Sara Folch | Exclusive Interview

Sara Folch

Sara Folch, a renowned interior design studio based in Barcelona, was founded more than 25 years ago and has created hundreds of projects since then. The Spanish Interior Designer and her team have designed to the necessity of each client from a fresh perspective. Each project is a new opportunity to innovate, combine and create unique and personalized spaces considering each detail. All clients are different as well as every order that comes within. Best Interior Designers had the opportunity to interview Sara Folch in an exclusive talk to get to know more about her career and future in this industry.

Best Interior Designers – How did you get involved in the interior design Industry?

Sara Folch: I was inspired by my mother. When I was a kid, my mother always worked with textiles and taught me how to combine colors and fabrics in order to get the best result. I have been following her advice ever since and I believe it’s part of my design. Textiles, as you see in my projects play an important role to the global atmosphere.

Best Interior Designers – How would you describe your work style? Do you have any kind of signatures that help to identify your projects?

Sara Folch: I do not have a specific style. My clients and their needs are my styles. I can do a classical design if that’s what the client wants but also a minimalistic project if the needs of the customer demand that path. Each client is completely different, and so are the lifestyles, their needs, and their dreams. That’s why all my projects are completely different because all my clients are different as well.

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Best Interior Designers – Be in love with our work is always the key to achieve better results. Are you in love with this job? What do you love most about being an interior designer?

Sara Folch: Of course I’m in love. I do not feel like working. I enjoy every single day of my work. That feeling when you receive the first call or the last hand-shake before opening the door to the client’s property. However, the best feeling I have is when the client believes in my work, in my projects, and they just trust my instinct and accept my proposals. When they see the final result and they realize that it is the same place as before but still are astonished with the final result. That’s the best feeling at my work.

Best Interior Designers – What is your philosophy on design and life?

Sara Folch: Good work is always a better way forward. Doing something right will allow better things to come later. It takes the same time to do something bad or good, choose the best path. Do not take the shortcut.

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INSPIRATION

Best Interior Designers – Keep up to date on all the trends is essential for anyone who wants to conquer this market. In what ways do you keep current with new trends?

Sara Folch: Creativity. A creative person will always have new ideas, see forms and objects out of places that no one would see them. When you admire someone’s job, you are already appreciating art. You can copy, but you will never be the original. That is why, as much as you copy, you won’t make a difference. Creativity is the way forward.

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Best Interior Designers – Which major international events do you attend/follow to get the latest novelties?

Sara Folch: Salone del Mobile Milano is probably my go-to international event to see what other designers and creative minds have been working on. I get inspired from a lot of their work and you can feel how art is not only on museums, but also on each home that went for an original piece.

Best Interior Designers – All artists need some inspiration to work, and interior designers are artists too. So, what or who really inspires you?

Sara Folch: Great minds. Mies Van Der Rohe, Antoni Gaudí, Le Corbusier… completely different designs, but all of them with a vision that no one expected at that time. But we only think as designers for inspiration, but in fact… I love to travel to millenarian and contemporary places. Why? Traveling you see different styles, precious landmarks, and creativity. Someone could say that Giza pyramids are just three big triangles. I would say that they cannot see the masterminds behind those beautiful edifications.

Best Interior Designers – Inspiration is something that pushes everyone to create unique things. What makes you see the world in a different way?

Sara Folch: I always say that if you want something to be different, you have to be different. That is why I always think of different designs, work on different projects, work with different styles and cultures. Because, seeing a different world, means that you can not remain the same.

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Best Interior Designers – If you had to pick one project around the world that you wish it was made by you, which one would it be?

Sara Folch: Houses, hotels, restaurants, boats, gyms… all these are some of the elements I have already worked on, and I love every single one of them. However, working as a creative director on a movie would be something out of the ordinary, something unique, different and that I would love to do.

PROJECTS

Best Interior Designers – How important is a perfect chemistry between you and your clients to achieve the best results?

Sara Folch: There is no project if you do not understand the clients’ needs and if the client does not trust your work. We do not work for ourselves, we design to achieve a goal. That goal is that the customer feels perfection every single day that they see their homes, boats, offices, restaurants, hotels… Even a cinema or a theatre has to be perfect. That is why all my first meetings I ask my clients their needs and about their lives. It is a really private matter, but after all, you are becoming part of their future. You are deciding the comfort of their house. Trust is not easy to reach, but we work every single day to learn more about our clients and to make sure that they understand the importance of having a perfect chemistry between them and my studio.

Best Interior Designers – Choose the best pieces to compose a project can be the secret to getting the best overall result. Although it seems easy, this is a delicate task and needs full attention on time to execute. Do you have some tips for those who do not know well how to start a challenge like this?

Sara Folch: I always design my best pieces. Why? Because they will be different from what everyone can see everywhere. I like being different, that is why small details make a difference. Using leather allows me to have a higher end product with a beautiful finish. Add art work, it is really important and people feel at home if they see something else a part of white or colored walls.

Best Interior Designers – Do you think working with teams in interior design is better or worse than working alone? Why?

Sara Folch: There is no way you can work alone in this field. You can be a great creative, but you still need someone to draw those ideas into paper and make it understandable to engineers, carpenters, electricians, gardeners, painters… If you want to work alone, you will not even be able to understand what the job is about. You can be perfect at drawing, but if you do not have a creative mind or your workers are not capable to see that design, you will have nothing. And you can probably imagine something extraordinary, but reality means experts, will let you know if that is possible and if not, why it is not.

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FUTURE

Best Interior Designers – Is there anything exciting that you are working on at the moment that you can tell us about?

Sara Folch: We just opened a new hair dresser concept. It is the new Alberto Cerdán Spaces hair dressing studio and we have mixed real life experiences with technology. Hair dressers are the main actors on this new space, as there is a big round table of 3 meters wide on the middle of the place where clients seat around it. So if you want to interact with other customers or your friends going to the hair dresser with you, you can simply do it as you can see their faces without any mirrors in the middle. And then, all of this is allowed thanks to an exclusive light that I designed for this space that uses technology so lights can adapt to the needs of the moment and dim the lights or change colors. It’s all thought on functionality and the needs of the new stars of the show, the hair dressers.

Best Interior Designers – What has been your greatest accomplishment as a designer? What goals do you have for the future?

Sara Folch: The trust I built with clients that after 28 years of studio, they still repeat when they have a new project. Another of my greatest accomplishments is that from my studio in Barcelona, I design globally and I deliver the best interior design projects despite the distance.

Best Interior Designers – Do you have a favorite project or a favorite story about one of your projects?

Sara Folch: All of them. They are all special as my clients are special as well. Each and every one of them has taught me something new. I would not change any one of them.