I’ve been doing a little blog clean up and it led to some wacky posts last week. While I’m blogging more, you can be assured that if you’re receiving more than one post in your morning email that something has gone wrong. I do wish I were in California, but, alas, I am not. I should finish up in the next few days and things will be back on track.
As we head into Spring and push back hangers and rifle through drawers sorting what makes sense for the new season, I’m always looking for an easy way to update an old favorite. I have an antique locket that hits just at my sternum, that I never, ever wear. My wrists jangle, my fingers flash and my ears are hooped, but my neck is usually bare. I’ve been wanting a charm to hang low inside my blouses, right in the spot where I spray my perfume. When I saw this Celine brass and silk necklace, it offered the bridge between old and new. The gleam of the metal and the rough of the cord are an irresistible combination and a good way to give an old piece new life.
Image via the WSJ Magazine here.
Spaces Kansas City has revamped their look and there’s loads more content on-line. You can see my latest column on trends here.
Image, design Miles Redd; photography, Paul Costello.
My oldest son is a senior in high school and we’ve spent a good little bit of time this year working on college applications. He wants to be an architect, and even as we have sat across from deans and talked to people who work in the field who tell him about the hours and the money, he is undeterred.
“Don’t do it because you think I want you to,” I told him. He assured me he is not, but I worried.
As he was putting together his portfolio, I watched as he scanned and uploaded. (I was encouraged, too, that all the schools to which he applied preferred hand drawings to CAD.)
Generally, he draws elevations and then corresponding floor plans. Sometimes, he includes furniture designs. I can’t pretend that I would be able to evaluate a portfolio or that I am in any way unbiased, but one “project” caught my eye.
“Have you been in a house like this?” I asked him, holding out a piece of notebook paper, the edge ruffled where it had been torn from the spiral. The penciled marks were dark and sure.
He looked up at me from the bamboo chair at my wicker desk, so clearly a man in a woman’s spot.
“No. I dream about being in buildings and then I get up in the night and draw them.” He looked back to the computer screen to check the progress of his upload. “Do you do that?”
Many creative people find their passion at a young age. Robert Couturier recounts in his book how he developed “personal relationships” with antiques growing up in his home in France. He became a decorator against his grandmother’s wishes. (“You weren’t supposed to be somebody who was going to work for somebody else,” he recalls.) I’ve always admired Couturier for his combination of classic design and fearless incorporation of modern art, lighting and furniture. He plays with scale and color in a way that always inspires me. Couturier forces me to open my mind.
His new book, Robert Couturier: Designing Paradises, contains a thorough catalogue of his house and many favorite projects. You can find it here.
All images courtesy of Rizzoli International; images Tim Street-Porter.
You can find more images from the Elle Decor feature on Stanton’s blog here. Once you stop in, do click around. He posts lovely pictures of his vignettes and thoughts on his travels around town, around the web and around the world.
Two images, top, Elle Decor, March 2015, styled by Robert Rufino, photography Bjorn Wallander. Image bottom, Lee Stanton.
