Object Lessons With Electra Eggleston

William Eggleston may be widely regarded as the godfather of color photography, but it is his abstract watercolor-and-marker drawings, which he’s been creating since he was 4, that have most intrigued his daughter Andra. “They’re not a prominent part of his life’s work,” she explains. “And that’s what makes them special.” After moving from New York to Tennessee a couple of years ago, Andra, 43, connected with her father in Memphis. It was during one of their creative sessions at his house, where they would listen to Japanese pop and share art supplies, that she had the idea to fashion him a bow tie using one of his drawings as a motif. Such was the starting point for Electra Eggleston, a design company cofounded with managing director Anja Lademann and bearing the name William wanted to give Andra when she was born. (Her mother put her foot down.) It debuts this month with a collection of Belgian-linen pillows—featuring prints inspired by her father’s work—at Wilder, a new design shop in Nashville. Up next is wallpaper, and, she hopes, a collaboration with a fashion house. Says Andra of her dapper dad: “His No. 1 preference is Louis Vuitton.”