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I n the mid '90s, Dallas was head over heels for rooms decorated in rustic wood, worn leather, rusted iron, and Navajo textiles and rugs. "It was haute Ralph Lauren," remembers interior designer Jan Showers. "There wasn't much around I thought was fabulous." But the antiques stores on the Left Bank and the marché aux puces in Paris were another story. Showers was smitten with the sleek 1940s French furniture she found in pale woods, parchment, shagreen, and lacquer by makers Jacques Adnet, André Arbus, and Maison Jansen. Vibrant Murano glass chande- SHE HAS GRACE KELLY LOOKS AND AN UNMATCHED EYE FOR THE GLAMOROUS. ON THE EVE OF HER SHOWROOM'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY, WE DIVE INTO THE BRILLIANT PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF INIMITABLE DESIGNER JAN SHOWERS. BY REBECCA SHERMAN. PORTRAIT SHAYNA FONTANA. liers and accessories from Seguso and Venini were everywhere. And all of it, Showers re- members, was going for a song. Just like that, a showroom was born. During that first buying trip, Showers wres- tled with how much to bring back. "I agonized over what I wanted to buy, and what I thought I should buy," she says. "I didn't want the store to be a bust." She filled the majority of a ship- ping container with 18th-century antiques — the kind of "brown furniture Dallas was used to" — and the rest with the French '40s pieces she loved. When Showers' Slocum Street showroom opened in 1996, it was a hit. "My late '30s and '40s French pieces went out the door first and fast," she says. But not everyone loved the new look. "Some designers wanted to know why I was buying all that junk," she says, laughing. A year later, Forbes published a story declaring French '40s furniture "hot," with prices fetching far more than 18th-century French antiques. Showers was vindicated: "I framed the arti- cle and put it on a table in the showroom." Jan Showers helped usher in a glamor- ous era of design in Texas, influenced by Old Hollywood, when legendary decorators Billy Baldwin, Elsie de Wolfe, and David Hicks reigned. Today, Showers' showroom, styled as a Parisian pied-à-terre, is a cozy showcase for sleek French and Italian an- tiques from the period, mixed with bronze, brass-and-glass tables and lighting from the '50s through the '80s. Prominent designers from across the country shop its rarified contents, and clients have included Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, Heidi Klum, and Ellen Degeneres. Well-Bred Jan Showers, née Smith, and her younger brother, Steve, were reared 60 miles south of Dallas in Hillsboro. She idolized her father, a surgeon from a long line of paternal doc- tors that included her grandfather, whom she, like everyone else in town, called Dr. Smith. With a sophisticated French mother, Jan was born to be chic. "[My mother] was really into great food and style," she says. "She loved decoration and antiques. All the things the French are passionate about — I grew up with that." The family had a cook, but her mother was always in the kitchen, whipping up something French (coq au vin) or Southern (hamburgers made of fresh ground ham). Her taste for clothing was impeccable. "She wore the classics: Chanel suits and camel- hair coats," Showers says. Twice a year, the mother-daughter duo shopped for new wardrobes at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, BECOMING JAN Jan Showers in her Slocum Street showroom Rick Rogers, Jan and Jim Showers at Hotel Frontenac, Quebec City, 1975 124