Cherished antiques and homeward-bound memories —
things such as these matter to Skok, who still travels regularly
to South Africa to visit family. Having developed an interest in
the interior design industry while living in London (“a South
African friend and interior designer dragged me through all the
scary antiques stores and snooty fabric houses”), Skok started
her own design firm in 1998, not long after arriving in Boston
(a result of her husband’s high-tech business interests). She
became known among clients for unerring taste in color and
interesting textiles (Central Asian suzanis and ikats) and an ability to find the odd antique that conveyed personality.
Skok has been a collector for years, and she doesn’t part with
too many treasures. Instead, she re-covers them. Side chairs, love
seats, sofas, and slipper chairs throughout the house have been
reupholstered and slipcovered many times over the years. And
she uses them. The Georgian-era dining room table and chairs
are family heirlooms. Antique transferware plates fill kitchen
shelves; vintage glassware stands ready in the dining room.
Color plays a leading role as well. Palettes in shades of
coral, aqua, and jade appear throughout the house, referencing
her lifelong love of the sea. (A family home in South Africa overlooks the Indian Ocean; she and her husband own a cottage on
Cape Cod.) Natural light streams into rooms through windows
that extend to the baseboard. “I wanted the look of windows from
English country houses, where you can walk out onto the terrace,” says Skok. “Love huge splashes of sun on the floor in the
morning — such a happy sight!” Throughout the house, 9-foot-
high ceilings enhance the sense of spaciousness.
Working with The Hartwright Co., a design/build firm
in Concord, Massachusetts, Skok incorporated architectural
aspects into the design that replicate those in Dutch Colonial
houses in South Africa. In the first-floor layout, for example,
the front-to-back entry is flanked by two “reception” rooms —
a formal sitting room and an elegant dining room. Functional
spaces extend from there. Beyond the dining room is the butler’s pantry and kitchen; beyond the sitting room is the sunroom
and study.
Embracing design inspirations from all her travels — not
to mention a fascination with textiles — Skok took her design
business in a new direction when she launched a fabric line
last year. Gradually, she is bringing the patterns into her rooms
and her outdoor spaces. One daughter’s bedroom got the full
treatment, with delicate pink wallpaper and curtains in a coordinating stripe. Elsewhere, Skok’s fabrics appear on slipcovers,
pillows, and outdoor furniture.
Perhaps because of her global base of family and friends,
Skok has taken to the online social-network world quickly and
wholeheartedly. She Twitters regularly (to more than a thousand
followers) and frequently posts to her blog (mallyskokdesign.
com). Indeed, the kitchen table in her Lincoln house — with
a table skirt of her own fabric, of course — is Twitter central.
There, Skok taps her laptop keyboard while taking in the pastoral landscape of pond and garden, working on new fabric designs
and colorways, and keeping her reach, as always, at least one
continent away.
design decisions For the Love of Textiles
Interior designer Mally Skok’s global vision inspired her first fabric collection. During a trip to India in 2008, she
began sketching patterns as she traveled. Returning home to Massachusetts, she made small watercolors and
took them to Peter Fasano, a Western Massachusetts fabric and wallpaper artisan whose work she had long
admired. The result: the “India Collection,” Mally Skok Design’s first fabric line, which debuted in the fall of
2009. Many of the fabrics feature small-scale patterns in aquas and pinks on neutral backgrounds, but
there are stripes and vivid overall patterns as well. Skok’s newest fabric line is “Ikat Crazy,” in linen or silk
taffeta, her rendition of an ancient woven textile. The line, carried in major showrooms in the United
States, England, and Australia, is available in Boston at Studio 534 in the Boston Design Center. Recently,
she even fielded a call from noted New York designer Mario Buatta: “He wanted some of my fabrics on the
spot! I was soooo flattered,” she says. What’s next? Skok is already working on the “Africa Collection.”
