Trina Turk’s flagship boutique in Palm Springs opened in 2002 in a 1960s Albert Frey building.

When we connected with designer Trina Turk for our Winter 2015 issue’s Back Story, we were eager to hear about the historic houses she and her husband, photographer Jonathan Skow, have restored in Los Angeles and Palm Springs. And we figured if we had time, we’d like to learn a thing or two about the history behind the locations of a few of her retail stores. (Her Los Angeles boutique is in a former feather trim factory!)

As it turns out, we could have talked with her for hours. We knew Turk was a committed preservationist -- but we had no idea just how much her love of historic architecture inspires her designs.

Since we had limited room in print, we thought we would share more of our interview here. Read on to learn more about Turk’s favorite old buildings and what her fashion designs have in common with Midcentury Modern architecture.

Trina Turk’s first Los Angeles boutique is in a 1940s feather trim factory.

How did you and your husband become interested in preservation?

We first met each other in college, at the University of Washington in Seattle. There were a lot of interesting buildings on the campus, so I think that, combined with our love of thrift shopping and our interest in vintage clothing, led to an interest in the interiors and the architecture in which this clothing would have been worn. We were, of course, very interested in new wave music and new wave fashion, and that referenced a lot of influences from the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.

I think in a strange way, that was kind of the beginning of our interest in Midcentury Modernism, just because there were certain fashion styles that were definitely referencing those decades.

But when we were in Seattle, I don’t think we were as interested in Midcentury Modernism, specifically, as we are now. We were just interested in old things -- a piece of clothing or a building -- that had quality and details to them.

Do you have a favorite old building?

Two of my favorite old buildings are airport buildings. One is the [Eero] Saarinen [TWA] terminal at JFK. I flew out of that terminal once, and, of course, it was not as glamorous as it was in its heyday, but it was amazing. Even though I don’t think I knew what it was at the time, I was wandering around looking for my gate, thinking, “What is this building?” And later I learned exactly what it was.

And I also love the Theme Building at LAX, because [seeing] that means I’m home, or that I’m going on a trip.

Turk was drawn to the airiness and natural light of the former Los Angeles factory space.

You’re very active in the preservation of midcentury architecture. What drew you to that era?

We started going on architectural tours avidly when we moved to Los Angeles in the mid-‘80s -- mostly Los Angeles Conservancy tours, but also museum tours associated with an exhibit. We started learning about the hotbed of midcentury architecture by all the greats, both commercial and residential, right in L.A.. The tours really opened our eyes.

We started looking for a house in Palm Springs in the late ‘90s, and then we became involved with the Palm Springs Modern Committee. We went on many, many tours of amazing homes and commercial properties.

The more you learn, the more interesting it becomes.

You and your husband have been involved in the restoration of several historic houses and buildings. Can you tell me a bit about those projects and why you got involved with them?

Our first house in L.A. was what I guess you’d call a stucco bungalow. It was older and it had charming details. That was not really any big preservation moment, but we had fun taking care of it and emphasizing all of its historic details.

One of our bigger restoration projects has been the house we live in now in Los Angeles, which is a 1948 J.R. Davidson house. We have restored that house and lived in it since 2002. We’ve tried to maintain the original floor plan, and anything we do, we think about what makes sense for the era of the house. We’ve tried very hard not to do anything trendy, that later would be able to be identified as something that was done in the early 2000s.

Then there’s our house in Palm Springs, called the Ship of the Desert. It’s a Streamline Moderne house designed by Erle Webster and Adrian Wilson in 1936 that’s built off to the side of a hill. When it was built, there wasn’t much in Palm Springs. We bought that house in the late ‘90s, and it was in pretty rough shape. We started doing a surface-y restoration, and then we had a fire. It was a fairly bad fire, which was devastating at the time, but to be honest, in the end, it allowed us to completely rebuild the house in the original floor plan with all new systems. It looks more like it did in the 1930s now than when we purchased it.

And another thing worth mentioning, we made a donation to the Palm Springs Art Museum to help them purchase an E. Stewart Williams building in Palm Springs that was restored and turned into the Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center, which is really exciting.

Trina Turk and her husband donated to the new Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center, which opened in November in a restored E. Stewart Williams building.

Why did you get involved with the museum?

Palm Springs has been a vital building block in the development of the Trina Turk and Mr. Turk brands, so we wanted to reciprocate to the community in a way that matched our preservationist interests. We were approached by Sidney Williams [a museum curator and E. Stewart Williams’ daughter-in-law] many years ago about her idea of turning the Santa Fe Federal building into an architecture museum. It was Sidney's passion, and her ability to communicate the vision of what it could be, that convinced us to be a part of it. The main gallery in the museum will be called The Trina Turk Gallery.

Our hope is that the new Architecture and Design Center will educate tourists and locals alike about Palm Spring's architectural significance, and inspire quality adaptive reuse of other iconic midcentury buildings in the Coachella Valley and beyond.

I know several of your stores, like the ones in Palm Springs, L.A., and Manhattan, are in historic buildings. Do you purposely seek out historic sites for your stores? And what does their history add to the experience of being in your shops and among your designs?

The Palm Springs store was our very first store. We opened it in 2002. I had always loved that particular space. I [initially] had no idea it was an Albert Frey building. I didn’t know that in the late ‘90s when we used to visit a vintage furniture store that was in the space. I just knew I loved the space. It had windows in the front and windows in the back -- big plate-glass windows to the street. There was something about the airiness of the space that felt so appealing.

I joked with Jonathan and said if that space ever became available, I wanted to open a retail store there. I didn’t know anything about a retail store. We had our company, but we were a wholesaler, not retailers. So when that space became available, it was like, “Well, it’s available, are you going to do it?” And we did.

We have since expanded. We started off in what I think was half of the actual building, and now our store is the entire Frey building.

My next mission is the fountain, which is a Frey-designed fountain on one of the side streets at the corner of the building. It has never worked, in the entire time that we’ve been going to Palm Springs. But I would love to get that fountain up and running again.

In creating her Los Angeles boutique, Trina Turk combined the building’s historic architectural details with contemporary design elements.

And with your Palm Springs store working so well in a historic building, did that encourage you to find something historic when you were looking in L.A. and Manhattan?

It was the same thing: a response to the spaces. Our building in L.A. is from the 1940s. It had a really great feel to it, and that’s what we were interested in. We were interested in its airiness and its huge windows in the front and back.

In New York, our building is from the 1880s. We found a building in the Meatpacking District, and it had a skylight at the back of the store and a functioning fireplace. Again, it was how the space felt when you were in it. And, once again, the natural light in the back of the store just changes the character of the space.

So much of your aesthetic is inspired by California’s culture and architecture and landscape. What is it about the state’s architecture, in particular, that you find inspiring, and how does it inspire your work?

We’ve learned more and more about all types of architecture in California -- not just Midcentury Modernism, but Craftsman architecture and Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. And, especially in L.A., I think that in the ‘20s and the ‘30s when a lot of the neighborhoods were built, Hollywood influenced a lot of what was going on. You can drive through neighborhoods in Los Feliz, and there are French Chateaus next to a Streamline Moderne house. I think there was sort of this fantasy element to it that was influenced a lot by the film industry.

That kind of wide-open attitude is something that is really appealing about California architecture. And I think that that kind of freedom to take inspiration from any era is something that I think is part of being a creative person.

A love of vintage clothing and an interest in architecture tours led designer Trina Turk to get involved in historic preservation in both Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

If you think more specifically about Midcentury Modernism, I think the parallel between that architecture and what we do and what we create at the company is our clothing is generally fairly simple in silhouette. It’s more about the textiles. It’s interesting fabrication or an interesting print and a simple silhouette without a lot of bells and whistles.

And in midcentury architecture, the shapes are fairly simple. It’s the materials that are speaking. It’s concrete, it’s glass, it’s wood. It’s not trying to disguise what it is. It is what it is. Our clothing has a similar aesthetic.