Meet Allison Sloan Polish

Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Sloan Polish.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As an evening dress buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City at the turn of the millennium, I fell in love with color, texture, and pattern, but it was during my tenure as president of Spoonflower that I discovered a real passion for interior design. My philosophy is that design should be informed by function.

Over the years, I have honed my design skills in both commercial and residential projects and trained in Interior Design at Parsons School of Design in NYC. I started Sloan Polish Design in late fall 2020 and have thoroughly enjoyed helping my clients love where they live!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I am constantly learning and reinventing myself in my career. Each step along the way has fed into the next venture, but the connections were not always obvious. And two different layoffs led me to great new heights in my career.

My husband, young son, and I wanted to move back to North Carolina in 2007, so I left a job I loved in marketing and product development at a travel gear company in Saint Louis, Missouri. Given that there are not a lot of consumer products-based companies in the Triangle, certainly not in 2007, I pivoted to real estate development and took a job as director of marketing for a company called Scientific Properties. Three years and two kids later, I found myself laid off and looking to network. I had lunch with a new connection, Jeff Jones, who was president of the advertising agency McKinney at the time. While I had hired and worked with agencies before, I had never worked inside one, and Jeff and I took a chance on each other. I was offered a limited-gig account management position, and I soaked up all I could in my new role. Six months later, Jeff offered me a permanent role as an account director. I loved my time at McKinney, but when the agency lost a couple of major clients back in 2013, I found myself laid off again.

The fortunate thing about this layoff is that I already had some additional plans in the works. I had been exploring a way to build equity in a company and grow a business and brand. I had, in fact, been talking to Stephen Fraser and Gart Davis of Spoonflower, who were intrigued by my skillset and proposal to invest in the business and work alongside them. The trick was it made the most sense to test the waters first with a contract role; this way, we could make sure the chemistry between the three of us and the rest of the team really worked. This test involved me leaving my current job, which felt risky, as if it didn’t work out, I would find myself unemployed. But with the news of the McKinney layoff, there was no reason to not jump at this chance to explore things with Spoonflower. And boy, am I glad I did. After 5 months of working together, Stephen, Gart, and I closed the first investment round the company ever took, and I began an eight-year run of being an owner and partner in the business.

My current design business is yet another significant pivot in my career, and I found myself back in school yet again, learning new technical programs like SketchUp to create 3D models of my clients’ spaces.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a color-obsessed, fashion-loving, neat freak executive and creative. I love playing with pattern and texture inside the home or in the garden. I have a thing for doors, and clocks and earrings are my favorite accessory. Solving problems and completing to-do lists bring me great satisfaction, and I relax by singing karaoke in my living room and doing 1000-piece puzzles.

My family life is full with three sons, my husband, Jeff, and our vizsla, Ruby, so I know firsthand the importance of well-functioning spaces that keep the family sane, productive, and together.

I approach every project with a fresh eye and a personal approach. Through an interview process, I learn how your space needs to function and feel, and this is my jumping-off point. How does the space need to serve those who inhabit it? What is missing? What added forms would enable an uncluttered and neat environment that can easily be maintained? With the purpose and utility of a space as the driving factors, I uncover the potential and the beauty of the space.

I am big on personal expression, not overly stuffy spaces. My current home is what I consider colorful, modern farmhouse with touches of industrial, but my job is not to bring my style into your home. I work to uncover my clients’ styles and bring that to new levels previously unimagined. There is great satisfaction in working with clients from the architectural plans stage all the way through the house build and the furniture installation (usually a year plus time frame), but the one room makeover can be just as rewarding.  We make it all possible by partnering with great craftspeople to make new carpentry, lighting, flooring, paint, and more.  In addition to current projects in Durham, Chapel Hill, Pittsboro, and Carrboro, I am working on a modern, Scandinavian-inspired lakefront build in Lake Lure, NC.

I know that not everyone has fun with interior design, but I absolutely do. I work to bring the creativity and lessen the burden in what can be a very stressful, onerous process for my clients.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
With the interest rates so high and housing inventory locally still fairly low, I believe that more and more homeowners are going to be thinking about renovations and redesign, as opposed to moving. It offers a great opportunity to help clients reimagine their spaces to fit their current needs and ultimately, love where they live again.

I think home offices and outdoor spaces will continue to be important post-pandemic. The one trend I am looking forward to dying is boucle everything. Boucle fabric really came on big in 2020 and 2021, and I have never been on board. I think the fabric looks old and tatted right from the get-go. It is impractical for families, not to mention a bit rough and itchy on bare legs. Now velvet, I am here for that all day, and it can be great with pets!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sloanpolishdesign.com
• Instagram: sloanpolish
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-sloan-polish-5520677/

Image Credits
Griffin Hart Davis
Allison Sloan Polish
Sophie Piesse
Spoonflower