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" ELLE DECOR: How do you define your style?  Charlotte Moss: It&amp;#039;s less a style than it is an attitude. It comes down to the word hospitality. As a child in Virginia, I grew up in an environment where everybody was welcome. So I&amp;#039;m interested in creating places that make you and your guests feel comfortable.  ED: How has your aesthetic evolved?  CM: The more you learn, the more you travel, the more you&amp;#039;re exposed to, the more clients you work with, the more informed your aesthetic becomes.  ED: What are your style influences?  CM: I&amp;#039;m more influenced by people&amp;#039;s attitudes and spirits than by their particular style. Whether it&amp;#039;s Elsie de Wolfe or Pauline de Rothschild, I always admire women who had a vision and stuck to it. Because ultimately, the way you live has to be a reflection of you.  ED: What is the most essential element of a room?  CM: Atmosphere. It&amp;#039;s the one thing you can&amp;#039;t buy. It&amp;#039;s not about an object; it&amp;#039;s about the end result.  ED: What is the most important thing you have learned about your craft and your business?  CM: Listening and absorbing. My job is to interpret what a client wants, and sometimes they aren&amp;#039;t entirely clear about the details, so you have to listen and listen carefully.  ED: Clients are becoming increasingly design-savvy and sophisticated. Has that influenced your work?  CM: It&amp;#039;s a double-edged sword, because possessing a lot of information doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily connote knowledge. At the end of the day all that information is good for people to know, because it means they are taking an interest in their surroundings. But I&amp;#039;m the one who has to put it all together and make A plus B equal C.  ED: What advice do you have for someone starting out in the business?  CM: Do your homework. Inform yourself on a daily basis. Study magazines. Go to museums. Attend lectures. Ignorance isn&amp;#039;t bliss.  ED: Value is increasingly invoked as important. What does value mean for you?  CM: If clients are prepared to spend X amount, it&amp;#039;s my job to use the funds so they get the most value for the money. Which means that the core of the project has to be objects of enduring value. Value applies to my time as well. I think about how I allocate people within my office. The value that clients get from my staff&amp;#039;s knowledge is transmitted through how and what we buy for every project.  ED: What new technology has been incorporated into the way you work?  CM: My blog, T\u00EAte-\u00E0-T\u00EAte, allows me to stay in touch with the people who read my books or buy my products. It&amp;#039;s a communication tool. But the new technology has its downside too. I look at how fast we can do a CAD drawing, how clients can see right now what I&amp;#039;m standing in front of. That&amp;#039;s extraordinary. But then I have to step back and remember that this business is about people. Too much reliance on technology can stunt your peripheral vision because you&amp;#039;re looking straight at a screen and not at what&amp;#039;s around you. Click here to see more of our Women in Design. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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