Her Story
About Patrice
My journey into interior design began in an unexpected way when my husband and I were newlyweds living in Italy while he was in the military. I had these huge windows that needed something, so I got some sheets and started sewing balloon curtains that you could raise and lower. People started seeing them and would drop sheets off at my home, wanting me to sew curtains for them. When I came back to the States, I worked for a professional window treatment company for a while, and after that, I started my own window treatment business in 1989, focusing on soft window treatments as well as blinds and shades. It wasn't until a few years later that I went back to school and became a full interior designer. I'm a residential designer and I specialize in homes, making people's homes work for them when previously they were not what they needed them to do. One of my most notable achievements was restoring the Vagabond House, an 11,000 square foot Beaux Arts mansion from 1904. I worked on that project for about 2 to 3 years, completely redoing the entire first floor with original hand gilding, repadded upholstered walls, and complete refurnishing. That house was speaking to me, asking me to help restore it to what it once was. Even today, years later, people still come up to me and say they know I did the Vagabond house and tell me how beautiful it is. Now I own Patrice Munden Interior Design, which I started in 2002, though I've cut back on serving clients about 2 years ago to focus more on teaching. About 6 years ago, I taught just one class at Stevens, the Institute for Business and Art, a small university with only four majors including interior design, and I liked it a whole lot more than I thought I would. I now teach about 2 classes every term, and one of my favorite things is taking students to Chicago every year for Neocon, a big design conference at the design mart, because so many of them have never been to a design conference and some have never even left St. Louis.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Patrice
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to the strong entrepreneurial women in my family. My mother was a very successful entrepreneur who had her own record company and music business company back in the 50s and 60s. Her mother had a general store and a restaurant, and I've even done research that my great-grandmother had a small business doing washing and she also sold sandwiches. I think being raised by my mother and my grandmother played a large part in my wanting to be an entrepreneur and just kind of wanting to do things for myself. I think it was sort of what I saw every day. I won't say it was what they preached to me, but I think I got that from them. Both my daughters are entrepreneurs also, and we like to say it's in our blood.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was probably from one of my college instructors from Interior Design. She told me not to try to be a designer that tries to do everything. She said, you know, if someone calls you and they want to hire you, if they ask you can you do 10 things, don't say you can do all 10 things. She told me to find what I was really good at, find what I enjoyed doing, and kind of go with that. I don't want to be that everything designer where everything is sort of mediocre. I'd rather do the 20% that I do very well.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would advise them, just the same way as I tell my students, to explore as many different aspects of interior design that you can. Look into all of them, do maybe not one internship, do a couple of internships. And when you do get that first job, if you like it, great. If it's something that you don't see yourself doing forever, don't let that define your entire career. Get another position a couple years later. There's a whole world of design out there. Don't be locked into one little section of it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge for me is that I'm a residential designer and I specialize in homes, but many of my students are interested in healthcare design, and many of them are interested in learning what other types of design is out there. I guess I'm often challenged because I want to steer everyone towards what I've done, which is residential design. But there's so many other jobs out there now that I try to introduce them to, rather than just what I've done. So I try to introduce them to commercial design, textile design, even stage design. I have one former student now that's actually working at Gulfstream designing airplanes and the interiors for airplanes. I guess it's finding those avenues to introduce to my students, rather than just what I've done all these years.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think integrity is probably on the top of my list. You have to be not just true to yourself always, but you have to be true to your clients, you have to level with them. This isn't a career that you can play games with them and tell... the public out here today is much more educated, much more savvy when it comes to design, when it comes to pricing, when it comes to purchasing and sourcing items. I think you have to be someone that your clients can trust, and someone that they know is their advocate, who's really looking out for them. So I think the integrity, and just being on the up and up at all times is very important.
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