The principal colors in these rooms — purple, magenta and saffron – are not for the neutral of heart.
Walls covered with bold patterns and intense colors – be it on wallpaper or fabric – have always attracted me. For years I’ve thought about creating a room based on colors and patterns as intense as these, which I have been saving and savoring for some time. For the lilac-colored guest room of a home in the Swiss Alps, an English designer chose this Arbre Indien Violet (violet Indian tree) fabric from Claremont, a custom archive fabric specialist, basically eliminating the need for much else.
All these rooms are from homes in Europe and they reference 18th century style which is still so revered in France and England. I recognize they are not, for the most part, American taste. But we see a blizzard of white-painted and shabby and country and cottage all the time. As crisp as modern furniture looks, a lot of it looks the same.
For the bedroom study of a house in Tangier, architect Roberto Peregalli chose original 19th century English floral-print wallpaper with an intense blue-violet background. Both the ebony-and-ivory Italian bookcase and inlaid Syrian chairs are antique.
So you think this room looks old-fashioned? It was intended to be! It’s the bedroom of the late couturier Yves St. Laurent in his Normandy estate the Château Gabriel. Jacques Grange decorated the house to St. Laurent’s specifications (which included this ornate metal bed) as a 19th century fantasy. Apart from a crucifix over the bed, the pattern reigns.
A French antiques dealer upholstered the walls of a second floor landing in this Rubelli silk fabric with a saffron ground and tropical motif. Like the others, it is both individual and personal. Or, as the 20th century media culture guru Marshall McLuhan might famously explain it: “The medium is the message,” or in other words, the decoration is built in.
