see every glorious stitch known to grandmother here
What I am intrigued with- the idea of the printed leather. Why don't you use something on this order for chair seats? Update stodgy chairs with a little riff on embossed leather. No it's not for the faint of heart, but nothing original ever is.
I believe Billy Baldwin said :
"...you've got to take risks.
A person with a real flair is a gambler at heart."
This is my pick for best dressed at the Golden Globes yesterday, does anyone really care who wins? It is all about what they wore. Not necessarily so-but I seldom go sit in a theatre any more- rather I wait for netflix to fill the movie ticket. Julianne Moore always pulls something spectacular off-this time it is a one shoulder Honeysuckle Lanvin gown. It is a glorious color to wear-a bit harder to decorate with. Honeysuckle 18--2120 is Pantone's color of the year and has already been much talked about.
Getty image
HONEYSUCKLE
Pantone's Color of the year
but in this room by Mica Ertegun, Honeysuckle is done at its best.
(though any photographed room can appear a certain color-
if the first image is correct it is more honeysuckle than coral-but so hard to tell.)
& always- in praise of RED.
Another stand out was Alexa Chung. She co-hosted NBC's pre-show of the Golden Globes. No pictures of Alexa Chung at the moment- but there is a you tube video of the fashion darling at the event. The dress is Valentino.
style.com image Valentino Spring 2011
even better, make the two colors the backbone of your decorating wardrobe- as Lisa Fine did flawlessly in this elle decor story-
. do you wonder who the starlets are that seem interchangeable today ? I know I have moved on (over 50) and though still I possess a nimble noodle- one Lively, one Partridge? It makes one Scarlet positively staid. I bemoan, whine, about the lack of inspiring interior design and decoration in the slick magazines that appear in the box. I flip through. Another month passes. No GLUT here. To the contrary, just the hand full of magazines hanging in there. Moves of editors, this one to that. One happy thought is the newly placed Margaret Russell at the helm of Architectural Digest. Mitchell Owens follows her as AD's Special Projects Editor along with other notables, making for a AD revival.
photograph by Cecil Beaton
But- This fall sees yet another GLUT of designer portfolio books. I thought That was last year, But No- it is This year. Designers publishing another book, or new books from new designers. I think the saturation is due to the indiscriminate idea that THAT Designer is the one. Until THAT Designer is the one. A book A day. Really. I have declared strict guidelines to my own purchasing this fall-
No books about or by living Designers will I buy.
Consider. It will narrow the field for you, not marginally but substantially. Relieve your list of repetitive rooms from one house, one project, co authored books by Novelists, indulgent ME look books, full page quips about CHIC. No I didn't buy them, but I have perused a number of them very recently.
If your stacks are beginning to look like the corner bookstore, missing only the shiny shrink wrappings-
Consider. What is going to forward creating the room You desire? Find the answers by beginning with a careful edit of your stacks-that will go a long way & by applying the same good sense to your rooms you will make headway.
Here is what is on my list- with a few exceptions, I have followed MY RULES-to a point.*
* Bunny Williams is alive and quite well, I just saw photographs of her on NYSD.
This covers Books for the rest of 2010. 2011 will be another thing all together. This does not include some that I have already purchased- that said, I made some disappointing choices and some quite good ones, but No-not this Fall. There are some other wonderful things coming this fall in other categories I'll name later.
What have I omitted? Lots-I know- & isn't that the point? If I have dismissed a favorite of yours-do tell.
Don't we all love Billy Baldwin? I do. What about Tory Burch? I know many of you do. Though I don't wear her clothes consistently like many of my stylish clients- Burch is a stylish woman and I do like the fact that she will step right out in another designer's creations in a heartbeat. Say Stella MaCartney? The clothes she designs feel a smidgen young for me- though I have picked up a couple of her tunics and a beaded jacket-But the clothes are good looking and the shoes are particularly- great shoes- and her accessories- I would have them all just like that!
What has always intrigued me is the lady's taste. It is good, even great.
Burch is now appearing in the new September Elle- showing off her jewelry, but more intriguing for me- is her Decor. Photograhed by Paul Costello and edited by Miranda Purves- the article,TORY DAYS, is in Elle's ELLELIVING segment of the magazine. It's an upbeat fast paced peak at the lady's entertaining style, her secret sources, even a recipe. I may try those Roquefort Grapes-very doable looking. The piece also contains the ubiquitous things she can't live without- better called here by Purves- List For Life: Burch's Basics. I like all her basics too.
But, the Decor. Her designer is Daniel Romualdez and a number of his Burch rooms have been seen just about everywhere- in Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People that shows off Burch’s 9,000 square foot Manhattan apartment. How could they have missed this room? Is it newly done up? And-How could she go wrong with Billy Baldwin'sARBRE de MATISSE, through Quadrille. She and Romualdez have used it extensively in a banquette area, on sofas, walls, and curtains.
I wonder where this glorious room will turn up next? & it is Just Glorious Tory.
Arbre de Matisse shown on the front jacket of Billy Baldwin Decorates
A great design scholar examines every object in his home, from its provenance to the details of its acquisition, and ends up creating a moving portrait of his life.
&
Conversation Pieces by Sacheverell Sitwell. I love portraits and this particular genre, portraits composed of two or more family members, doubles, triples, and quadruples the pleasure.
the Sitwells by Sargent
Ex-libris for Sacheverell Sitwell (1897- 1988)by John Piper, based on a monogram of Sitwell’s grandfather.
Valentinaby Kohle Yohannan. A fashion designer who still remains a mystery.
Nana by Emile Zola. So salacious and hermetic and lots of descriptions of truly vulgar interiors.
"Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco." zola
Zola by Manet
E M Delafield's A Provincial Lady series of novels. Beaucoup de charme!
E M Delafield
& Far too many plant and seed catalogues! I read and dream more than I actually order.
Is there one book you honestly don’t expect to get to? Why?
I have never and will never manage to do more than dip a toe into Proust. Which is why I never put it on any must-read list anymore! It’s so dense and so rich that I get bogged down after only a few chapters and have to clear my mental palate with a dose of Nancy Mitford.
"I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another."NM
Where do you read and when? Does the genre you are reading dictate the place you read?- in other words do you take just any old book to bed?
I read all the time and can be found dragging a book or magazine to the breakfast table, to my spouse’s everlasting chagrin. I tend to read gardening books when I’m in the country, those as well as country-house decorating books. But when I head to bed, I bring biographies for some reason.
What does your nightstand look like? Or your side of the bed, floor, chair!
At present it is a small, round Syrian table piled high with books and topped with reading glasses. More books and magazines are deposited on the floor in some measure of disorder. I really should have something better than this.
(My own thoughts on a new look for the AESTHETE)
giotto
What is your all time Favorite Book for its sense of place?
Nothing beats Flaubert's “Madame Bovary” for atmosphere. You can practically hear the leaves in the trees rustling and see the dust churned up by carriages and wagons.
"And what is there to beat sitting by the fire of an evening with a book, when the lamp is lit and the wind beating against the window?... You forget everything... the hours slip by. Sitting still in your arm-chair, you can wander in strange places and make believe they are there before your eyes. Your thoughts become entwined in the story, dwelling on the details, or eagerly following the course of the adventure. You imagine you are the characters, and it seems to be 'your' heart that is throbbing beneath their raiment."- Gustave Flaubert, from Madame Bovary
What is your Security Blanket Book?
It’s the one book I take to bed whenever I am laid up with a cold or other illness.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all." from ALICE
THE PERFECT AESTHETE"S PERFECT ALICE Annie Leibovitz for Vogue
What is your favorite Genre? Why? What is your most recent purchase in this category?
Biographies and more biographies. I cannot get enough of reading about other people’s lives, loves, houses, dreams, hopes, and private torments. Most recently I received a copy of Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography of Madame de Staël, the great French intellectual and salon hostess, and I rushed straight through it, much faster than I had hoped. So I intend to start it over and try to savor rather than gulp. I also devour crime novels, especially the works of Henning Mankell. Oh, he’s good.
"Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it." Madame de Stael
Francine du Plessix Gray as a young woman
What about Books you are reading for a second or third time? Why? Any disappointments on second reading?
I read everything multiple times, pulling out especial favourites when the weather is bad (rainy days in particular). If a book is good, it’s always good, so no disappointments here. Well, except the novels of Taylor Caldwell. I used to race through them in high school and now they seem so labored, creaky, and pretentious.
What is the seminal book in your field or your passion that you would recommend to young would be(s) of the same?
Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankell. He can’t write enough books fast enough for me. I have half a mind to write and tell him so.
Henning Mankell on reading:
"It is a disgrace for the whole world that we in the year 2008 have yet to eradicate illiteracy on our planet. Still millions of children are forced to enter life without knowing how to read and write. Being a writer myself I know that there is only one symbolic book which truly matters: the ABC-book."
Book covers can be art- Do you have a favorite cover in your stacks?
The English slip jacket of the collected letters of Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh-Fermor, read about In Tearing Haste here. Very graphic, rather naïve, and just the sort of cover that would never be sold on an American book. It’s too eccentric and at the same time too subtle.
Going out on a limb here –define LIBRARY in the nontraditional sense?
Any collection of books that contributes to the broadening of your viewpoint.
Image-Architectural Digest, December'79, photograph by Derry Moore.
WELL SAID AESTHETE. As I have mentioned in several posts- reading the AESTHETE's lament was a catalyst for my own decision to start Little Augury. I want to personally thank You for that and to ask that you please seriously consider hesitating before posting anymore Must Read Books for awhile- I can't keep up.
Dear READER, do you think the AESTHETE has read SISTER, The Life of Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II.Of Course! I do too- but have You? I can't wait to read it- and it can be yours to read too- I'll send it your way.
