New York, jettprojects.com
An interior designer who worked for ASH NYC and Rafael de Cárdenas before striking out on his own in 2020, Jett grew up in rural Tennessee and was an Architectural Digest subscriber by the tender age of 8. Little did he know he’d end up two decades later as host of a breakout YouTube series for that same magazine, in which he dispenses home makeover advice with a mix of practicality and theater, advising one client to douse her bedroom nook in Gucci pink, or encouraging a studio apartment dweller to combine her sofa and bed into one. The thread running through Jett’s work is a sense of high drama — he’s partial to bedroom walls fully covered in velvet drapery, wall-to-wall silk carpeting, beds perched on leather platforms, mirrored backsplashes, murals, and more.

What is American design to you, and what excites you about it?

American design is a feeling of being free and untethered. What that looks like from an aesthetic point of view is entirely up to the creator. To envision your own world, blank slate, is the most exciting thing imaginable. What’s better than being untethered to a history and being able to pick and choose references so freely? Key point is doing your research.

What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year?

Loads more videos with Architectural Digest. More than anything, I love sharing creative and researched design with a wider audience that perhaps isn’t used to being challenged. The audience loves these videos and glimpses into process, and I believe it’s a result of the void in the market for something provocative and fun. It brings me so much joy.

For projects, we are crossing from one design world into another. Although all of my projects are tied together by seduction and storytelling, the look that is coming up is vastly different than what anyone has seen from me.

We are releasing two projects in the first half of the year that are in keeping with what you’ve seen — both are of a sexy, minimal, bachelor pad aesthetic that is achingly pure. Think stainless steel, carpeting, mirrors, and unabashed sex appeal. It is sort of funny because then the following projects will be like whiplash, a sort of reinvention which excites me terribly.

One is an ode to swinging 1960s London through an Art Nouveau lens for a fabulous young woman in fashion. Think Biba meets layer-upon-layer of passementerie and pattern, irreverent and young. Another home is a Raj-era Indian fantasy come to life, for a young couple from Karnataka, where every wall is either an intricate mosaic or covered in a mural, with floating canopy beds and loads of vibrant antiques textiles. Another is a friend’s house in the Berkshires: Think the countryside but on mushrooms. Lots of Bloomsbury references, and full of exciting color and humor. Very British, and very smart. On top of that, we have projects in the Middle East and Europe which are just coming to our pin-up boards.

What inspires or informs your work in general?

I’m a very curious person, and I won’t stop diving into a world until I know as much as I can about any particular subject. Once I’ve digested and applied it fully to a project, I close that chapter and move on to something of a completely different aesthetic.

I devour biographies and memoirs of people I aspire to be, whether it be in the world of interiors, fashion, entertainment or politics. My design library at home is rather extensive — I buy at least one new book each week. I read most every evening and early morning. Friends’ recommendations for movies. Listening to music that suits each project. David Bowie to Warda. I spend a lot of time at home, but it’s also important to meet people. Anyone from a different creative or business world inspires me — the people in my life who know fashion, cultural history, and commerce keep me curious and full of things to write down and look up.

Travel: I’ve just returned from three insane weeks in Japan, exploring the cities and countryside (equally as important to experience both). Before that was two weeks in Israel, Jordan, and Turkey, and one week in Portugal. I’m hoping for more long journeys in 2024 to places that are just as inspiring and influential to my process.

Quietness and solitude: Those are powerful moments to gain confidence, and the only time when electricity moves from your brain and into the physical realm.

I also have to work with clients who are invested in their lives, who are as curious by research and unforgiving to copy/paste as I am. They must be kind, gentle and open. They become my dearest friends, and they become my ultimate source of inspiration, as they become the main character in the set I am designing, for the movie called their life.