Heidi Caillier became an AD100 designer without taking the conventional route. Her early Tumblr chronicled her appreciation for patina, wear, textures, textiles, and materials that express their original nature. Today, that sensibility feels not only relevant but culturally urgent.
Kendall Jenner’s third Architectural Digest Open Door racked up more than a million views in its first 24 hours. Her Wyoming home, a refined Western mountain retreat she playfully calls “grandma-chic,” is layered with vintage furniture, worn textiles, and what she describes as “fun little random moments… off-centered, maybe not super perfect.”
The designer translating that instinct into a cohesive home was Heidi Caillier, an AD100 designer with no formal interior design training. Long before the celebrity clients and the Rizzoli book deal, Caillier kept a Tumblr called The Rustic Modernist, where she documented patina, worn textiles, darkening wood grain, handmade objects, and even small milestones like closing on a historic home.
That blog is still live today. Scroll through it, and you can see exactly what she was paying attention to a decade ago, well before the mainstream appetite for imperfection emerged.
Jenner’s craving for “grandma-chic” and Caillier’s devotion to patina aren’t separate stories; they’re expressions of the same cultural shift. We’re living through a quiet revolt against perfection, digital gloss, and showroom-new rooms that lack any reflection of personality or uniqueness. In their place is a renewed reverence for materials that show life, objects that carry history, and homes that feel collected rather than purchased.
In other words: imperfection is currency again.
The Cultural Shift Behind “Grandma-Chic”
“I think the more imperfections the better,” Caillier said in her interview with Schumacher. Coming from a designer of her caliber, the statement is quietly radical. For years, perfection was treated as a virtue in interior design. We refinished scratched wood, polished tarnished brass, and reupholstered anything with a stain. Age and wear were seen as problems to solve and evidence of failure rather than a life well lived.
Caillier flips that script.
“Patina adds so much to a room, especially materials like brass,” she says.
Patina isn’t something to correct; it’s evidence, proof that the material is real, used, and responding to its environment as it should. It’s the beauty of time made visible. And that philosophy extends to every layer of Callier’s practice. She pairs vintage textiles with contemporary pieces, chooses woods whose grain stays visible rather than uniformly stained, and seeks out objects with history rather than items fresh from the showroom. The result is a home that reads less like a curated set and more like a portrait of personal expression.
This aesthetic shift toward authenticity is now widespread, but Caillier was articulating it years before it reached the mainstream. Her Tumblr wasn’t just inspiration; it was a record of what she noticed, cared about, and returned to, an early blueprint for the designer she would become.
How Heidi Caillier Built a Perspective Before She Built a Career
Caillier’s path defies the traditional pipeline. She was born in Japan to a military family, moved constantly, earned a master’s degree in international public health, waited tables in New Orleans, explored nursing and acupuncture, and only later found herself in interior design. Notice what’s missing from that list: a design degree, a prestigious internship, or any formal entry into the field.
What she did have was a perspective and the willingness to document it publicly.
“When we start a project, we’re really inspired by florals, what we see in nature,” she says, speaking on her Fox Island Interior Design Project. “It depends on where it’s located and the surrounding environment.” That philosophy, the idea that materials should reflect their place and age honestly, was already present on the blog long before she had magazine spreads or celebrity clients.
In sharing her observations openly, Caillier wasn’t simply posting images. She was building her visual vocabulary: articulating why certain materials mattered, why patina was meaningful, and why a room should feel layered over time. The blog became proof of thinking. And for creatives and designers, especially now, a honed perspective is the real authority.
What Designers Get Wrong About Confidence
Caillier is candid that her confidence took time. In her early years, she executed clients’ Pinterest boards almost literally, a phase many designers know all too well. Pinterest can be a useful training ground, but it can also feel creatively narrow. Every velvet sofa or floral wallpaper pin can feel like an instruction manual.
The turning point arrives when designers realize clients aren’t asking for replicas of their pins. Those images are the client’s attempt to express a feeling: warmth, layering, nostalgia, history. The designer’s role is to interpret that feeling through expertise the client doesn’t have: knowledge of materials, spatial logic, proportion, sources, and cohesion.
So when Kendall Jenner said she wanted “grandma-chic,” she wasn’t asking for her grandmother’s house verbatim. She was expressing a sentiment. Caillier’s job was to translate that sentiment into an actual home, one with flow, texture, personality, and longevity.
This form of confidence, designing from underlying values rather than surface references, comes from years of articulating your perspective. Caillier didn’t magically acquire that clarity; she built it by paying attention to materials over time and documenting what spoke to her. Tumblr was her practice ground. When you’ve spent years defining what matters to you, you have something steady to design from.
The Path Is Traceable: Why Public Thinking Still Matters
Caillier’s rise wasn’t overnight. The blog launched years before recognition. The early projects were small. The confidence grew slowly. But her documented point of view formed the foundation that made everything else possible.
For designers, especially those without traditional credentials, this is the blueprint. You don’t wait until you have impressive projects to articulate your perspective. You articulate your perspective to attract the projects that align with it.
Public thinking builds authority. But more importantly, it builds confidence in your own vision and articulation of taste.
Caillier didn’t start with a crazy roster of clients and the perfect resume.
She started with a Tumblr.
And clearly, that was enough.
