headshotAfter completing a degree in fine arts, Pennsylvania native Carl Dellatore moved to New York City in the summer of 1983. For more than a decade he designed patterned textiles for the apparel industry before opening D&F Workroom, a Chelsea-based studio producing custom upholstery and window treatments for the interior design industry. In addition, he soon established CJ Dellatore Textile, his own line of furnishing fabrics.

After Dellatore’s work and textiles were featured in such magazines as House & Garden and Martha Stewart Living, he was asked by Marian McEvoy, editor-in-chief of House Beautiful, to contribute a regular column on the use of current fabrics in the home. Entitled Swatch Watch, and produced in collaboration with decorating editors Carolyn Sollis and Elaine Wrightman, the highly popular column ran for three years and was compiled as The Fabric Style Book by Hearst in 2007.

Encouraged by the book’s success, and inspired by Edith Wharton’s pioneering guide, The Decoration of Houses, Dellatore began a more ambitious project: He invited a broad selection of America’s leading interior designers each to contribute an essay on one aspect of his or her professional work, ranging from practical matters such as the use of scale, color, or texture to more theoretical musings such as the influence music, psychology, or film can have on design. The result, published this year by Rizzoli, is the best-selling Interior Design Master Class: 100 Lessons from America’s Finest Designers on the Art of Decoration, an encyclopedic survey of contemporary decorative practice that has become an instant classic.

Rizzoli has optioned three more books from Dellatore in the coming decade, with work on the next title, Garden Design Master Class, to begin in January of 2017. In a further extension of his skills as an editor, curator, and trenchant observer of today’s design universe, Dellatore has established a content development and brand building consultancy for clients in design, architecture, and related creative industries. For more information on the firm, follow this link.