NAPLESILLUSTRATED.COM | SEPTEMBER 2019 79wanted silk sidewalls, but silk doesn’t work well because when you try to
pull it around the windows, it wrinkles,” Chavez says. And that’s just one
of the differences in designing for a plane rather than a house. There’s
also “the size, the shape, and even how light plays within the space be-
cause of how a plane moves and what time of day or night it’s flying.”
Cathy Biegler is an Embraer interior designer on the front lines with cli-
ents who occasionally show up in Melbourne with their own interior de-
signer in tow. She escorts them into a large room packed floor to ceiling
with textile samples, fabric swatches, carpet squares, and more. There’s
leather, vinyl, veneer, and wood. Stone, marble, silver, and brass. Like
most manufacturers, Embraer offers prepackaged colors and textures
that work well together, but if you’re spending millions and want to go
micro, you can customize your private jet down to the seatbelt buckles
(brushed steel versus shiny sterling, for example, or perhaps an onyx-
colored alloy).
“They can even draw a pattern if they want, and I can have that made
into a carpet,” says Biegler, who once created one based on a Malaysian
customer’s wood carving. Another customer brought in a favorite purse
to inspire the design team, while Chavez recalls the buyer who sought
the same leather that was in his BMW. Not similar, mind you, but the ex-
act same from the model year of his car. (Embraer was able to source the
leather from Germany, but because of the amount required to outfit a
plane, the request moved much slower than the import that inspired it.)
This artisan attention to detail, plus the fact that a high-tech machine
is being built from the bolts up, is why it typically takes at least a year to
deliver an executive jet.
“The things that cover the most area—the carpet, the seats, and thenEmbraer interior designer Cathy Biegler used a map of the Amazon River to create
a carpet and lighted wall design that reflect the intricate pathways of one of South
America’s most legendary destinations.