5 Under 40 Winner Blair Moore

Portrait by Bruce Rogovin

Photograph by Jared Kuzia

Photograph by Erin Little

Photograph by Erin Little

Photograph by Erin Little

Blair Moore started her secondary education with a degree in business communications from Queensland University of Technology in her native Australia. She followed that up with a BFA in fashion and textile design from New York’s Parsons School of Design, planning on a career in fashion. “My dad is an architect and builder, and my mum worked as a designer, but I chose fashion because I wanted to do my own thing,” she says.

Although she was enjoying her career as a designer of runway shoes, she realized she liked the idea of curating interiors more than outfits. And, she says, “I discovered I didn’t love fashion people as much as I love design people. I love the people in this industry.”

In 2018 she made the switch, launching Moore House Design. Her company began in New York, but within a couple of years, she had moved it to Warren, Rhode Island.

Word of mouth and Instagram have helped her build her business quickly, and she and her ten-member team have completed projects in New England and New York and such farther-afield places as Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C.

Last year, she started Roweam, a furniture company based in Fall River, Massachusetts, where she serves as creative director overseeing a designer, a design assistant, and a project manager. “I think it’s the fashion and product developer in me,” she says about opening Roweam. “I could never quite find what I was looking for, so I was always tweaking or doing custom.”

Her background in fashion comes in handy in furniture design, she notes. “We have a lot of seaming techniques in our upholstered and custom goods.” While Moore is happy working in almost any vernacular, the homes she designs have in common a clean, uncluttered look and a warm, organic feel.