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I C O N S of the A N D E S available in all fine wine stores conchaytoro.com Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvingon –Wine Spectator Marques de Casa Concha Carménère –Wine & Spirits Trivento Malbec –Wine Enthusiast Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon –Wine & Spirits Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon –Wine & Spirits ©2016 Excelsior Wine Company, Old Brookville, NY Icons_of_the_Andes_Ad.indd 1 8/1/16 2:40 PM Austin. To help with the decoration of their first house, Jan enlisted the trusted Lucille Neblett. In 1966, expecting their first child, Susanna, the couple moved back to Hillsboro. While house hunt- ing, Jan directed her husband to a grand 1938 Greek Revival–style house, just a few doors down from where she had grown up. She'd admired it since childhood. "That's the one I really want," she told him. Alas, the white-columned estate wasn't for sale, but four years later when it came on the market, Jim bought it. It was Jan's first solo deco- rating project, and she filled the his- toric rooms with a mix of Louis XVI antiques, sleek sofas, and con- temporary glass-and-brass tables. The couple owns the house to this day, spending weekends and holidays there when schedules allow. A nother daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1971, and Jan kept busy raising two girls and working on her house. But when Elizabeth started first grade, her mother became restless. "I read Gail Sheehy's book Passages, and it made me realize I needed a career," says Jan of the 1976 best seller that explored new ways of thinking about the phases of adult life. She asked herself the all-important question: What am I best at? The answer was clear, and she began decorating friends' houses. "Then the mayor called and asked me to do his," Jan says. Shelle Bagot Sills introduced her to Dallas clients, and by 1987, she was decorating full-time. "In the '80s, I really got into English country style," she says. Later, for clients who requested it, she dabbled in the Ralph Lauren look that held sway in the '90s. Business was brisk, and Jan and Jim took a pied à terre in town on Turtle Creek Boulevard. By the time her showroom opened in 1996, Jan had found her design footing — a sleek, glamorous aes- thetic of pale fruitwood furniture, mirrored dressing tables, rolling drink-carts stocked with spar- kling decanters, exotic-hide rugs, and neutral palettes punctuated by the vivacious hues of mid-cen- tury Venetian glass. Tastemaker Kimberly Schlegel Whitman and Dallas socialites Jeanne Marie Clossey and Angie Barrett were early clients. A wait list formed for her mirrored furniture, and within a few years, the name Jan Showers was known across the country as a pre- mier source for French '40s design. The Glamorous Now Showers keeps the kind of hectic pace that would exhaust most people. In bed at 11 pm, she is up by 5:30 am and meditating — assisted by an app on her phone. The busy schedule is the result of a never-ending list of successes, a tes- tament to Showers' business acumen: She has created a line of custom fur- nishings and Murano lighting for her own Jan Showers Collection, which is sold worldwide; authored two design books — Glamorous Rooms (2009) and Glamorous Retreats (2013) — for Abrams; and designed rugs for Kyle Bunting and Moattar. For decades now, top national maga- zines including Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, and Veranda have fea- tured her interior design projects. This year has been particularly il- lustrious. Showers was named to Architectural Digest's prestigious AD100 list of top designers, and she produced a lifestyle collection of fur- niture, lighting, rugs, and fabrics for Kravet Couture. Still, after nearly 40 years in the design business, Showers shows no signs of slow- ing down. She is working on a line of garden furniture for Michael Taylor Designs, set to launch in 2017, and is designing interiors for BECOMING JAN (Continued from page 125) Jan and Jim at Lake Travis, Austin, 1978 I C O N S of the A N D E S available in all fine wine stores conchaytoro.com Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvingon –Wine Spectator Marques de Casa Concha Carménère –Wine & Spirits Trivento Malbec –Wine Enthusiast Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon –Wine & Spirits Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon –Wine & Spirits ©2016 Excelsior Wine Company, Old Brookville, NY Icons_of_the_Andes_Ad.indd 1 8/1/16 2:40 PM