Friday, June 6, 2008

Have We Ever Left Each Other Before? The Funeral of Yves Saint Laurent

France held funeral services on Thursday for Yves Saint Laurent,
who was regarded by some as the finest fashion-designer
of the last half of the 20th century

Thousands of Parisians came to say goodbye

Culture Minister Christine Albanel, President Sarkozy,
his wife and former model Carla Bruni, Pierre Berge,
and Saint Laurent's mother (in white scarf) Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent
with the coffin in front of the church

Pierre Bergé salutes Mr. Saint Laurent's coffin

Pierre Berge and Yves Saint Laurnet remained business associates and friends long after their romance ended. They decided to create a civil union together in the days before Mr. Saint Laurent died, Mr. Bergé said. The French union, known as a “civil pact of solidarity,” carries mutual rights and responsibilities, similar to that of a marriage.
“It’s going to be necessary to part now,” Mr. Bergé said, addressing his friend in the coffin. “I don’t know how to do it because I never would have left you. Have we ever left each other before? Even if I know that we will no longer share a surge of emotion before a painting or a work of art, all that I know.”
Mr. Bergé’s voice broke. “But I also know that I will never forget what I owe you, and that one day I will join you under the Moroccan palms.”

John Galiano

Catherine Deneuve

Valentino
(that is not Karl Lagerfeld with him)

Catherine Deneuve

Karl Lagerfeld did not attend
but sent white roses and orchids
"A token of our time together..."

HGTV Design Star.Guts.Glory.Glam. Sun.June 8

Ah, the guilty pleasures of Summer TV. Design Star is back for the third season. Tears; girls against boys; region against region; queens against queens (and that's just among the smarty pants judges); sardonic host - all add up to the predictable formula that hooks us week after week. Season one got us pin-up boy David Bromstead. Rumor is that his show Color Splash has splashed it's last season. Second season winner Kim Myles, likes to "pop" everything, and she is a hot mess, and deserves to have her show cancelled. So who will it be this year? I kind of like the guy from Lafayette, Louisiana.

Interior designers pose as rock stars! LOL

Countdown to Design Star

Tune in to the premiere
Sunday, June 8^th 9/8c

THE CONTENDERS:

Trish Beaudet
Shelby Township, MI

Jennifer Bertrand - Olathe, KS

D. Paul DeRouen -Lafayette, LA

Tracee Dore -Louisville, KY

Matt Locke -Los Angeles, CA

Jerome Scottie Miller -Charlotte, NC

Michael Stribling -College Station, TX

Mikey Verdugo -Davie, FL

Host and Judges

Clive Pearse, host

Martha McCully, judge

Cynthia Rowley, judge

Vern Yip, judge

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Sex And The City - More Interiors

Set designer Jeremy Conway and
set decorator Lydia Marks
kept a neutral palette for

Charlotte's Park Avenue apartment

Carrie in front of her new closet
with her new glam mirrored vanity

Miranda's Brooklyn home was designed
for comfort and practicality -
and with her hair color in mind

I am so happy to see the set design of Jeremy Conway, and the set decoration by Lydia Marks getting some attention in the current issue of Traditional Home. Over the years I have been interested in compiling a book on decor in the movies. Often things set designers and decorators use become the very things we off screen mortals use and love.
I worked in The Museum of Modern Art Film and Media Department for a time, doing a stint with Mary Corliss in the Film Stills Archive. I was equally entranced by the photos of the sets, as I was by the actors.
I have been trying to find images of the set design and decoration from the genre of bedroom farces from the 1960's, and alas there is very little out there.
So it is gratifying to see that the interior design world sees the importance of archiving set designer Jeremy Conway's work. Sex And The City, whether you love it or hate it, is an iconic film and television series of its time. Twenty years from now, someone will come across it as a time capsule. Much in the way we currently look at mid 20th century and Hollywood Regency furnishings and design, today's decor and interior design iconography will be of interest to the next generation. A gold mine of decor and design images of are found in the movies, past and present.
Sets often play a co-starring role in the movies. Certainly Carrie's new chic blue and brown apartment shows her coming of age. She cares enough about where she lives, as much as about what she puts on her back and feet. The closet has matching padded hangers, and the clothes are organized. In the TV series, Carrie's closet was a lovely jumble. Her new mirror vanity also gives her a special place to put on her make-up, rather than hunched over the small old sink in her tiny TV series bathroom. It's the same Carrie and the same apartment, but reinvented for the next new phase in her life as a 40+ year old woman. She's taking better care of herself. Linda Marks says: "Since Carrie is so involved in fashion, I thought it would be very believable that she would have new fabrics around her, so the curtains, upholstery, and bed linens are all new for the film."
Charlotte has a happy marriage, and a child. She still has her dog Elizabeth Taylor. The apartment is as calm and pulled together as ever, much in the same way Charlotte's life is pulled together.
Miranda, living in Brooklyn, has a real house of a busy working couple with a small child. Magda her cleaning lady from her single days, is now her son Brady's nanny. Steve's Alzheimer stricken mother has been put in a nursing home. The Brooklyn house has hip furnishings along mid century lines.
The only home missing is Samantha's. She's moved to the Los Angeles area, and is living in a gorgeous beach house. I haven't found any images yet.
The interiors were created on the sound stage of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City.
You can see more photos of the set HERE and HERE

Welcome Beach Bungalow8

It's a great blog that's been around for awhile, but still remains fresh, fun, well written, enthusiastic, and current. Megan is the bloginista, and she describes herself as "interior designer, illustrator, blog writer, living by the beach..."
Give her a read HERE

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

She's Got The Look

Tonight a new TV show airs on TVLand, a model competition for women 35-63.
What do you think?
Lately I've been musing about the bloginista behind the screen.
Like does it matter what age she is, or how she looks if she reports on matters of decor, interior design, fashion? Would it matter to you if the glam blog you love to read is written by a hag in rags? Or if she/he were overweight and had no style? Or if she/he were older than you thought they were?

Over Size Chandelier Shades - Yes Or No?

I've been seeing this around, a big drum shade plopped over a chandelier. Kind of the antitheses of all the little small shades we usually use. I can't decide if I like it or not, or if it's a trend that will become a classic and here to stay. What do you think?

I like this

Mirror ceiling medallion $1400.
Neiman Marcus HERE
But I can't afford it

A kit - the cord $28. -the shade $375.
Comes in several colors
You can transform your chandelier
From Neiman Marcus HERE

Or you can forget about the big shade
and just get this wall light
Stretched canvas over a fluorescent light
$450. from designpublic.com HERE

The drum shade is the chandelier
$450. from lekkerhome HERE

Silver and glass $630.
From Neiman Marcus HERE

No.
But if you like it - $800. at Needless Mark Up

$3700. at Neiman Marcus HERE

Decor and Interior Design Influences: English Style

This is the first coffee table decor book
I bought back in 1991 - dog eared and beloved

These are my book shelves now

This was my NYC city apartment
decorated in "English Style"

This is a LR from the book English Style
Do you see why I thought I needed alot of stuff?

I mixed wallpaper patterns with
painted panels by artist friends - the panels
were used in the B52s The Love Shack video

Mixed chintz, leopard print, a couple of stuffed crows,
Chinese export ware, butterfly specimens,
art work hung to the ceiling...

A room by Mario Buatta, my hero
and mentor on all things English in America
I could not afford any of this, so I made-do

Low NYC brownstone tin ceilings seemed
very English cottage in the city to me

Another LR from English Style
I used many of the elements in this photo...

...like the bookcase, the mixed chintz, flowers, botanical prints,
unmatched lamps, plates & ceramics, piles of books -
I even had a pair of Staffordshire dogs

From the book English Style

What makes us decorate the way we do? Why do we buy the and collect the things that we fill our rooms with? Are the first things we love always a part of us, and do we continue to use those early elements as our style evolves?
Travel formed my point of view for my adult decorating. As a young person, my influences were my grandmother, my mother, and the movies. The first furniture I bought was Hollywood deco.
I did the post art school tour to Europe, and continued going back over the years.
The romance countries: England, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal were the formation of my decorating point of view .
Everything in Europe was so layered, so dense with objects.
Decorating magazines were not on my horizon so to speak. I picked one up now and then, but I was not the mag junkie I am now. Coffee table books caught my attention as my salaries increased and I could afford to buy them.
Then I started my design business, and would buy decor and art and photography books as a source of reference and inspiration.
I think space often dictates decor. When the landlord opened the door to the ground floor brownstone apartment he was showing for rent, something came immediately to my mind: English cottage.
The apartment had it's own entrance from the street with a sweet little iron fenced garden in front of the only window (there were three more and another door in the back of the apartment). The ceilings were low (this would have originally been the kitchen floor when the house was used by the one family is was built for); there were marble fireplaces, arched doorways, wood floors, and a garden out back that was as large as the apartment itself (a modest one bedroom floor through) covered with overgrown ivy and rambling pink roses.
I took it on the spot, even though the rent was high.
I knew I wanted to make it look like an English cottage, something I had seen in my travels. But how? Whenever faced with a problem, I would turn to books. You can learn everything from a book. So first to the library, and then to the bookstores. I found the book English Style, and loved it. It is filled with rooms of real people, and photographed without mannerisms. I poured over it for hours, days, weeks, years.
And so I began. Wallpaper was the first thing. Three patterns from Waverly: A green stripe for the LR, a green bamboo diagonal lattice for the DR, and green ivy for the BR.
I am showing you photos from that NYC apartment. I only have a few. Back then we didn't take pictures of our decor, we took pictures of friends and family who just happen to be in our decorated rooms. So please forgive the distraction of people in the photos. Also I have very few photos to show you, as the movers lost an entire box filled with all my family photos, and a wardrobe filled with my designer label clothes, when I moved from NYC to California. I found a handful of photos stashed between the pages of my books.
More tales of English Style to come later...

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

GottaGoGottaGoGottaGo?! Don't Know Where? Ask Miz Pee!

This is kind of silly. I mean most of us know how to scout out a public rest room. And most of us know where to find a pretty and clean one too.
Everyone knows that a fancy hotel lobby will lead you to a very nice rest room. Most big stores have rest rooms too. And if you breeze into a restaurant like you belong there, you can breeze right into their rest room. Starbucks is a good bet too.
But when I found this little site and blog, it made me laugh, so I figured I'd share some silly with you.
MizPee offers free ratings and listings of facilities open to the public in a kind of Zagat-like potty guide. Updates are even available on your mobile device. Just search by State, City and Street Address to find the one nearest to you.
Listings include things such as the operating hours of the business and whether a purchase is required (e.g. "Customer's Only!" signs). Facilities are rated on a 5 tp roll scale. MizPee the web site HERE MizPee the blog HERE

I Don't Do Kids' Rooms But This Is Lily's Room From Sex And The City Done By Jeremy Conway

Charlotte and Harry adopted a little Chinese baby when the TV series ended. In the movie Sex And The City, the baby Lily is now four years old. Jeremy Conway designed the perfect pink bedroom for the character. I love the polka dot chair and the black and white stripe bombe chest.
Read more about Jeremy and the set design for Sex And The City HERE

You Can Bet On Bryan Batt's Shop In The Big Easy House Beautiful June 2008

Local boy Bryan Batt
as Salvatore Romano
on the AMC show Madmen
The show has the best mid century
clothes and sets filled with great furniture
New episodes start in July!

New Orleans featured
in June 2008 House Beautiful

Hazelnut - more yummy photos HERE
Come to my B & B so you can go to this
store and many, many more HERE

From House Beautiful:

You're a successful actor in L.A. playing Salvatore Romano, the art director on the hit AMC series Mad Men. But you also run this stylish home boutique in New Orleans. What's the story?

I was born and raised in New Orleans, and I still live here part-time—and having a shop was always a dream of mine.

How do you film in L.A. and still run Hazelnut?

Life is not an either/or proposition. You can do many things—you just have to be organized! And thank God for Tom Cianfichi, my partner in life and in the store. We both love design, entertaining, and giving just the right presents, so that's why we've focused on gifts, furnishings, tabletop objects, and beautiful home accessories. Everything is new. There's a lot of color, and a sense of whimsy. I love things that make you smile.

What are some of your favorite wares?

Alison Evans's line of oyster ceramics. They have raku-style glaze in shapes like oyster shells. I'm also wild about our Byzantine leaded Italian crystal decanters and glasses with a 14-karat- gold Greek key around the top. We have a white ceramic elephant side table that's really fun. And there's a collective called Art Department, a group of Russian potters in Massachusetts who do ceramics. We have some of their vases and their little houses, all hand-painted in bright colors.

You seem to make animated conversation with anyone who pops in.

I run from stores where salespeople act snooty! I want people to have a good time and be visually stimulated. The first thing that happens when anyone walks in is that they're bowled over by the marvelous Japanese quince perfume of Seda France candles, which are, funnily enough, made in Texas. 'What smells so good?' they'll ask. I always say, 'It's me.'

Okay, why the name Hazelnut?

It's after my grandmother, Hazel Nuss. "Nuss" means nut in German. She was a well-known New Orleans dance maven—she had three dancing schools—and I just adored her!

Don't miss

Batt's own fabric designs: Pontchartrain Beach, a collage of Louisiana motifs in Palm Beach-y pink, yellow, lime; and New Orleans toile, featuring such classic images as a courtyard, a streetcar, St. Louis Cathedral (both $36 a yard).
The charming accessories (trays, guest towels) handmade from Batt's two fabrics by local craftspeople (from $15).
The fabulous selection of tabletop items like silk flower napkin rings ($6), and mother-of-pearl salad servers ($64), and the alligator place-card holders ($32 for a set of 4), and crab bowl ($125).
Reverse decoupage plates and platters by artist Laurel Wilder. Her creations could upstage your canapés, but you can also hang them on walls (from $82).

For All You Sconce Queens, This Is On Sale NOW!

At Gumps
Marked down from $175.
NOW only $99.!

Laurel Wreath Sconce: Paired laurel boughs of hand-wrought iron recreate the classical crown of victory with balanced asymmetry. The wreath frames a mirror etched with a central convex dot that amplifies the flow of a 3" diam. pillar candle (not included). A polished accent on its own, it has even greater impact in multiples. 21"W x 9"D x 22"H. Imported.
Order it online HERE

I love the mirror!
I think it could be easily wired for electricity if you so desire. It also could be tricked out over a bed. Swag some fabric on it, and make the look of a coronet with a canopy. But don't use the candle with fabric - EVER! In fact if I were to do the canopy idea, I would turn the sconce upside down, and use the underside of the candle holder to catch the fabric...