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Seated behind a glass table in his Toronto office, sporting a button-down shirt with pink stripes, Glenn Pushelberg, partner in the interior design firm, Yabu Pushelberg, is pointing out differences between Americans and Canadians. "Many Americans see interior design, especially for hotels, restaurants and bars, as a source of strategic advantage and as a wise investment," he says. "Canadians see interior design as a suspect thing and say, 'Oh, it's expensive. Can I control the designers? Will they choose too expensive things? Will they respect what I want to do as a business?"
What Pushelberg and his partner, George Yabu, do is design retail, hotel and restaurant spaces--they've done more than 300 so far. The two orchestrate a 75-person team of designers, project managers and other specialists, as well as a global network of artists, tradespeople and lighting experts, to create the look and feel of their interiors. Many Yabu Pushelberg spaces blend high-tech gadgetry, unconventional materials like resin, and hand-crafted pieces of artwork. Those environments come at a premium price: Yabu Pushelberg regularly commands fees over $1 million. But are they worth the investment?
Plenty seem to think so. In fact, the firm's long list of clients includes some of the biggest names in the hospitality and retail industries, from Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and MGM Mirage to Tiffany & Co. and Kate Spade. With such customers, the company's work has to do a lot more than just look good. Whether it's getting a Manhattan socialite to drop thousands on a Carolina Herrera dress or a Bay Street investment banker to pay SoHo drink prices for a G and T at Toronto's Bymark restaurant and bar, Yabu Pushelberg's designs need to sell expensive stuff.
Despite that straightforward goal, Pushelberg admits his clients never explicitly put increased sales as an objective in the firm's project briefs. One of the reasons may be that Canada's interior design industry has yet to come up with a definitive way to link its work to tangible business results. That shortcoming plays in Yabu Pushelberg's favour, at least in terms of price point.
"We're not competitive at all with Canadian designers," Pushelberg says with a slight hint of pride, estimating his company charges at least double what other firms in Canada charge.
Despite Yabu Pushelberg's premium price, customers continue to line up. The firm currently has roughly 40 jobs around the globe (only two of which are in Canada). And Yabu Pushelberg routinely turns down millions of dollars of business.
Although Pushelberg feels it's important to build relationships, he admits, "I don't consider it a badge of honour to keep clients for 20 years." When asked where his firm gets its ideas, Pushelberg jokes: "There's never a shortage of good ideas; there's always a shortage of good clients." That kind of talk spurs the question: just how good are these guys? How much bang are Yabu Pushelberg's clients getting out of their interior design buck?
Like many successful businesses, Yabu Pushelberg came from humble beginnings. Pushelberg and Yabu met at Toronto's Ryerson University in the mid-'70s, while both were studying interior design. After graduation, each launched a home-based practice in Hogtown. Three years later, the designers bumped into each other in Toronto's upscale Yorkville district. Both were in the market for an office space, and decided to share one. Soon after moving into their new 700-square-foot digs, the two formed a company, and Yabu Pushelberg was born.
Initially, the two jumped at any job they could get their hands on. (Some of their first gigs included a copy shop and a dry cleaning depot.) Money was tight. "We were eating 69¢ lunches of Chinese buns from a bakery on Baldwin Street, which is still there today," recalls Pushelberg. But despite being strapped for cash, he admits, "Even when we didn't have a nickel, we always spent a dime on our office."
With time, their roles evolved. Pushelberg became responsible for growing the business and managing clients, while Yabu focused on the creative workload. Their first big break came in 1984. That year the two created the store designs for a new clothing retailer at the time, Club Monaco. "When you help develop a company from scratch that becomes a national chain," Pushelberg explains, "it propels you as a designer." That success led to jobs for Holt Renfrew, which in turn led to a number of high-end retail projects in New York City.
In 1999, some executives from Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which owns the swanky W brand, dined at the Yabu Pushelberg-designed Monsoon restaurant in Toronto. Two years later, the W Hotel near New York City's Times Square opened its doors, featuring interiors by the Canadian design duo. Pushelberg says that property, along with the Four Seasons in Tokyo, paved the way for more high-end hotel work, which today is the company's bread and butter.
Not all of the firm's projects have gone smoothly. In fact, Yabu Pushelberg has been fired on multiple occasions, including once by a fashion designer and another time by rapper Sean Combs (a.k.a. Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy). In the latter case, Pushelberg and Yabu weren't able to capture Diddy's vision for his flagship New York City clothing store. Pushelberg says, "In retrospect, I don't think Puffy knew what he wanted, but he didn't want to look stupid, because he's a self-invented persona." (Diddy's PR person didn't respond to a request for comment.)
And Yabu Pushelberg does have its critics. In a 2002 New York Times article, an architect, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper, "When I look at [Yabu Pushelberg's] work at Bergdorf and Tiffany, I'm not sure what the ideas that underlie it are."
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