Alfredo Paredes Speaks on Serendipity and Trusting His Instincts

This sui generis approach springs to life on the pages of Alfredo Paredes: At Home (Rizzoli), the designer’s debut monograph that journeys into four of his own residences. Throughout his homes in Locust Valley, the East Village, Shelter Island, and Provincetown, the all-American style he helped oversee for Ralph Lauren is palpable in details like a vintage American flag anchoring a primary bedroom or vintage wicker tables lending rugged textures. And fittingly, Lauren pens the foreword. “I took him under my wing because I saw not just his talent, but his passion and love for creating and storytelling,” Lauren writes. “As much as he is devoted to working, Alfredo never forgot about living, which is what this beautiful book celebrates.”

In an interview that has been edited for length and clarity, Paredes weighs in on serendipity, branching out on his own, and gut instincts.

I’m a first-generation Cuban American. Coconut Grove, Miami, was very hippie counterculture in the ‘60s. Architecturally, there was a ton of pastiche—they really tried everything. Midcentury houses, Spanish houses, Dutch houses, and Art Deco. There was a gallery down the road called the Black Widow Spider where they made the type of lace dresses that Stevie Nicks would wear. I’d ride my bike to the shop, sit on the floor, and think “this is the ultimate place to be.” It felt so creative, and Miami wasn’t the most creative place back then.

I wasn’t emotionally ready to come to New York City, so I studied art in Atlanta and worked in the home furnishings department at Laura Ashley for a year. I was the only guy on a team of 30 women. Halfway through, the woman in charge of visuals left, so the manager asked me to take over. Before you knew it, I was getting recognition. I moved to another company, Britches of Georgetown, and worked with a man named Stephen Brady who eventually left for Ralph Lauren to work on the [Rhinelander Mansion] and suggested I join him. At the age of 22, they gave me a job with a big salary and set me up with an apartment right away.

When the mansion opened, I was overseeing the men’s series: the displays, clothes, and rigs. I learned right away and flourished in that situation. Our vice president of creative services, Jeff Walker, died of AIDS in 1991. They put me in charge a year later and soon I managed the home design studio. At the end, I was executive vice president of store development globally. That meant we built and designed the shops and managed all the visual teams for our showrooms, offices, and the Home Collection Design Studio. The windows were everything, so I was able to really set design the home collection. And it was all stream of consciousness. 

Working for Ralph taught me that if someone throws you the football, run. People tend to get paralyzed and not make decisions. We were too big to dilly dally, and he knew I wanted to make a really powerful statement. I learned how to trust my gut. 

When I was shopping around for my new office, we looked at all these horrible spaces before finding [the former studio of the late fashion designer Isabel Toledo and her husband, the artist Ruben], which was near The Ned Nomad and the Ritz-Carlton. I had to be somewhere else, but my broker told me to change my appointment. It was serendipitous. We started paying rent even though we didn’t need the space for another five months.

Trusting your gut is more challenging when you’re working for a client because you have to convince them. My homes are much more instinctual. There are times when I’ve had to think in advance—everything had to be craned into my East Village apartment, for example. My house on Shelter Island took longer. I don’t love Victorian homes, but it started to feel like an Edward Hopper painting as we started to peel things away. Home means everything to me. It’s where you put your head at night; it’s where memories are stored and where life happens.

When my daughter was born 11 years ago, Ralph Lauren was getting more intense. Nothing specific made me want to jump ship, but I wanted to express myself. I had been accustomed to sitting in the backseat. The biggest challenge was feeling comfortable enough to step out on my own and figure out my brand. My studio launched four months before the pandemic, so I was able to think slowly about what exactly I wanted to say. I had the chance to detox. 

I’ve lived in the visual world my whole life. Because many of my houses were already published, I had already seen them from a third-person perspective. When I look at the book, what sticks out most is something I learned from Ralph: approaching things from a masculine standpoint. Though feminine things are going on, there’s irreverence and sex appeal. That always attracted me—Coconut Grove in the ‘70s was very louche!

When we started putting the book together, our art director kept going back to family pictures on my Instagram. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include them, but those details bring life to these things. Empty rooms aren’t that exciting. My partner [the writer and editor Brad Goldfarb] used to work at Interview, so he really got to the bottom of me as a creative while balancing details about our lives. Seeing everything in print at the end was very cathartic.