In July 2021, designer Elsie St. Léger began her one-year term as President of the International Interior Design Association’s New York Chapter. An assistant project manager for NYU Langone Health’s Interiors Department, she is also a co-founder of Equity Council, a consortium of industry professionals developed in 2020 to address diversity and inclusion issues in architecture and interior design. St. Léger recently discussed with us these initiatives, and her plans for her presidency.
Troy Segal (TS): What exactly do we mean by achieving diversity in design?
Elsie St. Léger (ES): “Diversity in design” is not quite the right term. It’s very amorphous—can mean anything. What we should be talking about is equity in design. Equity in design is about ensuring we have a diverse set of voices. It’s not just the traditional white male making decisions through his prism but bringing in the voices of women and more voices of women of color.
We don’t have great statistics in terms of interior design, but we can look to architecture and assume that the numbers are similar. The number of registered Black architects, for instance, is less than 2% of the more than 116,000 registered architects. The number of Black women is even smaller than that. It’s what we started to look at last year in earnest and how we came to form the Equity Council.
TS: Tell me about that.
ES: The conversation started as, “What are the numbers? How many Blacks, period, are in interior design?” But also, once we’ve got the numbers, where do we go? What do we do? So, then we came up with Four Pillars for the workplace. The first is culture of inclusion—making sure that all voices can be heard, and that people feel comfortable speaking up and speaking out, without being punished or judged. The second pillar is diversity—not just racial diversity, but also cultural and gender. The third pillar is education: obviously, providing access to design education or a route to training, but also providing tools to educate ourselves and each other. The fourth is communication. Do the leaders talk to those that they’re leading? Can the juniors talk to the intermediaries, and to the C-suite?
All the pillars are interdependent. You can’t have one without the other three.
TS: Now, are you talking about the way interior design professionals interact with each other?
ES: That’s a key part of it. But it’s not just within a firm or a manufacturer or a company. It’s also with everyone involved in just day-to-day being an interior designer—whether you’re working with clients, whether you’re working with partners, whether you are paying your electricity bill, or whatever it is. That sense of equity, that sense of everyone being in some sense equal, that’s part of the DNA of what we do and how we interact with each other.
TS: So, what’s the first step?
ES: We’ve established a Design Industry Pledge and created an assessment that signers would complete. Because we don’t have a baseline, we’re now creating that baseline. Signers work from that assessment to begin an annual reporting process to measure progress.
TS: How exactly is Equity Council going to function with IIDA?
ES: Equity Council is under the IIDA New York umbrella, but it is an independent entity. During its first year, I will not be involved in the day-to-day, will not officially be a part of Equity Council. I will be focusing on being president of the chapter.
TS: Speaking of which, what are some of your specific plans for these initiatives as president?
ES: IIDA New York Chapter will be signing the Equity Council’s pledge and doing the assessments. So, that’s going to be a pretty big thing right there.
We’ve also got a new mission statement and vision. We had one before, but it wasn’t as clear. Our clearer mission is, “IIDA New York chapter is an inclusive community of creative and diverse professionals, industry partners, and students. We celebrate design, encourage collaboration, share knowledge, and advocate for the interior design profession.”
So, my mission is to continue communicating that, to celebrate design in all its forms, to really encourage collaboration. Collaboration can mean anything. It can mean conversation, it can mean working across sectors, it can mean designer/manufacturer, it can mean student to mentor. Interior design is naturally a collaborative type of work, so we’re leaning into it.
IIDA provides accredited events for our members, so it’s also about education and training. And advocating for the interior design profession, making sure that we are certified or registered in the same way that architects are and that we receive the same level of professional respect. I’ve got a degree. Most of my colleagues have degrees. Many of them are certified interior designers and so we are advocating for the codification of that training, and we continue to advocate vigorously for it.
TS: What about the ranks of the membership? Would you like to grow it or expand who’s eligible?
ES: We certainly would. We’re not an elitist organization by any means. So, we welcome students and, in fact, have a robust program that we are looking to make even more rich Implementing programs involving younger students [in grades] 6 through 12 as well as design students.
We are reaching out to new or, what would euphemistically be called non-traditional communities, meaning kids of color who normally would not be the first line of outreach for something like this. But we are looking to reach more and more young students of color and expose them to interior design and to design in general. “Hey, maybe you want to be an architect. Maybe you want to be an interior designer. And if you’ve never heard of it, here it is.”
TS: I’m sure a lot of young people, even if they’ve heard of interior design, wouldn’t even realize all that an interior designer does—like the emergency revamp of NYU Langone Health Hospital to prepare for COVID-19 patients, which you did last spring.
ES: No, they wouldn’t. I didn’t know it until I took the job! But if we’re out there talking to kids, and they say, “What do you do, Elsie?” I’ll say, “Well, I work for a hospital. I’m an interior designer.” “What does that mean?” There’s a little bit of exposure. They may not go, “I want to work for a hospital,” but there’ll be just a kernel of an idea in their head somewhere.
TS: I’d meant to ask you about your “achieving equity” plans and then your other plans, but it sounds like everything is intertwined.
ES: Yeah. I can’t separate one from the other. I can’t talk about design and not talk about equity, and I can’t talk about equity without talking about design. Design is everywhere. Everything that we touch is designed, whether formally or informally, by nature or man-made. Design is everywhere. So, equity should be everywhere.
A lot of people outside the profession see interior design and architecture as sort of elitist—which is hilarious because if they knew what we got paid….! Seriously, though, what isn’t a given is access to the channels and the avenues that allow for opportunity. Equity is about opening those channels up to more people. You cannot think that an industry is going to grow when you’re only going for a certain type of person.
TS: This time next year, as you’re handing over the torch to the next president, what’s the one thing you would like people to say you accomplished?
ES: I hope people say they could always come to me—that I kept the door open and a conversation going. I’m looking forward to really embracing the organization and somehow moving the needle one little bit at a time, so that we become a more equitable industry. To relay the message: We would like interior design to be for all, and so all races are welcome.
Troy Segal is a New York City-based freelance writer specializing in the fine and decorative arts, and their impact on society.