October 29, 2021
Annie Selke, Founder and Chief Vision Officer of The Annie Selke Companies and Kit Kemp, Founder and Creative Director of Firmdale Hotels and Kit Kemp Design Studio have joined creative forces to produce a lifestyle collection inspired by Kit Kemp’s favourite destinations – New York, London, and Barbados.
Drawing on the two design powerhouses’ love of travel and textiles, the collection captures the spirit of three iconic locales – translated into some 50 unique and storied rugs, dozens of exceptional pillows, bedding, and rug ottomans – viewed through Kit Kemp’s unique lens.
“We are known for adding character and style to interiors to make rooms look magical and sing. The opportunity to work with Annie Selke gives us a chance to create rug collections and lifestyle products for wherever in the world you live. We have named the collections after our favorite destinations London, New York, and the Caribbean. I think we can all do with a good splash of British eccentricity and style,” says Kit Kemp.
“I have always traveled a great deal for work and decided a long time ago that every night away from home should be uplifting and, when possible, inspiring. Kit Kemp’s hotels are the first hotels that made that wish come true,” says Annie Selke, President and Chief Vision Officer of The Annie Selke Companies. “This collection embodies the magic of Kit Kemp and the transformative spaces and experiences she creates.” Well-versed in the demands of hotels and other high-traffic spaces, the two founders leveraged that experience to create high style, high-performance rugs that will wear well over time.
The collection will debut in March 2022. For news and wholesale inquiries, please visit annieselke.com/kitkemp.com. The collection will be previewed in Atlanta in January 2022.
About The Annie Selke Companies, including Pine Cone Hill bedding and Dash & Albert rugs: In 1994, Annie Selke started the bedding business Pine Cone Hill on her dining room table in Richmond, Massachusetts.
More than twenty-five years later, the company employs over 220 staffers (50 of whom are based in India) and maintains a 179,000-square-foot headquarters, built around an 1863 woolen mill that produced uniforms and blankets for Union soldiers during the Civil War. The campus includes extensive warehousing, product design lab, an art and textile archive, a photo studio and the marketing, finance, and customer service teams.
Annie started Dash & Albert, a brand specializing in handmade cotton and wool rugs, in 2004, and the rugs soon made their way onto countless magazine covers and into the Obama White House.
Her rugs and bedding are sold through more than 6,000 fine retailers worldwide, including Garnet Hill, Sundance, and the luxury e-commerce retailer Perigold. In 2016, Selke launched a direct-to-consumer catalog that reaches millions of consumers annually.
Annie holds degrees in Textile Science from the University of Vermont and in Buying and Merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology. In 2010, she was named Massachusetts Small Business Person of the Year, and in 2017 she created the luxury inn 33 Main in Selke’s hometown, Lenox, Massachusetts offering consumers a brand immersion experience.
About Kit Kemp, Kit Kemp Design Studio and Firmdale Hotels: Kit Kemp is passionate about creating exciting and unique interiors. Over the years Kit Kemp MBE has been forging an internationally-acclaimed reputation, not only for her unique hotel interiors as Founder and Creative Director of Firmdale Hotels and the Kit Kemp Design Studio but also as a successful textiles, fragrance, and homewares designer, author and a highly-respected champion of British art, craft, and sculpture. Kit’s fourth book, Design Secrets, was published in May. She says, “Think of the ‘5 C’s’ and you can’t go wrong – Colour, Comfort, Craft, Curation, and Character. It is all about creating rooms that make a statement about you.”
The Kit Kemp Design Studio is celebrated for its individual and original approach to hotel and residential design, with colourful and detailed storytelling which celebrates craft and captures the imagination. Kit has won many awards including House & Garden’s Hotel Designer of the Year, The Crown Estate’s Urban Business Award and CN Traveller’s Best Hotel in the World for Design.
Following the launch of ShopKitKemp.com, Kit created an exclusive collaboration with Bergdorf Goodman in New York. For the first time it brought together the World of Kit Kemp with her collections of furniture, fabrics, fragrance and home accessories. November 2021 will see the collaboration go one step further with the re-design of the store’s concept restaurant Palette. Kit has transformed the space using signature fabrics and furnishings in celebration of art and design.
Firmdale Hotels comprise 8 hotels in London including the Ham Yard Hotel and Covent Garden Hotel, and two in New York, The Whitby Hotel and Crosby Street Hotel. Kit and Tim Kemp are acknowledged pioneers of service and design in the hotel world. They are innovative in their field, continually reshaping the hospitality industry and reinventing the hotel experience. They are currently building a third New York hotel in TriBeCa.
Kit Kemp is a Trustee of Fine Cell Work and the Heritage of London Trust.