For Samantha Pynn, inspiration isn’t hard to come by. Juggling creative roles such as designer, television host, writer, and editor, Pynn is certainly in no short demand for creativity. Known best for her work on HGTV’s Home to Win and Open House Overhaul, Pynn is once again lending her multitude of talents to Canadian department store Simons for a fall home collection of bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen decor items.
Her namesake line for Simons is a capsule of her inspiration and practical, everyday sensibility. “With the first collection, you could close your eyes and everything would go together,” says Pynn over the phone. “It was my first collection, the first time I’d ever done one, so I wanted to make sure there was a lot of variety whether it was for a single person, or a family, or a couple. So this time around it was a lot more playful, not so much in terms of the collection, but in terms that I was able to play around a lot more.”
The resulting fall 2016 selection of items retains its understated appeal—comfortable and casual, favouring classic graphics such as stripes, dots, and scallops over more trend-based styles of pillows, shower curtains, and bed linens. “For me, whenever I decorate homes, I like to have colours and patterns that will work for a long time and will work with a lot of different colours and patterns,” says Pynn. “This collection I’ve made more divisions; there’s more neutrals, stronger blue patterns, a black and cream design.” The items seem to be mixing high design and usability, a winning combination already established in her work on HGTV.
Inspired by the tiles of Portugal, a tree in downtown Toronto, and a friend’s cottage, the Samantha Pynn for Simons collection is a melange of influence that comes together in cohesive style, perhaps thanks to Pynn’s own meticulous, if sometimes manic, documentation. “I’m crazy for Instagram. My phone is always jammed, I have the most storage space imaginable on my phone because I’m constantly taking pictures,” she admits with a laugh. Pynn’s inspirations are noticeable, ever obtusely. She finds her photographic muse in the most unexpected of places, like the bloom of a pigeon. “I find now that I think in an entirely different way—I’m always thinking patterns,” says Pynn. “I’ve always thought about design as, ‘How could that be something else?’ My head just goes there.”
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