imagination soar as a young girl.”
Not surprisingly, the decorator—a term Bikoff relishes because it reminds her of legends like Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper, and Sister Parish—unabashedly favors brazen hues and patterns that nod to her affinity for the Space Age, 1970s Italian furniture, and the Studio 54 era.
Following her fine art and art history studies at George Washington University in DC and the American University of Paris, Bikoff headed back to New York to work at the Gagosian Gallery before launching her eponymous studio in 2014. But her flair for design percolated early. Her teenage bedroom, for instance, starred walls gussied up with painted quotes and a canopy bed from the Conran Shop that she draped in bohemian sheer pink fabrics.
The Eloise Vanity pulls inspiration from postmodernist Michael Graves’ Plaza Vanity
Bikoff’s first official decorating job was her mother’s apartment in the fabled Dakota building, for which she fused motley ballet, disco, and Middle Eastern references. Gradually, she expanded her residential portfolio with commercial projects, including restaurants that “helped me hone this idea of bringing drama and theatrics to a space,” she explains. One recent example is chef Harold Dieterle’s Il Totano in the West Village, which evokes a 1970s Italian yacht party.
Product design also beckoned, sparking collaborations with the likes of New Ravenna, Versace, Vervain, and Walters Wicker, and her inspirations are vast. There’s Bikoff’s forthcoming SR Harris fabric range that pays tribute to fashionable women, her SA Baxter hardware reinterpreting Megalodon shark teeth, and the glossy Hollywood Regency-style Hibiscus chandelier, wall sconce, and drinks table for Currey & Company that take the form of Bikoff’s favorite bloom. Crafted from wrought iron, they also capture her love for Miami Beach, its “Art Deco revival architecture, pastel palette, and tropical motifs,” she points out.
Bright, saturated tones pop against plentiful wood finishes in Bikoff’s collection for Amish maker Abner Henry Furniture, too. An ode to the postmodernist Memphis Group’s shapes and geometries, the 10-piece drop features creations like a vivid, storage-friendly reimagining of Peter Shire’s 1981 Brazil desk.
“Think about a simple landscape—a red barn, a grassy field with violet flowers, a blue sky, and a yellow truck,” says Bikoff. “The way that we approach color should be thought of as the way that we see nature.”
The Lauren Credenza nods to Ettore Sottsass’ iconic designs
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