Roop has furniture, lighting, and other design elements for the rooms he creates built by local craftsmen as part of, as the title of his book says, ‘‘The New Bespoke.’’
(Eric Roth)
Custom-made designing
Frank Roop tailors his creations with lessons from the fashion world
Roop has furniture, lighting, and other design elements for the rooms he creates built by local craftsmen as part of, as the title of his book says, ‘‘The New Bespoke.’’
(Eric Roth)
Boston interior designer Frank Roop came to the world of home decor through the circuitous and somewhat unlikely path of men’s fashion. Despite the change in vocation, Roop never fully managed to leave his love for custom creations on the dressing room floor. Noted for his elegant and playful rooms, Roop, head of Frank Roop Design Interiors, says the key to pleasing his clients is to approach rooms the way that fashion designers create clothes.
“I design a space around the room and the client,’’ Roop said. “It’s very design driven, and not just about shopping for things that look nice.’’
In the introduction to his book, “The New Bespoke,’’ which Roop will be signing tonight at Neiman Marcus in Copley Place as part of Fashion’s Night Out, he writes about how former Louis Boston owner Murray Pearlstein built a foundation that continues to guide his interior work.
“When I worked at Louis years ago, Murray Pearlstein used to go and design his own suits,’’ Roop said in a recent interview. “He worked with textile mills to come up with the fabric. He would create products and interesting clothes for his clients. It was crazy. Nobody did that. Having something unique and custom was something that people truly appreciated.’’
Roop takes a similar approach. Many interior designers prowl the aisles at massive design centers. Roop designs lamps, furniture, upholstery, and tables himself, and then has them manufactured, in many cases, by local craftsmen.
In his book, Roop also goes out of his way to describe the people who create his furniture and tell stories about how they started their craft.
“Most design books don’t talk about the people who make these pieces,’’ Roop said. “But that’s what bespoke is all about. The other advantage to bespoke is that other designers can’t create knock-offs of the rooms that I make.’’
In addition to referencing his sartorial past, Roop’s book also examines how he finds inspiration in the world around him. Minerals and crystals, Spanish palaces, Moroccan gardens, even items as mundane as cups of coffee seep into the colors and shapes of the posh spaces he envisions.
For those of us who lack the means to hire a professional to redecorate a living room, Roop shares another way to make rooms unique: vintage shopping.
“I’ve found some of my favorite things picking through flea markets and vintage stores,’’ he said. “Not only are they unique, you can usually score a great deal.’’
Roop will be signing copies of “The New Bespoke’’ tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at Neiman Marcus in Copley Place.
Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Chris_Muther. 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
