STUDIO SESSION STYLE ON REPEAT

WHICH COMES FIRST: THE COLOR OR THE PATTERN? CHRISTIANA COOP AND AIMEE LAGOS, THE DUO BEHIND WALLPAPER COMPANY HYGGE AND WEST, SAY THE QUALITIES NEED TO BE IN PERFECT SYNCJUST LIKE THEIR PARTNERSHIP.

Some business partnerships don't go the distance, but Aimee Lagos and Christiana Coop had a good idea theirs would make it. The friends' first design endeavor, a hand-drawn fashion catalog called The Denver, debuted in the '80s when they were in fourth grade. Today the preschool pals-turned-lawyers-turned-entrepreneurs share a Minnesota company that collaborates with artists and illustrators to happify homes with pattern. Interview with Mary Beaumont.

MB You found creative kinship early, then grew up to practice law. How'd you get back to design?

CC I discovered a passion for interior design-I'd spend hours in the law library figuring out how I would furnish my new apartment. Aimee found this cool wallpaper company in Denmark when shopping for a project, but their paper wasn't sold here. We became its U.S. distributors. In 2008, we struck out on our own with Hygge and West.

they've got mail
Aimee Lagos (left) resides in Minneapolis, while Christiana Coop works from California. So they email all day long-about the business, sure, but also about cooking and bad TV and comedy. "We both think we have great senses of humor," Lagos jokes.