Ruling on the Profession: Interior Design in the Courts

Abstract

This paper uses the legal story of an interior design practitioner, Florence Karasik, as a basis for a broader discussion of the professionalization of interior design. The Karasik case will demonstrate three things: (1) that law, which is largely neglected in histories of professionalism, is an important barometer for shifting opinions about what it means to be a profession; (2) that everyday people, like Florence Karasik, had their own, popular conceptions of interior design as a profession; and (3) that popular and legal conceptions of the professionalization of interior design did not always align. The Karasik case, which disclosed a dynamic legal and popular conversation about what it meant to be a professional interior designer, highlights the increasingly decisive role the state would play in the second half of the twentieth century in determining the professional status of interior design.