By Cristina Adams

Sometimes things turn out just the way you planned. Then again, sometimes they don’t, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Look at Jena Hall. The highly regarded furniture and accessories designer, whose impressive client list includes Woodard, American Leather, Lyon-Shaw and other prestigious furniture makers, began her career as an interior designer.

As a fresh-faced twenty-something, Hall was designing interiors for resort-type or second-home luxury properties for both individuals and land developers. In essence, she says, her job was to design all the architectural interiors and program the space. Soon enough, she realized that the more challenging project would be to envision and design the entire space: furniture, accessories, interior accents, all of it. And that’s exactly what she has done.

These days, Hall designs everything from haute furniture lines to licensed collections, which include mirrors, textiles and decorative accessories. She recently spoke with Design Insider about her own transition from interior designer to furniture designer, how a background in interior design has proven invaluable in her approach to furniture and what kinds of home furnishings trends we can expect to see in the next few years.

You started out as an interior designer. What prompted you to shift over to furniture design and how did you make that transition?
The interior designer really has a vision of the whole space and how it should be brought together. Just doing the furniture wasn't enough because I wanted to control the whole environment. That meant developing and designing in these other segments of home furnishings. That’s when I ventured into the big world of licensing, which has been very interesting and challenging.

How has training in interior design helped you in your furniture design work?
The training is just been indispensable. It’s given me an understanding of space, real space. The reality is that while some homes are large and apartments are small, there's always a minimum amount of space that a person needs for comfort. Understanding how people live and function in their spaces has helped me understand the proportions of furniture design, what works and what doesn't, when something should be softer, harder, bigger or smaller. Having that understanding has given me a competitive edge.

Also important is understanding of how people live. Personalities do get involved. There’s the psychology of how men and women buy, how couples buy and how singles buy. It has to do with the overall approach. Finally, having a heavy background in the decorative arts and art history has given me a classical background and understanding. My approach is always classical and traditional. Form still follows function, proportion is always important, and details cannot be overemphasized. The latter is very important. Attention to detail separates the men from the boys.

Those are all the basics of good interior design. So you just apply those to furniture. In the beginning, a lot of the manufacturers I worked with thought, “What does she know about furniture design?” There are practical realities when you're talking about production. But with good training in interior design, you become a good designer anyway. The principles are always the same.

What styles and/or designers have influenced your work?
The classics have influenced me. I have a definite love for neo-classicists. In terms of the 20th century, I like Elaine Grey, a designer from early 20th century, and Elsie de Wolf. She was great. The other great period that I adore is Empire. The whole Napoleonic age, which is based on classics, is very handsome as an inspiration.

The thing is that designing furniture today is really a challenge. The need to really bring affordable furniture has changed the market. There are definitely better products available today than there were 20 years ago. Plus the consumer has more choices, more confidence and a better understanding of mixing and matching. Society is more relaxed, and lifestyles are more casual. Designing to that is an interesting challenge.

For a long time, leather furniture was in the doldrums. Now it's enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Why?
Historically, leather was considered very expensive and luxurious. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the American market was flooded with very commercialized leather furniture, which ran the gamut from very cheap to pretty good. But the European companies that were importing that furniture would offer only the pieces in black or ivory because they couldn't afford to give consumers a choice. That was incentive for consumers to buy the same thing. You know, “college graduate boy buys black leather sofa.”

As a result, that's all you saw. There were several competitors – most were Italia – and the style was watered-down, poor contemporary. That's kind of how leather got a bad rap. Now leather is hot again and you have many more choices. These furniture manufacturers have become business savvy, and they’re employing good engineers in the right kind of factories to offer quick turnaround and give consumers what they want. They're consumer-driven, not commodity-driven. Give the consumer what they want, along with delivery and customer service, and you've got a superior product.

Tanneries have also made great breakthroughs with different kinds of leather and ways of treating and stitching leather. Technology has also helped – there are new ways to cut through hide and do multiple hides simultaneously that saves time. It's more cost-efficient. Also European technology in how to construct certain kinds of seating has come to the U.S. market. All that has brought more style, fashion and value. As a result, there exist more products that are consumer acceptable. I've tried to make it more appealing in my own designs.

You're designing a line for American Leather. Tell me about it.
I'm part of the studio division, which is their couture area. My pieces tend to be frankly designed for the “other” rooms. They are alternatives to the big contemporary sofas. I have designed to the void, by working on a smaller scale for smaller spaces. My designs are transitional, not ultra-traditional, with lots of detailing. Really, I’ve taken an apparel approach to furniture design – women love leather, and they just like leather furniture generally. So I’ve put some of the bells and whistles on the furniture. My point of view is a woman's perspective on leather – it has become known as Saturday football stuff for the guys. Women have given that category of furniture up as default. But I have a more elegant approach to leather, as transitional and sometimes traditional without being fuddy-duddy.

What are some of the trends that lie ahead in furniture design? What sort of cycles are we heading into?
This market always cycles. We've been in this retro thing for a while, where we've kind of squeezed the 1940s,1950s and 1960s into a cocktail shaker and mixed it all together. I don't think that's going away. I also think that Asian fusion is very important because we're becoming such a global society. The Pacific Rim is beginning to influence all areas of furniture. Color is a big macro trend, and so is paring down. You’re going to see a continuation of “less is more.” That's a result of the high-tech age. Our lives are filled with such a clutter of information that we need serenity and quiet in our surroundings. We’re moving away from tons of stuff to a more minimal approach: more casual, less formal, more comfortable, more functional. You'll continue to see tech influences in products, and color is a reaction to that. For every trend, there's a countertrend.

Cristina Adams is editor of Design Insider.