Décor Meets Wedding Fashion with Designer/Blogger Vané Broussard

Interior designer Vané Broussard has been styling homes since her days as a young intern in New York. Today, she works for Ghislaine Vinas Interior Design, which recently made the cover of Interior Design Magazine and won Best of the Year for 2012. Broussard is also the founder and editor of the first modern wedding blog, Brooklyn Bride. Born in Istanbul to an Istanbul-Armenian father and an Egyptian-Armenian mother, one-year-old Broussard moved to the United States with her family, where she cultivated her love for fashion and design. She spoke with the Weekly about her double careers, and the passion she shares for both designing and blogging.

Vané Broussard (first from left)
Vané Broussard (first from left)

Lilly Torosyan: How did you get your start in interior design?

Vané Broussard: During my senior year at Skidmore College, with a pending degree in English literature, I decided that I wanted to take a more creative route in my career, and started looking into graduate schools in New York City for interior design. I was accepted into Pratt Institute’s graduate program for that fall. One of my professors took us to an office project in Manhattan, and I was so enamored with the design that I called up the designer and asked for an internship, which after graduation turned into a full-time job.

LT: Congratulations on your recent accolades from Interior Design Magazine with your firm, Ghislaine Vinas Interior Design. How has this experience affected you?

VB: It’s actually our second time winning this particular award and being on the cover, but it never gets old! It’s so rewarding to be recognized for all the work that went into a project of this scale. We had been working on that project for four years. Making the award and cover was just the icing on the cake. Since the cover, the project has been featured on a lot of online outlets and will be published internationally, which is always exciting.

LT: Your website, Brooklyn Bride, is the first bridal blog to focus on modern weddings. How did you come up with the idea?

VB: I generally explain a modern wedding as the complete opposite of a Trump wedding. I love really clean architectural design, almost minimalist, with lots of white and pops of bright colors. When planning my own wedding, there was nothing out there online or even in print that was really speaking to what I was looking for, so I decided to do it myself. The blog was really a scrapbook for my ideas, and never in a million years did I expect people to actually find and read it, but they did, and it’s been a wild ride since.

LT: Your blog has been described as aiming for “design-driven” weddings. How have you meshed your profession of designing with blogging?

VB: It’s hard to keep weddings and interior design separate because one can really speak to the other, and my aesthetic for both is the same. Often I’ll find products while sourcing for clients that would be perfect when used for a wedding, and it’s times like those when I really get excited, because I’ve never thought that your wedding needs to scream, “Hey, I’m a wedding!” When it’s designed well and you get great pieces, you can use them later in your home, and no one would be the wiser. Sometimes brides get stuck looking solely at wedding sites or online shops and think that’s all they can use because that is what they’re selling, but when you expand your search to home design shops, you’ll find a lot more options.

Lilly Torosyan

Lilly Torosyan

Lilly Torosyan is a freelance writer based in Connecticut. Her writing focuses on the confluence of identity, diaspora and language – especially within the global Armenian communities. She has a master’s degree in Human Rights from University College London and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Boston University, where she served on the ASA Executive Board. She is currently working on her inaugural poetry collection.

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