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.
