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65 T extile designer Lisa Fine greets me at the door of her family's Tu r t l e C r e e k - a r e a r e s i d e n c e , looking every inch the globetrotting tastemaker in a flowing paisley block- print silk dress by Peter d'Ascoli, whose designs are harvested from historic archives in India. Gold bangles jangle on one arm, and a bejeweled tiger-claw necklace encircles her neck, all from The Gem Palace in Jaipur. Fine is full of bouncing energy, striding to the kitchen in search of sparkling water for her guest — a glass of chilled wine, perhaps, or is three o'clock too early, she wonders. A bowl of pralines is offered with a hint of Southern drawl leftover from her childhood in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a sweet-tea accent that mellowed during her teenage years as a boarder at The Hockaday School. Fine, who travels regularly to India in search of inspiration for her namesake collection of hand-blocked textiles, splits her time between her Dallas apartment, and her apartment in New York City. For many years, she also kept a pied-à-terre in Paris, where she worked as a contributing editor for Elle Decor and House Beautiful. She's now a contributing editor at Town & Country, and her recent focus has been on creating new designs for her line, which is carried in showrooms around the world, including James in Dallas. She launched her company on a lark 12 years ago, after visiting India in search of custom embroidery. "Then I became interested in block prints, and things kept growing, and we have added chintz, moire, and ikats to the mix," she says. Her fabrics are printed in California, Switzerland, and England, but all roads lead back to India. Many of the fabrics and patterns we associate with other cultures, including chinoiserie, have India origins, she explains. Chintz, a glazed cotton floral commonly associated with English interiors, is actually derived from ancient Mughal art and was imported from India. Last summer, Fine slipcovered some of the sofas in peacock-blue and apple-green cabbage-rose chintz from her textile collection. The look was meant to be temporary, but she decided to keep them year-round after seeing how naturally chintz mixed with the apartment's collection of miniature Indian paintings and other subcontinent treasures. "I love studying and researching the history of fabrics, because it makes designing so much more interesting," she says. Fine has debuted 20 fresh colors and patterns for her company, including leafy Pomona red, which wraps the front and back covers of her new book, Near & Far: Interiors I Love (Vendome Press). Photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna, the book is an insider's romp with the people and places that make up Fine's fascinating orbit. (See page 70 for more on Near & Far.) She and Flores-Vianna met almost two decades ago when he shot her Paris apartment for Elle Decor, and they've worked together since. A NOMAD'S LIFE BY REBECCA SHERMAN. PHOTOGRAPHY MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA, FROM THE BOOK NEAR & FAR: INTERIORS I LOVE, VENDOME PRESS. HIGH ABOVE DALLAS' LIGHTS, LISA FINE'S FAMILY APARTMENT GLOWS LIKE A MAHARAJAH'S JEWEL. (continued)