2025 Showcase Design Award: Tineke Triggs

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For many interior designers, the San Francisco Decorator Showcase presents an opportunity to indulge their flights of fancy. After all, there typically isn’t a homeowner involved in the annual benefit for University High School’s financial aid program. “You get to showcase your ideas and dreams and designs in a very curated way,” says Tineke Triggs. “I don’t have a client to tell me no, so I get to keep going.”

Last year—her seventh time participating in the esteemed event—Triggs conjured a room for a fictional client to receive guests. “It’s this warm, inviting salon that’s a little bit sexy and also tells the story of the persona of the made-up homeowner,” she explains.

In the receiving room that her namesake firm conjured for the 2024 San Francisco Decorator Showcase, Tineke Triggs sourced several pieces from Hewn showroom (custom sofa by Marcali Designs, Triggs-designed coffee tables with Garrett Leather tops, Arbour chandelier by Martin Huxford, fireplace screen by Philip Nimmo), as well as a decorative mirror by Ali Yikin Glass Art Studio and round ottomans from Anthem. Photos by Christopher Stark.

Artful and textural elements populated the space, revealing an affinity for art and travel. A figurine from Africa graced the mantel painted by Willem Racké to resemble marble. Commissioned works by artists Cassandria Blackmore and Karin Onsager were on view alongside pieces from Dolby Chadwick Gallery. And Triggs collaborated with Luis Peña of PeñaMade on the bar cabinets that channeled Louise Nevelson’s wood sculptures and Chris Steele-Perkins’ 1978 photograph Disco. Wolverhampton, England.

The Venetian plaster walls were Racké’s handiwork as well, while the Brutalist-style design on the fireplace surround was done by MJ Atelier. Another custom creation, the Tibeténa rug, featured varying weaves and hues for a patchwork of thicknesses and heights. In a nod to the room’s previous life as a tack room, Triggs jokingly refers to the mustard-colored tufting as a horse’s mane. Triggs likens her layered approach, which also included antique mirror tiles on the ceiling, to an exactingly assembled outfit. “You don’t just wear a dress without a belt or piece of jewelry,” she says. “The idea with this room was for it to be extremely curated and finished.”