Fabric Fanatic

April 14, 2011UncategorizedResourcesMrs. Blandings

I’ve been stopping in to visit this wonderful African textile at Christopher Filley’s for the last several months. Of all the things the house needs, this is clearly not a priority, but I yearn for it just the same.

Jennifer Shorto, who has a fabric fascination herself, has developed a short line of fabrics based on Ivory Coast textiles that are long on style.

Graphic and great, you can find them at Michael Smith in LA or on-line here.

The advantage of checking out these wovens on-line is that you can pop over and see some of the wonderful antique textiles in Shorto’s collection.

Like this chain-stitched silk on silk. Heavens. How many textiles can I hold in my heart?

Image, top, mine – or yours, whatever, the remaining via JenniferShorto.com.

Put a Lid on It

April 12, 2011UncategorizedProductMrs. Blandings

I mentioned these charming cups yesterday. Charlotte Moss introduced them to me and I have been meaning to order a few.

Or more. I don’t need mugs with infusers as I prefer strong, black coffee, but the three color ways above are available with or without.

The lid is so handy. I sometimes carry my coffee into the bathroom while I shower. My low-rent self, lacking a knobbed-top, places a jar of cream atop my cup to keep it hot.

This seems a better solution. At $3.50 a cup you’re still ahead of carry-out with its paper and plastic. (Be warned that they are a shocking $6 with the infuser.)

Fans of blue and white can really score. Sad to say, though I prefer the shape, I might have a harder time ordering “straight bottom” over “slim bottom.” Seems one should at least be able to have one on one’s cup. From Pearl River.

“I am a wanderer.”

April 11, 2011Uncategorizeddesign books, DesignersMrs. Blandings

I’m not sure exactly what I expected when I met Charlotte Moss. I can only say that she was “more.” I expected her to be gracious and smart, but she was more than that, really. And, I think the most pleasant surprise was that she was as interested as interesting; it’s an engaging combination.

She served my coffee in a Pearl River Market coffee cup with clever cover and it was a relief to see someone who is so stylish so unconcerned with label and tag.

Moss’s latest book, Charlotte Moss Decorates, is a compilation of show house rooms that she has designed. She liked the concept of these projects as they reflect a start-from-scratch approach. “It is what a lot of homeowners face – four blank walls.”

This blankness allows Moss to create a story, to develop a character, to build a room to suit a life. Moss revels in travel and you can sense from her stories that she is an observer, someone who is cataloguing experience and impressions along with color and shape and scale.

She notes that the “high/low” happens; something clicks. When these types of things are contrived it is obvious – anything forced looks it in the end. Moss noted that so much work goes into these show houses, and that the vendors and supplies are so incredibly generous, that they “don’t get the shelf life they deserve.” We can certainly enjoy them in this latest book.

All images courtesy of Rizzoli from Charlotte Moss Decorates; photography by Pieter Estersohn, except the last which is Moss’s inspiration board for Kips Bay 2008.

Design ADD

March 24, 2011UncategorizedDesigners, Musings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

Elegant as Rheinstein?

Chic as Irving?

Cocooned in a cacophony of color as Gambrel?

Or, crisp as can be as TOB? What to do when it isn’t so much knowing what you like, as knowing what you like the most? Which way to go when it isn’t not knowing how, it’s not knowing which. How does one find the will to winnow?

Really. I want to know.

Images from top, Suzanne Rheinstein for Courtnay Daniels, Southern Accents, November/December 2002; photography by Tria Giovan; Carolina Irving, her own home, via Little Augury; Steven Gambrel, his own home, Elle Decor by William Waldron; Thomas O’Brien, his own home, via aerostudios.com.

Thoroughly Modern Me

March 23, 2011Uncategorizeddesign booksMrs. Blandings

Do you take books on vacation? You know, actual books? Not a grainy seventy-five percent screen of text on an electronic tablet. Books.

I do. This trip I took A Moveable Feast, A Passage to India, The Hunger Games, Scat and a broad collection of Poppleton. Also, Metropolitan Home’s Design 100: The Last Word on Modern Interiors. Normally, I do not take design books on vacation. I often buy design books on vacation, happy to lug them home, but usually I don’t pack them to go along.

This time I did. I miss Met Home and its unique, and I think broad, definition of “modern.” The book is a wonderful collection of some of the highlights of the magazine’s thirty years of coverage. There are great, large glossy pictures and short bits of copy, a happy balance for the design crazy. This particular image, above, has stuck in my head for years. I hunted through a stack of old issues five times to try to find it before giving up. The work of architects David Lake and Ted Flato, I have thought of it half-a-dozen times since it was published; I am happy to have it in hand again.

Particularly charming is editor Michael Lassell’s introduction; it is the kind of writing that makes you think you might want to hang out with him and have a beer after work. Which is kind of what he’s doing with the book. Even if your design library leans a bit traditional, you should find good inspiration here.

Photo, top, photography by Erik Johanson, next, photography by John Ellis and last, photography by Langdon Clay, all images courtesy of Filipacchi Publishing 2010 for Design 100: The Last Word on Modern Interiors.