The Founding of Rendezvous
RENDEZVOUS is French for “gathering.” Patricia Kennedy founded Rendezvous Design® on the belief that great design creates places where people come together, connect, and make memories.
The Rendezvous name is both a nod to Kennedy’s years studying and working in Paris, as well as to her time living across from Rendezvous Mountain in Jackson Hole, where the historic Rocky Mountain Rendezvous brought Native Americans and mountain men together to exchange goods, gossip, and ideas across the American West.
Patricia Kennedy, Creative Visionary
Kennedy is the founder of Rendezvous Design®, an award-winning wellness interior design studio, and the creator of Rendezvous Reserve™, a destination storytelling atelier devoted to preserving provenance of place through books, textiles, and gift collections.
Raised in Texas and born into a Dutch lineage of fine art painters, Kennedy developed an early appreciation for craftsmanship, visual storytelling, and cultural heritage while traveling extensively with her family. Her Texas upbringing instilled a lifelong affinity for the landscapes, horses, and heritage of the American West, while her family's global travels fostered a fascination with the distinctive character of place.
She earned a degree in English Literature from Wellesley College (cum laude) and a degree in Interior Design from the New York School of Interior Design (high honors), where she was selected for the prestigious Nantucket by Design Show House. She also studied Fashion Design at ESMOD Paris (honors), completing a trio of disciplines — story, space, textile — that continues to shape her distinctive approach to storytelling through design.
Her career has spanned haute couture textiles in Paris, retail buying at Federated Department Stores, product development at Abercrombie & Fitch headquarters, marketing and merchandising at Levi Strauss Japan, and ultimately an award-winning interior design practice focused on wellness. Years in Paris and Tokyo, and travel to over 35 countries, has shaped a perspective grounded in craftsmanship and a reverence for how places endure.
Today, Kennedy combines archival research, storytelling, illustration, curation, and design to transform provenance of place into enduring collections that connect people with the destinations they love. She calls this philosophy GIFTING HISTORY®— transforming destination into a design language through which history can be both experienced and gifted.
The Making of a Multidisciplinary Designer
Kennedy built her creative perspective across multiple disciplines— each adding a different lens that now shapes every Rendezvous Collection.
Craftsmanship — Haute Couture Textiles, Paris
Commerce — Retail Buying, Federated Department Stores
Creation — Product Development, Abercrombie & Fitch HQ
Connection — Marketing & Merchandising, Levi Strauss Japan
Culture — Paris, Tokyo, travel to 35+ countries, and polyglot
Curation — Rendezvous Design® & Rendezvous Reserve™
Mademoiselle Privée
Paris Déco Off (annual fashion week for the interior industry) remains one of my most inspiring rituals, an experience that feels especially meaningful because of my years living on the Left Bank, now the heart of Parisian Interior Design and the epicenter of Déco Off.
I lived right on Rue de Seine in a family friend’s flat and each day I would cross the Pont des Arts, through the Louvre’s storied courtyard, on my way to work in Haute Couture textiles near Rue Saint-Honoré, a routine that still feels like a dream. I served as Assistant to the Sales Director—and the sole American—presenting the fabric collection to the world’s most revered fashion houses, including Chanel, Dior, Lacroix, Ungaro.
One of my favorite memories was presenting to the Chanel Atelier, tucked on Rue Cambon, discreetly behind the Ritz. We were escorted up the dramatically curved and mirrored staircase and through the legendary Mademoiselle Privé door, a threshold into Coco Chanel’s private world. The magic deepened when the Chanel team selected one of our woven sequined fabrics for their collection and we were given a golden ticket to attend their infamous fashion show— a moment that affirmed textiles would forever be the cornerstone of my creative vision.
Stewardship
Every Rendezvous Reserve™ book begins with the horse. The horse carried the trapper into the valley, the cavalry across the plains, the rancher through the winter and out the other side. History moved at the pace of a horse.
The wild mustang is living history. Descended from the horses of exploration and settlement, still running free in ten Western states, the mustang is the symbol of the American story, with a heartbeat.
That is why we make an annual contribution to the Mustang Heritage Foundation. For more than two decades, the Foundation has worked to secure homes and futures for America's wild horses. Among its programs is Wild to Warrior, a therapeutic horsemanship initiative that pairs veterans with wild mustangs, two wild hearts finding their way home together.
