Your career path led you to become a serial entrepreneur. Please give us some insight into your journey, and how you brought your interior design business to life.

Dani: Very often in my life I found my true passion along the way following another one which was then overpowered by my true calling.
I needed to open several shops, cook hundreds of thousands of liters of soups, mix endless Moscow Mules, and counsel many, many people before I found out that I did not need to run a shop to design it, and that talking therapy is not the only way to touch people on a soul level.
Over the years, so many customers were bewitched after entering my shops, carried away by the extravagant style.
Clients and friends invited me to their homes in London and Sydney to "just take a look" and give them my ideas. It was only when people actively approached me after staying at my boutique hotel in Croatia, asking if I could design their home in France, that I finally came to the conclusion that being an interior designer might be exactly what I am and what I am meant to be.
After that epiphany, everything else fell into place.
I had a name, the business had a name, and suddenly people came running to "us".

You work on your own development projects, even run restaurants and bars, and have interior design projects and clients all over the world. How did you launch a global career and how do you manage time and place?

Dani: Owning restaurants and bars in a truly international city like Frankfurt and owning a boutique hotel in Croatia is what I would call "the secret ingredient".
While everything I do in the hospitality industry is frequented by regular locals, locals in Frankfurt often mean expats who return to where they came from after a short time or move on.
But Frankfurt, not least because of its giant airport, has heaps of international travelers, even if only as stopovers, who regularly end up in my locations due to their popularity and outstanding appearance.
The fact that Croatia has become so popular in the last few years has also attracted tourists from all over the world.
So people got inspired in my places and took the image with them wherever they went.
A guy from Auckland wrote to me one day that his wife would not stop until she had a kitchen like mine....so off to Auckland it goes!

At the risk of sounding almost naive, I have to say that time and place, thanks to whatsapp, zoom, etc., are not as "unjuggable" as they were some years ago.
One does not have to be there in person, it is the spirit, the spark and the spoken word that counts.

You are known as the wild child of interior design. How is your disregard for "design rules" and traditional formats helping your career?

Dani: People are always torn between two incompatible extremes:
TO FIT IN and TO STAND OUT.
As an interior designer you can only satisfy one of these very ambivalent desires and of course you choose the road to be true to yourself.
Many people are afraid to make a statement, lacking the ideas, style and edge to go wilder than IKEA.
These people would feel uncomfortable and overpowered by being put in a room that attracts a lot of attention and would demand some explanation.
Other people are also lacking in ideas or accuracy of style choices, but they would love to be different, to attract attention, to be special.
These are the people who hire me, trust me, and almost always give me a wild card to get carried away.
So they end up with a unique piece of art, a home that no one else will even remotely share.
Asked, they can for once adorn themselves with "false feathers" or hide behind my "questionable" choices and designs.
We live in a time when advertising constantly tells us to be ourselves, implying that this means something special and super-individual - and while we certainly all are, many people cannot put this into words or motion or rooms.

What would be your best advice for someone trying to start a creative business?

Dani: First of all, be honest with yourself...are you really CREATIVE?
Aside from the word being horribly abused over the years, the question is valid.
Are you capable beyond an average amount to birth ideas, to think out of the box, to take the road less traveled, to go with your gut, to give new meaning to old things?
And will you be able to create under restrictions of timing, budgets and opinions - or must you roam around wildly and freely like a balloon on the loose?
Do you have enough friends and family to help you through times of no money, or to help you out for no money?
If you can say yes to everything but the balloon, then go all in, do you, just you, give 200% 1000% of the time, trust the process and see where it takes you.

What does a typical work day in your life look like?

Dani: Sleep in, cold plunge, lymphatic drainage, celery juice, coffee, coffeeeee
Checking social media, emails, Instagram, Pinterest.
Then working on a current or upcoming project, matching colors, fabrics, wallpapers, googeling items, creating mood boards, creating playlists for the projects, talking to clients, watching Homeworthy/AD on youtube....

For those who work from home - What small changes could anyone make in their home office to make it more fun and productive?

Dani: When I see home offices, I always wonder if people are trying to reflect the burden they feel about having to work in their dedicated office rooms.
It screams more than once: No distractions, no comfort, no need to be here!
Sometimes all that is missing are the nails on the chair for maximum torture.
The opposite shall be true: Since work takes up at least 1/3 of the day, make it as comfy, calming, and stimulating as possible.
Choose a warm, cozy color for your entire room - it will give you the feeling of a friend's hug instead of a bus stop on a cold winter day.
A stylish but comfy chair will be the most important item.
But also an antique table that tells the story of a lifetime, not the story of a company in China, will make you feel more grounded.
Personally, I find mirrors helpful.
Besides making the room appear much bigger, they bring you back to yourself by checking in on you and escaping your head and busy thinking.
Lots of cushions, pictures, and warm, indirect lighting will make it feel more like a living room instead of strictly business.
A large fluffy or woolly rug with a grip is wonderful for taking off your shoes and massaging your feet.
The best thing about home office is that you do not have to dress up and impress anyone.
So relax and make your office a home.

Finally, what are the interior design trends to watch in 2025?

Dani: 2025 finally unleashes limitless patterns and color combinations. There is no holding back, no classic key themes, no no-go's.
You can use almost any color besides the typical kindergarten colors like plain yellow, blue, green or red.
Anything goes... but in nuances.
Fabrics are on curtains, beds, and even walls, and come in layered patterns and shades.
Everything sits on top of each other and unfolds like a stylish onion on a fancy interior design vegetable patch.
Wallpapers are stronger than ever, coming as accents or full frontal.
Even two or three in a room is no longer a sin.
Its time to go ahead and surprise yourself by seeing how the kids play together.
My personal color theme is all shades of blue mixed with a soothing muddy grey-brown or blood-orange red.
You definitely need a statement lounge chair or coffee table with lots of books on it.
More than one lamp is mandatory, everywhere but the ceiling.
Light is not there to see, but to feel better.
As life becomes more expensive and unpredictable, people seem to have a greater need to create a home, a cocoon, a base, a refuge.
Investing in a place to live seems, at least for a large group of people, to be preferable to "running" or traveling away for a change of scenery, as the Germans call it: Tapetenwechsel (change of wallpaper).
So this is now literally more likely to happen at home.

Thank you!

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