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    Billionaire Diva In Houston

    Billionaire lifestyle diva hits Houston, takes on every aspect of beautiful living: Move over Ralph Lauren!

    Shelby Hodge
    shelby hodge
    Dec 20, 2014 | 12:03 pm

    As style and image director for Estée Lauder and more recently founder and creator of the luxury lifestyle brand Aerin, Aerin Lauder is one busy woman. Witness her recent visit to Houston when she made personal appearances at Neiman Marcus to talk beauty products, to Circa Lighting to talk lamps and chandeliers and finally to Longoria Collection in Uptown Park where she wowed fans with her home furnishings and accessories line — all in one day.

    The indefatigable Lauder first worked at her grandmother's beauty empire, Estée Lauder Companies, in the summers during college and then began the climb through the ranks by starting at Prescriptives. After earning the mantle of style and image director, the mother of two young sons expanded her oeuvre to include lifestyle. Move over Ralph Lauren as she continues to expand Aerin from home furnishings and accessories to soon include bedding.

    "Color can be tricky. I think color is great to live with but it's easy to make mistakes in color."

    In 2012 she launched a capsule, edited beauty collection, followed that holiday season with candles and home objects. Over the past two years, she has added 11 categories, collaborations that include everything from sunglasses to lighting fixtures. That's a lot of work for the woman who reached the billionaire ranks last year according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

    CultureMap sat down for a brief chat with Lauder during her Longoria Collection visit.

    CultureMap: In your book Beauty at Home (published last year), you share images of your homes in New York and the Hamptons and provide inspiration for DIY decorators. What is your definition of beauty in the sense of home?

    Aerin Lauder: It means something different for everyone because for me the definition of beauty and what makes you happy for me is about friends and family and it's living with items that have been handed down generation to generation and total comfort.

    CM: What is the key to successfully decorating a home?

    AL: If you really go with elements that you love, you can't go wrong. Also, comfort is very important. And I think that light fixtures can create a room. I've always loved lighting and that's one of the reasons that it's one of our largest categories. If you put a ceiling fixture up or you have a floor lamp, even if you have no other furniture, it immediately creates a space.

    CM: How would you define the Aerin line?

    AL: It's about comfort and wonderful home objects. Even when you are sitting in a dining room chair like these (from her collection and where we are sitting) they're super comfortable — the beautiful fabric, the finishes, the textures, the different accents all work together. Also, we do a lot of these wonderful home objects. It's a big category for us.

    So it's the whole idea of accessories for you home, picture frames, vases, candy dishes. It's the whole idea of making your home feel inviting and warm.

    CM: From articles on your homes that have appeared in Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and Harper's Bazaar, it's obvious you have a penchant for blue and white but I don't see it so much in this collection. What is your take on color in home design?

    AL: Color can be tricky. I think color is great to live with but it's easy to make mistakes in color. I think you should live with color but do it in a subtle way. I think sometimes you can play with color in a smaller room or as an accent but in my experience a bright, bright color in a large room is hard to live with. I use a lot of gold — matt gold, textured gold — in my accessories. It's a great accent.

    CM: As you expand the brand next to include bedding, it sounds as if you are giving Ralph Lauren Home a run for the money.

    AL: Ralph Lauren is a wonderful role model and I do think there is a great opportunity in the market place for a feminine approach to lifestyle with a sense of heritage . . . It's very exciting it has made me so proud of what we've accomplished with a very small team but an incredible team.

    And I think my grandmother would be proud as she always advised me to follow my dreams, work hard and be passionate about what I do.

    Aerin Lauder, photographed in her Manhattan living room heads a lifestyle brand empire that embraces her Estée Lauder heritage and her contmeporary tastes.

    Aerin Lauder at Longoria Collection Houston event December 2014 portrait
      
    Photo courtesy of Aerin Lauder
    Aerin Lauder, photographed in her Manhattan living room heads a lifestyle brand empire that embraces her Estée Lauder heritage and her contmeporary tastes.
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    American made

    Top Houston restaurant builder now crafting custom furniture and lighting

    Emily Cotton
    May 9, 2025 | 3:00 pm
    Custom Concepts Furniture & Lighting office lobby The Kennedy
    Photo by Josh Gremillion
    The company designed and built the furniture and lighting for The Kennedy.

    The last two decades have seen astronomical growth for Houston’s culinary and hospitality scene, even attracting the Michelin Guide to the Bayou City. While the fare remains of utmost importance, the most radical transformation in how diners select restaurants is all about aesthetics. If cozy dinners, matcha runs, and milestone celebrations don’t make “the ‘gram,” did they even happen?

    These days, hospitality design has to be bolder, swankier, and sexier than ever before in order to attract an elevated clientele, all while remaining practical and commercial grade in construction quality. While it has become de rigueur for restaurateurs to announce which top interior designer or architectural firm has created their latest opening, it is somewhat less common to hear about the construction firms who translate those designs into the physical realm, but that’s about to change.

    Construction Concepts — the award-winning build team behind some of Houston’s trendiest restaurants such as Marmo, Graffiti Raw, Doris Metropolitan, and Cocody, their collaboration with Houston design star Nina Magon (the full list is an astonishing 400 projects) — have launched an ambitious new venture in hopes of revolutionizing the furniture and other furnishings used in hospitality design throughout Houston. Joshua Weisman and Mark Bordman’s new stand alone project, Custom Concepts Furniture & Lighting, delivers bespoke furniture and lighting solutions for restaurants, hotels, hospitality, and corporate spaces.

    Trendy Houstonians have more than likely experienced the Custom Concepts Furniture & Lighting treatment without having realized it. New hot spots Chardon, Melrose, and Solarium have all been outfitted with Custom Concepts creations, with highly-anticipated Succulent and Recess both hot on their heels.

    After 20 years on the build side of the business and being recognized with 16 Houston Business Journal Landmark Awards for projects across four categories, the why behind creating the new company becomes clear.

    “We saw an incredible need for this product and service; it’s an underserved market. There’s very limited options for people to go find these products and we have a passion for unique designs and builds — eclectic, neat pieces,” Weisman tells CultureMap. “There’s just no big surplus for it. You’re either custom making it, or you’re going to a big box store and seeing what you can find.”

    With a robust team numbering almost 30 people, Custom Concepts handles everything for clients from design all the way to white glove delivery and installation, plus an absolutely unheard of two-year warranty on all of their products. Lead time on bespoke pieces is around 12 weeks, lighting is 8-10 weeks, and furniture requires 10-12. Amazingly, their in-stock catalog line of approximately 2,000 SKUs is ready-to-go. “You could call tomorrow and say ‘I need 40 stools with backs in this color,’ and we’d give you four or five models to choose from,” says Weisman.

    Given Custom Concepts’ quality and elite clientele, one could easily assume that services are mildly cost prohibitive. Shockingly, this isn’t the case. “Our pricing, being straight to manufacturer, is considerably less than retail. Our pricing is very aggressive and competitive compared to the national market — 40-50 percent less than nationwide retailers,” says Weisman. “We build things to last that are amazing and affordable,” adds Bordman.

    Restaurants and hospitality make up 90 percent of Custom Concepts’ business, but residential clients are not unheard of. Weisman tells CultureMap that some higher-end clients will reach out to them directly when in need of lighting and furnishings for an entire home. Otherwise, they work directly with designers. “We love having designers come in and run wild with it — and we manufacture it from scratch,” says Weisman. “Whatever their vision is, we will bring it to market for them.”

    Attention to detail is undoubtedly the cornerstone of Custom Concepts. Furnishings have felt padding to protect floors and all tables — like those at Chardon — have a velvety felt underlining to protect their clientele’s delicate garments from catching, no detail is insignificant.

    “Just being proactive in the design and product that we’re delivering, we’ve been in this arena for so long, why not go the extra step,” says Weisman. “Really refining your product and what you’re giving your client; let’s do these added features, let’s do the ‘wow’ factor. If you can make it flawless, why not?!” Why not, indeed.

    Custom Concepts Furniture & Lighting office lobby The Kennedy
      

    Photo by Josh Gremillion

    The company designed and built the furniture and lighting for The Kennedy.

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