Angelina Dörfler is originally from Germany and moved to Vienna during the first lockdown. She studied sociology and law and then completed a second master's degree in human resource management. For almost five years she has worked as an interior designer for private and commercial clients in Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and New York. More than 200,000 people follow her on Instagram. In conversation with Alena Gröfler, she explains how a resolution between siblings became a company, why she now charges for first site visits and what home means to her.
HOMEISSUE How did your career in interior design begin?
Angelina Dörfler It actually started as a Covid baby. Then, shortly before Christmas, my grandfather died, and my brother was stuck abroad with all the lockdowns. We are actually a very big family and we always celebrate Christmas in a big way, and suddenly there were only three of us. So I said to my sister: let's do something positive. Let's agree on some crazy idea and just see it through for a year. I decided to concentrate on interior design and opened a social media account to share the process of how my apartment was taking shape, because nobody could come to visit anyway.
As her following grew, enquiries came in for collaborations and from clients. Angelina Dörfler, who goes by Gini in the conversation ("Angelina is only when I'm in trouble"), founded her company quite quickly. "And I've stuck with it ever since," she says.
TWO WORLDS
Which field do you originally come from?
I really come from a completely different direction. In law I specialised in international human rights and international law, and in sociology in the sociology of work. My master's thesis was on HR and recruiting, specifically on how social media can be used in that area. The thesis was submitted before my social media career, but it gave me the knowledge, and I could apply it one to one to my own company.
Today she pursues her passion for human rights in her free time. People often ask her about the contradiction: on one side, people who are simply looking for a bed to sleep in somewhere; on the other, apartments where a sofa costs 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 euros. "So of course that is a contradiction I find myself in again and again."
She deliberately runs her company on her own and works with freelance partners, such as a web developer and a videographer. She has already held job interviews. But as a sociologist of work, it is very important to her to lead a team properly, and because she travels a lot, she is unsure whether that would be possible at the moment.
EFFORTLESSLY PERFECT
How would you describe your own style?
What I hear from my community, and also from architects and interior architects at international awards, is that everything has a kind of effortlessly perfect quality. It is very important to me that it doesn't look posed or staged. Despite lavish decoration it should still feel very warm and cosy.
Each project goes through three stages. First comes a moodboard, both physical and on Pinterest, often in several stylistic directions. Then comes the concept, with colours, surfaces and materials; the products are chosen room by room and shown to scale on the floor plan. Finally comes the execution.
THEN WHY DO YOU NEED ME?
She prefers private projects to commercial ones, even though a commission like the optician's shop on Lake Tegernsee, with a clear purpose and a business plan, is easier to handle. Clients in New York invited her to their wedding, "because they say, you know our most intimate rooms".
Do you prefer clients with loose ideas, or someone who says very specifically what they want?
Of course it's always easier when you have a very free hand. But clients' wishes are extremely important to me, whether it's the budget or the wishes themselves, and I am very realistic and open. I know from others that budgets are regularly and heavily overrun. That isn't compatible with my philosophy. But if someone says, I want it done exactly like this, then being open and honest also means that I put the question on the table: then why do you need me?
She once had that conversation with a client who could never really commit and in the end didn't dare to carry out what they had developed together. The client, she believes, took it as food for thought and said: "I just have to be brave." Today she is very happy with it. Construction sites call for steadiness too. "Especially as a woman, you often aren't taken seriously," she says. "There hasn't been a single time when I thought, God, yes, that's gone wrong."
She now charges for first site visits. Too often she spent several hours on site for free, some people wrote down everything she said, and then the commission never came. For everyone who doesn't need a full commission, she recorded a masterclass, partly for the passive income, as she openly says. It also lets her multiply her work, "because I just can't clone myself".
CHEAPEST FIRST
You mentioned a house in Italy. Are you moving to Italy for good?
It isn't actually planned that I move to Italy completely. I will move part of the company there, but the apartment in Vienna stays, and I will continue to have my main base here. Lake Como was always a dream region for me.
Behind the purchase was also a challenge. On social media she often hears that something like this is easy with a lot of money. In her projects she uses a lot from Ikea, from flea markets and second-hand. "Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you have taste," she says. Her clients laugh and say: "I've got a sofa here that cost 30,000 euros, and my curtain cost 10 euros." When she searched for property, she set the filter to "cheapest first", and the house was one of the cheapest listings; the only cheaper ones were a few plots of land without a building.
HOME
How do you live yourself, and what are your secret corners?
I think everyone has those secret corners. A great deal is shared on Instagram that doesn't reflect reality. I live in these rooms too, and not everything is always lying there perfectly. My secret corners used to be behind the doors, on top of my wardrobe and in the dressing room, where samples and PR packages piled up because of my work. Now I have a storage room. In general I try to keep everything very calm, but still give it a personal character. I have quite a few things that I have gathered from all over the world, from vintage pieces to new things by smaller artists to mass-produced goods.
It is still the same rented apartment she moved into during lockdown. She "loves" living there and wants to keep the apartment even when the house in Italy is finished. Here she tests products herself before recommending them to clients.
What does the word home mean to you personally?
For me, home isn't necessarily a place. It's more of a feeling, and that's also what I try to convey in my projects. It can be a feeling that a person radiates, it can be a place, it can even be several places. It should be a place where you notice, here I can unwind, here I can relax, here I can also be the person I am.
For her, joy at home can be created through interior design, through everyday things such as a cupboard in the kitchen positioned so that it makes unloading the dishwasher easier. When her friends come in, they often say: "You don't even have a TV." Then she lowers an electric projector screen from behind her double doors, and everyone is a little impressed. "It gives me joy," she says. That is why it is worth investing, even in a rented apartment. She has done up her bathroom so that every time she walks in, she thinks: "Wow, I'm so glad I did that."
The full conversation with Angelina Dörfler is available on the HOMEISSUE Podcast with Alena Gröfler.