Dennis Shah Makes Print Work

AB: What’s your house look like? Wallpaper in every room?

DS: [Laughs] Not in every room… We’re trying to pick a third one for the living room. In my bathroom we have one of our naughty little designs called “Lock and Key,” which lays out like trellis, but it’s not, it’s a chain with locks and keys hanging from them. And we put it in the pink color way. We color them in different ways and this way kind of look likes channel, but if you pick it in the black color way, it’s very S&M.

In our bedroom we have one of my favorite wallpapers in the collection, our first one, which is called Syrie, which is named after Syrie Maugham – she was an interior decorator and the wife of Somerset Maugham – there’s a Persian tree of life design, but it’s a very modern take on it and we printed it in a custom just for our bedroom: white on a black grass cloth. We offer that in a very limited market, but it’s something that I really wanted in our bedroom. And we stained the walls chocolate brown – it’s very – you walk in – it’s very rich and very warm, very inviting.

AB: Where are you from originally?

DS: I was born and raised in India – Bombay.

AB: When did you come here?

DS: 1983.

AB: For school?

DS: Yes – I studied Computer Engineering and then I got an MBA. I don’t really have an art background.

AB: Were you always interested in art and interiors or did this sort of happen?

DS: I had an interest and this was a family business where we have a company that manufactures wallpaper and so I got involved in it and I really enjoyed it, because it pulled together my business background and my interest in the arts. Temo was a client of mine and I used to work a lot with him and that’s when we started talking about these ideas. I learned a lot from him. We thought we were crazy when we put the first collection together because it’s so artist-based and also the kinds of things that you wouldn’t see in the market. We seem to have caught a moment.