More Than a Material Girl

Soskin's professional roots stem from her days of creating picture-perfect window displays for Laura Ashley. Then, as an assistant to noted New York decorator Markham Roberts, she learned how to experiment with colours and textures. Today, with her own firm, Rebecca Tier Soskin Interior Design, she enjoys creating elegant yet innovative residential spaces that blend old and new, vintage and bold, florals and geometrics.

In addition to mixing her material magic for her own clients, she has a flock of followers worldwide that tune in to her posts on the Material Girls blog, where she joins "girls" from Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles to bring readers design inspiration from coast to coast.

"An LA home can look very different from a New York home," says Soskin, "especially with the differences in architecture. And, of course, design is based on the architecture."

Making the comparison that every design magazine has its own "feel and aesthetic," so, too, do the different cities represented on the Material Girls blog. "So the idea behind the blog was to bring this broad spectrum of design together and make it collaborative."

Soskin credits this creative "city concept" as one of the reasons why Material Girls stands out among many of the other design blogs out in virtual space. It's also a way for her to "spread and share" some of her favourite fabric collections, top furniture picks, and chosen works of favoured artists.

"We're all drawn to high-end design," Soskin admits. But she also uses her blog as a vehicle for reaching those who can't always afford a designer by including some do-it-yourself recommendations. "I basically just like to share sources, so if I can say, 'Here's the biggest bang for your buck,' I'll share that, too."

Soskin's design philosophy is to always create a room that's "calming and refreshing and relaxing," and she's known for strategically mixing in that beloved material of choice: anything textural. "I never want anything to fall too flat in the room," she says. "I like silky, modern, lacquered, clean pieces, but then I use texture to give a nice balance to the room so it doesn't feel too monochromatic or flat."

With the attention to detail Soskin affords her clients, it's hard to imagine how she also has time to make a virtual connection with the thousands of followers on her Material Girls blog. "It's a lot of work," she says, "but when you're passionate about what you're doing, it doesn't seem like work."

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