Wednesday 6 May 2009

Righty?














Design Solutions
House & Garden, July 2000 (UK)


Wrongy.
Shut up Bowers.



Pretty? Yes.
Great decorating? No.




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Now playing: Sparklehorse - Getting It Wrong
via FoxyTunes

10 comments:

Rose C'est La Vie said...

thank god, you've pointed up this decorators' contrived museological habit. How do you stand on David Hick's tablescapes? I think there's a place for displaying objets artfully or we couldn't collect them in the first place.A bit of a conundrum?

HOBAC said...

Rose - it is actually four different designers/decorators.

It is one thing to arrange the display of a client's collections, it is an entirely different matter to just go out and buy them stuff. Something I do not do is accessorise. Even when a house is finished (I should say when I am finished with a house) there must still be room for growth and change.

Rose C'est La Vie said...

I didn't realise designers did accessorise. Well, I did sort of when
my next door neighbour collected a batch of weird vases suddenly! I like what you said about allowing room for growth and change.

The-Countrypolitan said...

Good point... it is like a cut and paste solution for instant design. Like comparing a model home or design house to one that has evolved as a reflection of its owner.

Mrs. Blandings said...

Interesting as one of the best decorators I know here in town firmly declines to buy his clients' "things." He tells them if they find them he will gladly help them place them. This is why I think decorators' homes some how translate so much better. They are buying their own stuff.

mamacita said...

Why are those tortoise shells ivory? Does that occur naturally?

HOBAC said...

M - those are the carapaces which are bone. The scoots have been removed to make tortoiseshell items and the bone polished. Often a by-product of the turtle soup industry.

katiedid said...

Do you know anything about the owners of these houses? Did the decorator really buy all the "things" or was anything owned by the client? Just curious. Sadly...the clients that need the most help are the ones who have the worst "stuff"....or none at all. I suppose by the time the decorator has finished with their job, they have imparted enough knowledge/interest in the client so they are able to buy interesting things.

maison21 said...

how interesting about the tortoiseshell carapaces- i had no idea...

about objets- i wish my clients often had a selection of accessories, or the desire to collect them, but so often they do not, or have any desire to start. so i step in. as katie said though, hopefully somewhere in our process they do develop an eye for things they like NOT selected by me, but sometimes, they just want me to do it all.
i am more than happy to oblige- i have enough acquisitiveness (and hopefully an eye) to more than compensate for those who do not. ;-)

HOBAC said...

K - I didn't want to name names just incase.

1. Laura Biagiotti's bedroom.
2. Textile designer Bernie de Le Cuona's house in Windsor.
3. Photographer Fernando Bengoechea's house.
4. Daniel Romualdez. (your guess is as good as mine)

The jist of the piece was about using objects instead of art. Fine. What the photographs then proceed to depict though is either badly done or impractical.
In:
1. The fans are so badly hung and the pair of chests seems so contrived.
2. The candles will either leave soot marks on the ceiling or burn the house down. And the two vases of flowers, why?
3. Open candles next to a feather head dress? So staged and fake.
4. Just awful.