Shop Girl

Reading the Sunday paper and your blogs, just kicking back staying out of the heat. Found a few little tidbits to share with you.

Eat Pray Love: The Shop in New Jersey

What did Elizabeth Gilbert do with all that money she made from selling the movie rights of her best selling book "Eat Pray Love"?

Well she opened a shop in New Jersey of course! You can read all about HERE

Have you ever been a shop girl (or shop boy)? Most times I love it, but on these hot rainy days in New Orleans, the day can be lonely, and then poof it could get exciting when Sandra Bullock might walk in the door.

August either goes too slow for some of us with unrelenting heat, and watching the hurricane season calendar come into high alert, or too fast with many kids already going back to school (in August???? This still boggles my old fashion notion that school should start post Labor Day). I wonder how you all are keeping calm, cool and collected.

Tonight, crank that AC up and watch Mad Men, and watch the final three of HGTV Design Star finally get to do an individual challenge (those group challenges were the worst format decision the producers made). HGTV Design Star is the train wreck of a show so bad it really isn't all that much fun to watch except for fellow blogger Emily, The Brass Petal, still hanging in there.

Mad Men style air conditioner

Or maybe you might deal with the heat by lopping of your locks in favor of a Jean Seberg style haircut.

Jean Seberg looks so cool

Another thing I'd like to share with you is a nice little custom made surprise in my mail box, HERE








And one more thing I found interesting, a story about the Greenbrier, the classic West Virginia hotel with the famous Dorothy Draper interiors HERE

The Greenbrier interior design by the society designer Dorothy Draper done in the 1940s
Described as: "Nothing seems to match, and that’s the point.
The result is something Lily Pulitzer and Laura Ashley
might have dreamed up together after following Alice down the rabbit hole."
Sounds perfect for a blogger meet up!

In my minds eye I see a fantastic blogger meet up here, all expenses paid so everybody could come.

We could talk and eat and drink and give each other workshops.

The Writing Room at the Greenbrier

There is a writing room at the Greenbrier, a place set aside, to gasp, actually hand write letters!

I would get an old school nun to come and give us a workshop on penmanship, and Letitia Baldrige to come and school us on the art of writing a social letter.

With age, and computer use my handwriting has gone down the toilet, so I would need to practice, practice, practice.

Sister Wolf could give us penmanship classes

Letitia Baldrige could teach us the art of social letter writing

And of course Alberto and I would love to give you all a tango workshop in the spectacular ballroom!

Alberto & I would give bloggers Tango lessons in the Greenbrier ballroom

And just on more link..

My friend Jessica Hack is an expert fabric conservator. You can read about her in Inside Out Magazine HERE

Jessica Hack sitting in front of a vintage Carnival costume in her studio
She does museum level fabric conservation

Jessica Hack has been in the textile conservation business for 31 years. Unlike restoration, which aims to bring pieces as close to new as possible, conservation seeks to stabilize the existing material and repair damage to prevent it from spreading.

Meticulous fabric conservation by Jessica Hack

Washing an important flag in the studio of Jessica Hack

Stay c00l and have fun going down the rabbit hole of links!

Would You Like To Spend Your Honeymoon Night On Top Of The World?

PR Director, Michelle Panzer of Brides Magazine, came up with the crazy cool idea to promote the 75th anniversary of Brides with a unique honeymoon suite. A partnership between the editorial and promotional departments supported the event. Genius Brides Wedding Style Director Maria McBride was responsible for designing the decor concept. Her job was to make a cozy nest, a glamorous rest for an urban princess.

Stock PR photo of Top of The Rock
before it was decorated for Brides 75th

With floor-to-ceiling windows soaring 25 feet, the Weather Room provides guests with the ultimate skyline experience. In addition to its magical atmosphere and unrivaled views, it offers access to two magnificent open-air terraces. This space accommodates as many as 300 guests for receptions and seated dinners for as many as 120.
Maria had nests on her mind since the success of her cool recent book Party Basics For New Nesters. She designed a giant fantasy bed high atop New York City in the fantastic Weather Room for the couple, and with the help of fellow designer Mark Musters, created a glam new nest for the newlyweds.

Ooh look at all the Lucite chairs for another party!
Brides actually used leather ottomans and lacquered bar tables

In a city where a couple can marry at a movie premiere and hundreds of wives-to-be scale a giant wedding cake for cash, the idea of putting a honeymoon suite inside a tourist attraction isn't all that unconventional. Commemorating its 75th year—and perhaps looking to edge out the competition with a creative ploy for publicity—Brides magazine built a bedroom inside Top of the Rock for a pair of newlyweds. They hired a concierge for the couple, who spent the end of a long evening on the town at Top of The Rock.

The deck at Top Of The Rock

Dubbed the Mile High Honeymoon Suite, the promotion opened to the public, and closed with a fabulous cocktail party.


On one night, however, Ryan and Kelley Pattee had the 67th-floor perch to themselves! Chosen by the Condé Nast publication as a couple deserving of a unique honeymoon—the bride's ailing parents prevented the two from taking a vacation after their wedding in August—the Pattees were left to their own devices in the romantic east-facing corner of Rockefeller Center's rooftop observatory.

What a view!
Even the stanchions have Swarovski crystals used as the ropes

Ryan and Kelley getting their honeymoon package to Bora Bora
Millie Martini editor of Brides is on the left

Companies like Ann Gish, Swarovski, and Veuve Cliquot provided products for the suite, while Air Tahiti Nui, Tahiti Tourisme North America, and the Four Seasons Bora Bora supplemented the promotion with a vacation package for the Pattees.


To construct the grand Dorothy Draper-inspired four-poster bed, the magazine utilized its own resources. Maria McBride, a designer and consultant with six books on bridal style to her name, headed up the project with production handled by Mark Musters, the veteran event producer and designer now working under the name Studio Mamu. "Working with a space open to the public has inherent challenges," said Maria. With only a six-hour window to load in and build the suite, Maria relied on Mark's production experience to tackle last-minute problems.


A plaster cast for a mold was used, then multiple copies were made in foam, then sectioned together, and painted in gesso and acrylic. The back and sides of bed are velvet upholstery with Swarovski crystals. The posts are wood columns, and the finials are zinc molds.

Maria makes the bed

The most beautiful luxury linens and pillows are by Ann Gish. Swarovski buttons were used for the quilting on the headboard.

Setting up the bed
Love the Draper influence!

The molds for the "plaster" portion of the bed were done by a company called Transit Culture, and then the fantastic bed was put together and constructed by the amazing Iziquerdo Studio (where Mark worked 100 years ago).

Setting up the bed

Back story and installation

Maria and the crew

I did many event at Rockefeller Center with uber wedding planner Marcy Blum, and many fun and creative projects with Maria McBride. Mark Musters was on my crew and roster of the most creative people I used, and often worked on my most important projects.
I hope you enjoyed a little back story of a major marketing and event production. We often just see the finished result, and not all the interesting machinations that it takes to create something so beautiful and ephemeral.
Maybe one day I'll pull some photos out of the vault to show some of the great projects my company did with the fabulous three "M's".
30 Rock has always been glam, but it really is so hip now too. When I worked there the place was decked out with the most gorgeous Art Deco furnishings. Now it's all lounge-y and cool.

Post Oscar Decorno - The Drab Age Is Over

I Heart Carlton Varney!
Renee Finberg has a cute backstory and interview about him.
I found the Green Room he did for the Oscars last year, and it is so much more glam and Hollywood worthy then this years design by Stephen Shadley (see katiedid).
The article and fab photos are from Architectural Digest. Enjoy the sparkle plenty!






From Architectural Digest June 2008:

Most designers faced with the prospect of having just five weeks to complete a job that’s key to one of the biggest events of the year could be forgiven if they opted to turn and run the other way. But Carleton Varney has never been like most designers. “It can always be done,” he says simply.

The indefatigable Varney was about to board a plane when he got a call from Architectural Digest editor-in-chief Paige Rense asking if he would like to design the magazine’s green room for this year’s Academy Awards. “Paige and I, we go back a while, and she’d seen the work I’d done for Joan Crawford and other stars,” he recalls. “I told her yes, indeed, I would!”

There was no question about the design concept. “We wanted to give it the early Hollywood look,” Varney notes, “when movie stars were movie stars.”

The president and owner of Dorothy Draper & Company didn’t have to look far for inspiration. His green room pays exuberant homage to four of Draper’s most notable projects—California’s Arrowhead Springs Hotel, the Quitandinha Palace & Casino Resort in Brazil, the Camellia House at Chicago’s Drake Hotel and New York’s Hampshire House.

No one did glamour quite like Dorothy Draper. The legendary decorator, who once pronounced, “the Drab Age is over,” was never one for the modest gesture. Rococo-style moldings, black-and-white-marble floors and overscale floral prints in vivid hues—all were part of her stylishly dramatic vocabulary.

The Architectural Digest Green Room, which Varney likens to “a set from a 20th-Century Fox musical,” is crisply theatrical and marked by bold colors and patterns. There are lacquered double doors and a floor stenciled in a checkerboard design. Mottled aubergine walls are offset by a glossy white wainscoting and oversize crown moldings. There’s a tufted-black-leather bar and luxurious fabrics: white satin, lipstick-red Ultrasuede and a bright green banana-leaf damask. A Dorothy Draper print adds a vibrant floral note.

While many of the furnishings are reproductions, others are original Draper pieces, such as the baroque sconce and the palm-tree lamps.

The room was to sit just offstage at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre and needed to accommodate between 25 and 30 people. Measuring approximately 40 by 20 feet, it was more or less the size of a New York City living room.

But most living rooms have things like walls, a ceiling, electrical outlets. The green room had to be constructed in its entirety at the ABC television studios before it was dismantled and rebuilt at the Kodak.

It took the set builders about four days to create the bones of the space, and then the carpentry, electrical, painting and drapery departments performed their duties. The move to the Kodak proved a bit more complicated. The room was a foot and a half over the fire exit doors and had to be tweaked to fit. In the end, the various departments worked feverishly to pull the room together on time.

By all accounts, the green room was an enormous success, and Varney is pleased that he can bring back glamour to interior design. “We live in a beige-and-gray world. We need a sparkle, a way to make people smile again. That’s what it’s all about.”

2009 Oscar Green Room via katiedid
Stephen Shadley needs to get some sparkle on!
The Drab Age is over!

Happy Birthday Mario Buatta!

Mario Buatta has been my BFF like forever. At least in my mind's eye. It's not that I haven't met him in person, talked to him, etc., because he and I are party people, and our paths crossed when I lived in New York City. He was the first professional decorator to form me (the non pros were my mother and my grandmother).
Known as the Prince of Chintz, he was certainly my Prince Charming. The way he used color and piled on so many beautiful things in a room captivated my over active imagination.
He taught me the word topiary, and God I made a ton of them for my business, and a ton of cash too! I fell in love with English dogs because of Mario, and have owned three, a Corgi and two Cavs. He made me smile with his witty needlepoint pillows, and I still have one that says TONIGHT on one side, and NOT TONIGHT on the other.
Mario was born in Staten Island, New York in 1935. I really don't what month or day, and could not find that tidbit of information anywhere. If any of you know, please tell me. I like to celebrate a birthday all year long, until the next one comes along, hence, Happy Birthday Mario Buatta!
He started collecting antiques at the ripe young age of eleven, his first acquisition being a little 18th century lap top writing desk. It took him twelve weeks to pay it off on the layaway plan, and he really didn't know what it was. When he brought it home, he father asked why in the world he wanted this old second hand piece of junk, and Mario told him he didn't know, he just thought it was pretty.
There is a wonderful interview on You Tube where he tells this story and many others. I don't like to put You Tube on my blog because I get those hideous gray boxes, and I also think it slows down opening up the page (along with all the other cool widget crap). So this is the link HERE
He went to London as a student in 1961, and it changed his life. He started Mario Buatta, Inc. in 1963. I went to England for the first time as a young person, and it changed my life too. I started Valorie Hart Designs, Inc. in 1984.
He has been influenced by his Aunt Mary, the home of Nancy Lancaster, and the decorator John Fowler. He and I went to the same schools: Pratt and Parsons. He also went to Cooper Union, whose entrance exam I flunked. He thought about becoming an architect, but found the math and drawing too hard (I also hated and struggled with my Architectural Drafting courses).
This is Mario at home. He is famous for saying "Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture." He also says that interiors evolve, they don't "simply appear overnight via a department store showroom."
There are many articles about Mario out there, but I give you the link to one HERE if you care to read more about him.
I would like to ask him a question: Mario when are you going to write a book about your great body of work? I can help.
I love that Mario says that there is nothing new.
Here is my Mario inspired living room in New York City. You can't see it, but there is a black wool rug with pink roses on it, in a very chintz looking pattern. I mixed it all up, dog paintings, flower paintings, fabrics, antiques and reproductions. Chinese export stuff, Victorian bird taxidermy, stripe-lattice-ivy wallpaper. It was just great!
I'm sitting with my friend Danny, who was such an Anglophile that he changed is name to Trevor Hadley. He took me for to visit Castle Howard in England where his friend was the art curator. It was during the height pf the PBS series Brideshead Revisited, filmed at Castle Howard, and we were kids in the eye candy shop.
I still love chintz. This is a curtain panel in my New Orleans kitchen now. Because of a somewhat open floor plan, I have the same wonderful fabric in my library, which is my office. They say chintz is making a come back. It's been said for at least three years now.
For many of us, it never went anywhere. I love this chair, don't you?
Modernists are checking it out too. The chair above is from Pottery Barn. It comes in leather, but they also offer this chintz for it. I'm glad younger ones are discovering chintz and English style. My young designer friend Mitchell says English Country is coming back. He says it's been out too long, and the price of English furniture is more affordable, and people will discover it again soon.
I think he's right. You can already see a smattering of it coming through the Last Century smoke machine fog. This room is from Home to House HERE, a terrific site from England, where of course chintz has never been on the outs.
Here's another nice example of chintz in a more contemporary way. The chair has rather clean lines, and the openness of the print makes it feel vibrant and not fussy. The black chair and black mirror really have pizazz on the chintz wallpaper.
Here's another nice image from the UK site House to Home, combining French toile and English chintz.
And I couldn't write about chintz and not mention the modernist Queen of Chintz, Ms. Dorothy Draper.
Darling of the present day Hollywood Regency trendsetters, she used traditional chintz in a modern and American way from the 1930's until her death in 1969 (you can read a nice little bio HERE).
Her show place and laboratory was the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. It has been around since 1778, and is distinctly American.
This is another great Draper living room. I don't have to tell you how current it still is, and how many decorating tricks we all do because of Dorothy Draper. All that needs to be updated is the floor, perhaps dark hardwoods, or bamboo (and maybe get rid of the skirted tables).
I leave you with one last image of the dining room at The Greenbrier. I have always wanted to take a little vacation there. It would be fun to organize a get-together with all of you there! A convention of decor bloggers woooohooo! I could do this for you all!
So long live the Prince (still with us), and the Queen (sadly passed on), and The Realm of Chintz (here forever)!!!!