Doing a favor for her father helped Daniella Menachemson discover a love for interior design and custom furnishings.
“I helped him build a straightforward website, where he could sell furniture to people who set up events and weddings,” Menachemson says. An IT industry veteran on maternity leave at the time, she soon found herself engrossed in her father’s enterprise. “I had a knack for it. I loved sourcing products from all over the world,” she says.
When her father began shifting to interior design and custom orders, Menachemson noticed that demand was increasingly coming from the American market. “We used to get a lot of people coming to Australia from the U.S. asking us to do furniture projects, and I could never understand why,” she says.
Menachemson decided to meet demand at its origin and launched StyleNations in October 2019. The Dallas-based brand lets hospitality clients customize fabrics and finishes for commercial furniture. Menachemson’s team then sources, manufactures, and ships pieces direct to buyers, striving for faster-than-average turnaround times.
“What we specialize in is custom manufacturing,” Menachemson says. “StyleNations began because of the merging of good furniture and interior design.”
The company’s business model appeals to brands seeking just a few custom pieces, such as boutique hotels. But big names in the hospitality world are clients, too: StyleNations has worked on projects for Marriott Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, and MGM.
“It’s really about building a collection that works well, that presents well, and that is affordable, too,” Menachemson says.
Over the past two years, StyleNations has grown from two to 12 employees and opened offices in India and China. Menachemson says she’s getting more requests to design furniture for entire hotel locations rather than a single aspect of room furnishings.
Now, Menachemson is hoping to replicate her success in the residential furniture market.
“With COVID, everyone is focusing on their homes at the moment—updating their furniture, kitchens, and bathrooms, or whatever it may be,” she says. “That’s something that we want to invest into in 2021—to grow that part of our business.”
