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With all due respect to Granite City, Illinois, Kim Seybert looks like she may never have spent a day in the city—much less an entire childhood there. Sleek and sophisticated in a black dress with leggings, to-die-for bracelet and black patent shoes trimmed in dark red, she now resides in New York City but today she stands in the middle of Neiman Marcus fending questions and advising party givers about her line of table top accessories. Each piece is as chic as that black bangle adorning her wrist.
It all dates back to the night when she had a dinner party of her own. A fashion designer whose company, A J Barrie, had recently gone under, she was pondering her next move. She set the table and stepped back. It was all white. White tablecloth, white hemstitched napkins.
As a fashion designer who created brightly colored highly textured clothes, her table was an anomaly. So she started making place mats and napkin rings. "My friends started asking if they could buy them," Ms. Seybert recalls. She proceeded to create more and after mustering up the courage, took a sampling to a buyer at Neiman Marcus. He placed an order for beaded placemats to be sold in all of Neiman's stores.
Ms. Seybert turned to the factories overseas, which had made her dresses, to now start manufacturing her table top creations. "A business was born," she says. "I was very, very fortunate. Neiman Marcus was very helpful in developing the business."
And the business has boomed. Look at the L'Oreal commercial for it's lipstick Infallible. The napkin Beyoncé uses is from Kim Seybert's collection. The linens Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big use in "Sex and the City"? Ditto. A glance at a few items in the product line shows why.
Look at this gold beaded charger
or these napkins
or these napkin rings. I'd wear them if I could.
Are they expensive, you wonder? Yep, they're certainly not cheap. But are they worth it? It's your call but I'd say definitely.
As Ms. Seybert describes it, using great place mats and napkin rings, etc. is simply applying your fashion sense to your tabletop. She suggests you take your basic white china and accessorize it with her creations. The products are sold online at kimseybert.com or at Neiman's, Bergdorf Goodman,300 specialty stores and at Harrod's in London and Barney's Japan.
Christy Marshall, editor-in-chief
