Kim Seybert considers herself lucky to have discovered her passion for design early in life. The luxury tableware designer and entertaining expert has cherished creative pursuits for as long as she can remember. As a child, she found joy in sewing, designing clothes, arranging patterns, and decorating cookies and cakes. Her enthusiasm for design extended to finishing her sister’s projects and decorating their shared bedroom while growing up in Granite City, Illinois. For Seybert, design has long been an all-consuming interest and a source of endless inspiration.
“I have always loved tabletop and knew I wanted [to pursue] fashion design after college,” says Seybert, who is now internationally known for her detailed and colorful placemats, napkins, napkin rings, tablecloths, table runners, coasters, flatware, dinnerware, and barware. Her Kim Seybert tabletop designs are available in 370 stores around the world, including Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and locally at Pioneer Linens, Hive, and The Breakers. She has also collaborated on a special collection of placemats, napkins, and napkin rings with Baccarat crystal called Baccarat x Kim Seybert.
But before she launched her eponymous enterprise, Seybert started her career working for a uniform company in Dallas, though she was based in New Orleans. She went into business for herself in 1982 and created uniforms for the World’s Fair when it was in New Orleans.
In 1987, she moved to New York and began working in the garment district, designing clothing for department stores that belonged to the Federated and Associated Merchandising Corporation. Her specialty was beaded tops and separates, but she eventually added cocktail dresses to the mix. She also designed beaded gowns and cocktail dresses for A.J. Bari.
“I traveled a lot during those years and learned more about beaded and highly embellished design,” she says. “After one company I worked for went out of business, I began to freelance. [I shopped] around the world, especially in Asia, buying napkins, tablecloths, and all things embellished.”
At the time, Seybert notes, most everything was white. “There was no color in fashion back then,” she says. “I loved to entertain, so I made colorful pillows [and] napkins, sketched beaded coasters, invented a beaded placemat, etc. Nobody was doing this, and I had learned so much from the beaded dresses I designed.”
Around 1997, she took her beaded placemat samples to Henri Bendel, and the buyers loved them. Orders from Neiman Marcus soon followed. Her beaded tablescape products stood out. “All they knew were linens in Tuscan colors,” says Seybert.
After she secured an order from Saks Fifth Avenue, Seybert put together a collection of coasters, napkin rings, and placemats. Another one of her initial orders was from the late Phyllis Pressman, owner of Barney’s.
These early sales were a boon to her company, which she officially started in 1998. “My clients were not afraid to take risks,” she says. “We grew a category of modern fashion for the table.”
Today, Seybert and her team of 26 design and hand-sketch in New York, use a factory in India for most of the beaded items, and ship from North Carolina. “We design it all and watch it in progress,” she says. “We look at samples on the loom.”
Seybert is still inspired by travel, shopping antique shows, open-air markets, and bazaars “everywhere” around the world. Her original styles were evocative of handicrafts from countries she had visited. Beading, hand-dyeing, embroidery, hand-painting, and mouth-blown glass remain her hallmarks. “I still get excited to find what I need to put a table together,” she says. “I feel proud that I started a category of fashion for the home.”
When it comes to her own homelife, Seybert is single and the mother of two “teddy bear” dogs named Bella and Tess. She divides her time between a New York City apartment, a Hamptons home with a big yard, and a waterfront apartment in Palm Beach, which she bought in 2021 because she loves the area’s architecture and lifestyle. “I’ve been coming to Palm Beach for years,” she says. “I used to date a polo player.”
In her three beautiful homes, Seybert entertains formally once a month and more frequently for small dinner parties. “I believe when you make a beautiful effort for the table, people step up their game because a great party elevates mood and [the] conversation is heightened,” she explains. “I see the difference. I like to try new things with color and set the stage.”
One of her favorite types of entertaining is having lunch with her girlfriends. She recently hosted a small caviar brunch for seven on her elegant Palm Beach terrace overlooking the water. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the women were excited to join Seybert.
“Kim is amazing with her party skills,” says guest Kara Ross, a jewelry designer and philanthropist who collects tabletop items. “I love how she mixes colors, textures, and patterns. I want to wear the napkin rings on my hand.”
“I like to be a relaxed hostess and surround myself with good people,” adds Seybert. “It’s easy to be single because I have great friends who are important to me. Palm Beach is wonderful because people here are open to making new friends, and they enjoy the sunshine and outdoor lifestyle.”
The guests were offered Champagne, blueberry tea, and a selection of caviar appetizers with potato chips, cheese, sour cream, egg whites, and chives from chef Nina Cioffi’s garden. The caviar came from guest Maribel Alvarez, the owner of Altima Caviar, which offers an ethically sourced product.
The tablescape, created by Seybert, reflected a fresh garden party. “I wanted to design a happy and colorful spring table,” she says. She used her new Tuileries hand-painted tablecloth with a digital floral print, beaded orchid placemats, and hand-painted pink napkins and Brilliant napkin rings. For china, she picked Richard Ginori’s Oriente Italiano pattern with vintage 1920s pink wine glasses and lilac water glasses along with her Mirage flatware.
Guest Robin Bergland of Renny & Reed crafted the florals to elevate the garden feel, selecting varieties that complemented the colors in the tablecloth. They included pink peonies, lavender lilacs, white and green parrot tulips, pale blue tweedia, white fringe tulips, and lavender sweet peas accented with white and lavender clematis.
Guests were impressed with the table design, including Penny Murphy, owner of Pioneer Linens in downtown West Palm Beach. “We were one of Kim’s first accounts,” Murphy says. “Before she started her company, everything available was standard and conservative. … Kim started tablescaping with her jewelry for the table.”
For lunch, chef Cioffi wanted to focus on “elegant simplicity,” to include Siberian sturgeon caviar with tagliolini pasta, as well as herbed popovers with softened Vermont Creamery butter and Florida orange honey jam. “Following the caviar selections, I [served] a bright salsa using fresh fruit and locally grown lettuce with juicy salmon fillets, which kept everything light but satisfying,” says Cioffi.
The chef ended the meal with coconut cake, a favorite of the host. Guest Catherine Adler, a Broadway theater producer, raved about the party. “Kim makes entertaining so easy,” says Adler, also a collector of Seybert’s tabletop products. “Plus, she is genuine and down to earth.”
For Seybert, entertaining is as natural as designing new products. She is excited daily to create and use her designs for parties. She also likes to find new categories and discover novel materials. “I am blessed to love what I do and share it with my wonderful friends,” she says. “I have a lucky charm over my head.”
Story Credits:
Hair and makeup: Deborah Koepper, Deborah Koepper Beauty, Palm Beach
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