Chatting with Celebrity Designer Michael Payne
Popularity of Designing for the Sexes' Host-Author Going Strong
Sep 20, 2008
At the helm of the cable network’s longest-running show, Michael Payne—an author and licensed interior designer—became an expert at providing compromise on the design battlefront for couples trying to resolve conflicts as they tackled a home- or room-renovation project.
“I am a natural mediator,” confirmed Payne during a telephone interview from his California home. “But on the show, it became totally important insofar as when I am doing the design or coming up with the design, I literally had to please both people. Each of them may have completely divergent ideas, and so then, what was necessary was for me to become a really great listener.”
Key to Design Success: Stop Talking, Start Listening
Consequently, he continued, “When I ask [the show’s couples] about what vision they have in mind [or] … what preferences they hold for their design project, and when they told me, I totally stopped talking and really listened ... because I had to come up with design solutions that were going to be equally satisfying to both.”
These days, even though Payne isn’t taping new episodes of the program, the popularity of the former Designing for the Sexes host appears stronger than ever.
Indeed, with no shortage of new reality-based design programs on the airwaves, the British-born designer has established himself as a fan favorite on the public-appearance circuit and on the show's online archives of past episodes, confirmed Emily Yarbrough, public relations manager for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based HGTV network in a telephone interview.
In fact, after nine broadcast seasons, the show—not only its designer/mediator—remains an audience favorite, Yarbrough observed, because “people enjoy watching that 'he wants/she wants' conflict, but at the same time, Michael always ensures that there’s a happy conclusion when all is said and done.”
Payne, too, believes the fact he respects those he works with is crucial to the program’s continued viewing longevity and his own unwavering fan support.
“People can tell me things they want (in their home’s design), and frankly, I might be thinking to myself, ‘Oh my word, that is one of the most awful suggestions I have ever heard,’ but I don’t so say it,” he explained, “because that’s what they want. It’s their house, their money being spent, and it’s not for me to judge that it’s awful.”
Still a working interior designer with clients—never minding that he's also a celebrity furniture designer—what happens when Payne hears design suggestions that, gasp, strike him as gaudy at best?
Designing with A "Stiff Upper Lip"
“Oh, I’m very tactful,” he assured, “and I think that comes from being British. In Britain, we are … just naturally very, very polite and have that stiff upper lip, and sometimes, I think I’ve bitten my tongue so much that I shouldn’t have a tongue anymore. But you know, it is also respect as well.”
In the end, what the customer, or couple, wants is truly what they get—just “processed through my design filter,” Payne said. And in every case, everyone, including the designer, is genuinely pleased with the end result.
“Everything I ever did (on the show), I really liked, (but what I did was) take something that could be a suggestion by one or both of the people that was most dreadful and make it work,” he explained. “I heard what they wanted, and all I had to do was make sure they got some of it back, something they wanted. …”
Making Time to Give Back
In spite of his already-hectic schedule, which includes a self-titled furniture design/manufacturing partnership with the Powell Company (introduced in April 2005 and available nationwide), and the launch of his latest book, Let's Ask Michael, Payne maintains a rigors schedule of personal appearances, thanks to his high profile as a designer and speaker. Mentoring young designers is important to him, too, and he always makes time to visit design students and provide encouragement.
“One of my favorite things to do is to be surrounded by people who love design and people who have chosen design for their future, because I so remember that realization that design was so important … and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” revealed Payne, who earned his degree in interior design from UCLA in 1980—more than a decade after earning a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Southampton University in England.
“I’m only me, and I am totally accessible. I mean, the fact that I’ve had a popular television show, oh yadda, yadda, I am just totally me,” Payne stressed. “I love to live my life with design working in the trenches. I still have clients today, and … I’m not preaching from a pulpit, I’m just like (other designers) and am here to help.”
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