Hospitality Design - November/December 2010 - 63

pro le: michael bagley

products
By Stacy Shoemaker Rauen

open to the possibilities
Michael Bagley’s varied career has been a direct result of his philosophy of life. “If you think about traveling down a highway, you don’t want to be in the high speed lane as you might miss something. If you see an exit, get off. If you don’t like what you ﬁnd, get back on. I have gotten off a number of exits and found things interesting enough to change my route,” explains the New York-based designer. Bagley got his start at Meridien Hotels, ﬁrst in sales and then as the head of product marketing, before going on to reposition the Drake Hotel for Swissôtel. “With sales, it was very quantiﬁable. With product marketing, I was responsible for the aesthetic of how a company was represented. I had to learn how to defend my creative vein,” he says. “I found that if I had a vision of what that room could become, I could dismantle and reassemble it.” That realization led him to start his own furniture company, dubbed Wood, Spring & Down, which today offers custom furniture—everything from chairs to window treatments and bedding—including Bagley’s own line, the Francophile collection, inspired by the French ’30s and ’40s, his favorite era. “People asked, ‘What the hell do you know about furniture?’” he says. “It’s just one of those things that just made sense to me. Everything has a job, you make sure you solve a problem with everything you create.” When clients started asking him if he could design their homes as well, he opened his namesake design ﬁrm, ﬁrst doing residential work, but eventually branching out to hospitality, most well known for creating some 14 BLT restaurants. “I thought, none of what I do is brain surgery; no one is going to die. If they don’t like what I am doing, they will tell me to stop.” Since then, he’s launched two more product companies. There’s Objectiques, which is a compilation of antique furnishings and accessories that he has amassed over the years. And his newest is Originalighting.com, which boasts more than 500 eclectic lamps. “These are all limited by the availability of vases, vessels, and interesting items I ﬁnd and convert to artful illumination,” he explains, adding that next up is a collection using unconventional ﬁnishes like shagreen, textured leathers, and fractured glass and mirror. To him, diversiﬁcation is key. “The more things you can bring to the table for your client, the more woven into their ﬁber you become.” www.michaelbagley.com; www.woodspringdown.com; objectiques.com; www.originalighting.com

From left: Two chairs from Michael Bagley’s Francophile collection: the whimsical curved-back Biaritz and the Dauville, which is offered in a variety of finish and fabric options. Top, from left: The Dinard chair, from Bagley’s Francophile collection; the interior of BLT Prime in New York. Center: The Elegant Chinoiserie table lamp from Originalighting.com.

www.hospitalitydesign.com

November/December 2010

http://www.Originalighting.com http://www.michaelbagley.com http://www.woodspringdown.com http://www.objectiques.com http://www.originalighting.com http://www.Originalighting.com http://www.hospitalitydesign.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - November/December 2010