KF Colleague Spotlight - Cindie Steinmetz
Greetings, Cindie! You joined our San Francisco showroom team in January 2012. How did you get started in design and what led you to stroll through our doors 14 years ago?
I studied art, photography and color theory in college along with music, but my first foray into design was a job I had in product development at a nursery on the West Coast in Half Moon Bay. I would take a tentative design for a holiday plant vessel to its completion on a production line adding a plant, a bow, a pick or some other decorative flair, and then out the door onto a truck to its destination - such as a Trader Joe’s or a Safeway. I would use all the tools at my disposal– photos, measurements, Pantone colors- and I would work with our manufacturers from all over the world to bring that idea to fruition as the floral gift item. I managed the whole item, from design, sales, purchasing, production line quality control. It really took a whole village backing me up and I learned a lot about corporate culture.
After a few years of that intense craziness, I pivoted to Interior Design when I started working for Summer Hill Ltd at their corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, just down the street from where Facebook moved in. Summer Hill had their own line of furniture and textiles with representation across the US. I learned about the interior design trade from the supplier side, managing furniture orders between the showrooms and our furniture factory. I was customer service, expediter, and problem solver.
I ultimately came to KF when Summer Hill closed its door at the end of 2011. A month later I stepped into a sales support position at Kneedler Fauchère and the first week was in the middle of Market and all I did was try to stay out of the way! 5 years later I moved down to the showroom floor as a Textiles Specialist where I am still today.
And yes! You are one of our superstar Textile Specialists – tell us what you love most about your role.
It is awesome to work in such a beautiful place with colleagues like we have here in our showroom. It’s like going to work in a museum - a visual, textural delight to walk into every morning. And it feels like we are a fully functional family group here.
Helping with shops in the showroom with our designers is probably what I love most about my role here. It takes knowing ALL the fabric wings and it’s so satisfying when together we find just the textile the customer envisioned. Or if someone is just looking for say, the velvets, I know where they are in each bay and can save the customer a lot of time and aggravation. Sometimes it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, so I know it is helpful to have someone who knows where exactly everything is by your side. It’s pretty special when a customer sends me a photo of the textile in situ or I see it called out in a glossy shelter magazine and know that I helped in my small way.
Is there a current design trend you’re noticing and/or one you predict is on the horizon?
We normally do a lot of shops for neutrals, textures, off white drapery, maybe a few patterns, but recently I’ve had several shop requests for bold colors, but especially in bright coral-pink fabric! Is this a trend? It does seem to tie in with Samuel & Sons’ recently launched Palm Royale Collection.
I have also been seeing a lot of interest in all manner of tapestries - both in textiles and wallcovering. People also seem to be asking for stripes of all kinds, and I am seeing our fabrics applied to soft rounded sculptural forms in fully upholstered furniture.
I have been thinking a lot about Baltic Blue and seeing it on cars lately, is this my Spidey Sense or is this color on the horizon?
Which are your top picks from new collections for the Spring 2026 season?
There are so many nice collections this season.
I love the new chenilles from Nobilis, like “Tambo”, “Blush” and “Velours Pullman”. Nobilis always comes up with delightful coloring too. There is usually one Nobilis in any new collection that shows how they can push the normal parameters of what a mill can produce. This spring it is called “Mareva”. It’s a rich velvet jacquard with little knots that look like tiny little beads in the ground.
Zak + Fox has a wonderful new outdoor stripe that I particularly like called “Pharos”.
Holly Hunt’s “Keeping Secrets” is such a cool fabric – I don’t even have a word for what it is. Maybe call it a patterned faux-fur?
Dedar has a wonderful wool called “Music” that shows exactly how they make the most beautiful of fabrics – lovely drape and gorgeous colors. And their “Atlas Novus” mohair is positively yummy.
Pierre Frey has such a lot of new items, but I love their new “Calvi Chenille”, an outdoor textured chenille in multiple colorways. Two other standouts for me are “Toundra Velvet”- a soft, thick stretch wool velvet that comes in lots of stupendous colors. And “Galiera”, a silky semi- plain ottoman weave in multiple soft colors.
Outside of showroom hours, we hear you’re quite passionate about singing. Soprano or alto? And what kind of music genre do you love most?
I have a BA in music and yes, music is my passion. I am a Soprano and I have been singing since I was 8 years old in the church choir at St John’s in Denver where I grew up. I am classically trained, but I love lots of different kinds of music, not just classical! I dearly love Johann Sebastian Bach enough that I named my son after him.
I have been privileged to participate in some truly memorable concerts and at this point in my life, I have sung most major choral works. When I lived on the East Coast, I was lucky to be a member of the Harvard Collegium and we performed some Renaissance Music at Alice Tully Hall in NYC with the Waverly Concert, and later with the Harvard Symphony at Boston Symphony Hall for Harvard’s 350th Anniversary concert under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.
I was also in a choir invited by the Paul Winter Concert to perform at the 1st Annual UN Earth day at the United Nations in New York. The concert was recorded and released as an album with my name in the teeny tiny print.
In 2008 I traveled to China with all the Stanford Choruses and the Stanford Symphony. We performed in this wonderful Oriental Art Center in Shanghai and then we took the train to Beijing where we were joined by choruses from local universities to perform Beethoven’s 5th at the Great Hall of the People. We finished the tour with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with a full dance troupe at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing which locals call “The Egg.”
Probably my most favorite contemporary pop band is London Grammer. I love the lead singer Hannah Reid’s voice! It’s rich, supple and beautiful like the morning sun. I’d marry it if I could! I am quite fond of several female Scandinavian singers like Aurora, High as a Kite and Thea Hjelmaland. One of my new favorite singers is Freya Ridings. I also like some Jazz singers, most notably Claudia Villela. There is one song that I have been listening to a lot lately, called Girl by SMYL. I recommend watching the music video of the song! It’s quite wonderful.
Of course, when the pandemic hit, all the choirs were silenced for years it seems. And I began a new creative pursuit of making collages with wallcovering!
Word on the street is you’re also a dedicated grandmother. Do you have an extra special grandkid moment you’ll never forget?
A couple of years ago I got a brand-new iPhone 15 Pro and I wanted to take the portrait lens out for a spin, so I had my two grand girls Natalie & Vivienne, aged 3 & 6, get all dressed up in their costumery while I played the role of “The Photographer” like they were models getting ready for the runway. They’d get dressed and then one would sit for their photo, and then “Next!”. Then the other would sit for her photograph while the other changed into new clothes with new outlandish accoutrements. A grand time was had by all and was even more memorable for the great photos that were generated by all this play.
Rapid Fire
Define yourself in three words.
Curious, Creative, Funny.
A book on your to-do list.
Empire of AI, by Karen Hao. Trying to educate myself with what’s coming for us! And Think Again, by Adam Grant.
Love to cook or love to eat?
Both
Glass half empty or glass half full?
Depends, but mostly half full – maybe even three quarters sometimes.
Most treasured possession.
The Ironies Starburst lamp made from volcanic glass that is on the wall in my living room. It’s like a jewel that lights up my life.
If money were no object, would you be up for a visit to the moon?
No, thank you! Though I love a good space opera and might like to see an Earth rise on the moon, I keep thinking about that movie “Gravity” where the Sandra Bullock character spends the whole movie desperately trying to get back to Earth from the black vacuum of space, The ending scene where she splashes down into vivid color and frantically hauls herself onto a sandy beach where there is color, plants, texture, beautiful blue water and LIFE was such a rapturous cinematic moment I could relate to. No, if money were no object, I would spend it visiting amazing places on our own wonderful planet.
