Mally Skok in Palm Beach Life Magazine

Palm Beach Life: Islander Mally Skok draws on a world of inspiration as she designs fabrics, ceramics and wallcoverings

Originally posted in Palm Beach Life Magazine Feb 3, 2020 By Christine Davis

Seasonal Palm Beacher and interior designer Mally Skok celebrates influences from across the globe in her designs for fabrics, wallcoverings and dinnerware.

*Editor’s note: This story was published in the Spring 2020 issue of Palm Beach Life magazine.

A pure white background, rimmed with a whimsical pattern, brimming with color to mix and match — such would be an apt way to describe the latest line of porcelain tabletop ware designed by interior designer and fabric and wallcovering artist Mally Skok.

And the same phrase would also be a perfect description of the Palm Beach vacation house she shares with husband David, a venture capitalist whose career also included founding software companies. Palm Beach is a place where the couple lands when they’re not in her native South Africa, their home in Boston or traveling the world seeking design inspiration.

She introduced her Robberg ceramic collection to the American market two years ago but says she really designed it for her own use.

“I designed the ceramics just for me and my family, and I think the pieces kind of talk about my use of color and pattern,” she says. “I painted the designs in South Africa, while I was sitting in the sunshine, and I thought these would be another extension of my views of the world.”

The name “Robberg” comes from the magnificent Robberg Nature Preserve near the home she owns in Plettenberg Bay, a seaside town between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town on Africa’s southern coast.

“Robberg is this beautiful beach where I’ve walked every day,” she explains.

Her imaginative connections with patterns and colors nod at cresting waves, a changing shoreline and flashes of sunshine.

Skok has had a world of opportunity to pick up inspiration. From South Africa, she moved to London when she was 25 and then to Boston in the mid-1990s.

And now she has added a home in Palm Beach, where she is zeroing in on the beauty here.

An artistic journey

It’s been quite an artistic journey, she says. In London, she began to immerse herself in the interior design field. She says she is especially grateful to have been mentored by fabric designer Peter Fasano, a good friend.

“That was when I realized that I was really obsessed with interior design and fabrics. It takes years to develop an eye and a color palette. Everyone has it, but those were formative days for me. It was more of a case of ‘looking,’ rather than setting out to start an interior design business.”

But once she settled in Boston, she got down to business. “I started helping my friends with their houses, and I enjoyed it,” she says. “And as a transplant in Boston, I started taking watercolor classes. I’ve always liked to paint and draw, and after taking the classes, I realized I loved it.”

Her travels at the time also boosted her burgeoning artistic confidence.

“I came back from India and started painting these little patterns, which were my versions of Indian block-fabrics that I saw in the market there — and I painted them through my South African lens. And I’m also told that my fabrics have a little Laura Ashley in them,” she adds.

“I love to travel”

So there you have the ingredients of Mally Skok Design — a mélange of influences from her past merged with inspiration from her travels and her love of artisan-made items, combined and reinterpreted through her eye for design.

“It’s the whole point of my design view — I’ve moved countries three times and I love to travel, so I love global ancient forms and textiles. Those are the things that shine through. Like my Ikat Crazy fabrics. Ikats are the oldest type of fabrics, an ancient form, but they still look modern and relevant today. That’s my inspiration.

“And in my Suzani Luv line, the Suzani design comes originally from Far Eastern Europe, from fabrics that were embroidered by nomadic tribes eons ago. But they still feel modern and relevant, too. I stick to my guns. I love artisan-made stuff, and that will always be my ballast and my design root.”

Ancient inspiration, true, but Skok says she is by no means stuck in the past. Witness her extensive social media followings on Pinterest and Instagram.

In decorating her home on the North End of Palm Beach, she’s used many fabrics from favorite designers, mixing them in with her own.

“Not all my house seemed to need Mally Skok Design fabrics,” she says. “I pulled things that would work correctly for this house. I wanted my spaces to be very quiet surroundings, with punches of colors and vibrancy for my art and the African articles that I bring back.”

One room, however, solely reflects her designs — her office, with its wall-to-wall Brimfield wallpaper in Delft Blue accented by her Emmie fabric on the window blinds and an antique armchair.

“I wanted my office to be a capsule of my design vibe, and I wanted to show that you can throw all my fabrics together,” she explains.

Bold combinations

Her secret to pulling off such bold combinations? It works because she’s true to her inner color palette, she says.

“I don’t get pushed off of it. I just listen to my own inner design voice, so you can take my fabrics and pile them all in one room — and that’s the way I see my office,” she says.

And how did she come up with those two fabric designs? Emmie — her mother’s name, by the way — was inspired by the designs she saw on a saucer she once found, while the Brimfield design nods at the pattern on a dinner plate.

“Everything is connected to something else. The dinner plate spoke to me and I studied it for a long time,” she says.

Two newer fabric designs, for her Spring 2020 collection, are named Flowerpot and Secret Garden and were inspired by a trip to West Palm Beach’s Antique Row on South Dixie Highway.

“I spent hours on South Dixie trawling the vintage stores, where I saw greens and those apricoty colors that people loved in the ’70s. I didn’t realize it before — it was completely unconscious — but, yes, my new fabrics are certainly very Palm Beachy and will work well here.”

*Mally Skok Design fabrics are available in South Florida to the trade through Monica James & Co., 131 N.E. 40th St., Miami; call (305) 576-6222 for details. Skok’s Robberg Collection of ceramic dinnerware is available for purchase directly through the Mally Skok Design website, MallySkokDesign.com.