Who

Clodagh is the uni-named feng-shui-happy designer known for her work on spas, restaurants and hotels.

Backstory

Ireland native Clodagh de Sillery started off her career as a fashion designer, borrowing £400 from her parents to launch her first fashion line at the age of 17. The line fizzled out a few years later and she settled in Spain, which is where she says she first developed an interest in interiors; by 1983, she'd decamped to New York and opened a downtown showroom and design firm. One of the first interior designers to embrace and popularize the feng shui craze, she's since bagged a steady succession of commissions. She's also branched out with Clodagh Signature, a licensing and product design division that crafts furniture, lighting, textiles, accessories, and carpets.

Of note

Clodagh is best known for her earthy aesthetic, which features lots of rough-hewn, exposed wood and stone, a look that's made her especially popular in the spa community. She crafted the look of New York's Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa, the Mezzanine Spa in SoHo, Pennsylvania's Nemacolin Woodlands Spa, and the Sasanqua Spa in South Carolina, which earned her several industry awards. She's also taken on a number of residential commissions, creating spaces for Robert Redford, record executive Sylvia Rhone, and now-retired baseball player Mo Vaughn. She's worked on hospitality projects, too: In 2006, she lent her signature look to chef Marc Murphy's restaurant Landmarc in the Time Warner Center. (Unfortunately, critics weren't too taken with the results—one thought the rows of rusted steel bars on the restaurant's ceiling looked like set pieces from the horror movie Saw II.) Clodagh is now at work on the interior of The Caledonia, a high-end rental building in the Meatpacking District that Steve Ross's Related Companies is developing.

The look

Clodagh restricts herself to an all-black wardrobe. She says that as she works with color all day, wearing it "upsets my color sense and balance." She also rarely wears jewelry since it makes her less "aerodynamic."

Personal

The vegan designer is married to Daniel Aubry, a French-born photographer. She has two sons: Tim, an ad agency exec who lives in Amsterdam; and Peter, who works as a lighting designer and fine artist in Dublin. (A third son passed away at age 23.) Clodagh and Aubry live in SoHo and spend vacations at a 300-year-old converted cowshed in Cork, Ireland.