You've probably noticed it in clothing stores: racks and shelves full of high-waisted flares, rib-knit turtlenecks, acid green sweatshirts and disco ball metallics. It's that '70s -- and '80s -- show.

These two fashion trends have, as usual, worked their way into home decor as well.

"Right now, in home design, it feels like a total '70s takeover," says Apartment Therapy's Danielle Blundell. "This time period had two pretty distinct things going on -- boho hippie vibes and glam, glitzy disco feels. Which means you can probably find a way to work something '70s into your home no matter your aesthetic."

Watch for patchwork and peasant prints, fringe and earthy hues. Shaggy, textured woven rugs. Modernist wall art. Rattan etageres and side tables.

One of the hallmarks of the 1980s was Memphis style. Started by Austrian-born but Italian-raised architect Ettore Sottsass, it was characterized by squiggle and geometric pattern, mixing of pastels with black and brights, and an overall playful, whimsical approach. Sottsass and his team designed for Fiorucci, Alessi and Esprit among others, and Karl Lagerfeld and Bowie were collectors.

New York-based designer Sasha Bikoff created the exuberant showstopper of a staircase for 2018's Kip's Bay Showhouse in Manhattan. Using Memphis Milano designers Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendinii as her inspiration, the space was filled with brights and pastels, mirrors, and a riot of pattern.- Genevieve Garrupo/Courtesy of Sasha Bikoff

Designer Sasha Bikoff created a buzzworthy Memphis-inspired staircase for the 2018 Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse in Manhattan. New Yorker Raquel Cayre manages an Instagram account dedicated to all things Sottsass, and even created a temporary space in Soho called Raquel's Dream House, chock full of Memphis themed interior decor.

Memphis originals are pricey, but you can find referential decorative items that are affordable. Street brand Supreme offers clothing and skateboard decks; designer Ellen Van Dusen's Brooklyn-based eponymous company makes clothing and home goods featuring her own versions of Memphis pattern.

Imola Ceramica has the Pop collection of ceramic tile, with Roy Lichtenstein-inspired art comics printed on subway-style tile. Their Let It Bee collection features groovy, semicircular, tone-on-tone designs in brick red, indigo, apple green and dark yellow.

Designer/architect Luca Andrisani has designed a collection for New York Cement Tile called Geometrika. Inspired by midcentury op art, there are retro hues, square and rectangular shapes, and eye-catching optical illusion patterns. Walker Zanger has Australian designer Pietta Donovan's hip new '70s-patterned tile collection.

A selection from Imola Ceramica's Let It Bee tile collection, which features half moon and circle patterns in vibrant midcentury colors, reflects the swingy artistic flair of the era.- Courtesy of Ceramics of Italy

At http://www.spoonflower.com you'll find several peel and stick wallpapers and fabric by the yard with Memphis style or leopard prints. Here as well are '70s-style florals in wallcoverings and fabric.

European bathware designers have been featuring pedestal sinks, toilets and tubs in colors like cranberry, moss, mustard, teal and pink -- colors that would have been destined for the bin a few years ago. Here in North America, eBay and salvage sites like Retro Renovation are good places to source vintage wares. For new products, Aquatica USA has roomy resin tubs in dark red or moss green with white interior, while Bella Stone's got a fun one in fire-engine red.

Check out http://www.roostery.com for whimsical '70s-style fruit and vegetable prints, geometrics and paisleys in softgoods like napery and throw pillows.

Sometimes it's the little things that bring the look home. Atomic starburst knobs, for example; and http://www.zazzle.com has several patterns. Cabinet and doorknob backplates come in starry shapes at http://www.rejuvenation.com.

At http://www.dusendusen.com, find soft furnishings printed with bold check, dot, stripe, cutout and squiggle patterns. There are patterned pet beds, pillows and shower curtains, too.

In a collaboration with London-based Soho Home, Anthropologie offers the Adriana chair; in a deep terra cotta velvet, the chubby, channel-seamed silhouette echoes Italian postmodern design. Kardiel's curvy Miranda gold-velvet two-seater has an Austin Powers flair.

At Beam, you'll find simple yet stylish chairs and tables made of powder-coated steel, hardwood and performance fabrics, part of a collaboration between Gus* Modern and LUUM inspired by the Memphis Group's color palette.

ModShop has a treasure trove of options, including the Chubby 2 lounge chair that swivels on a brass-clad base, and the St. Germain side table and credenza, with an abstract, patterned front in poppy colors, perched on chunky acrylic legs.

Ball-shaped and half-dome lighting in matte and polished metallics reference the '70s, as do embossed ceramic bases and cane and rattan fixtures. Look for combinations of pyramids, squares and balls, as well as thick glass circle shapes in '80s-style fixtures. CB2, Urban Outfitters and All Modern have well-priced designs, while Chairish and 1stDibs are good places to hunt for vintage pieces.

Link:
It's that '70s (and '80s) show in home decor - Chicago Daily Herald

You've probably noticed it in clothing stores: racks and shelves full of high-waisted flares, rib-knit turtlenecks, acid green sweatshirts and disco ball metallics. It's that '70s and '80s show.

These two fashion trends have, as usual, worked their way into home decor as well.

"Right now, in home design, it feels like a total '70s takeover," says Apartment Therapy's Danielle Blundell. "This time period had two pretty distinct things going on boho hippie vibes and glam, glitzy disco feels. Which means you can probably find a way to work something '70s into your home no matter your aesthetic."

Watch for patchwork and peasant prints, fringe and earthy hues. Shaggy, textured woven rugs. Modernist wall art. Rattan etageres and side tables.

One of the hallmarks of the 1980s was Memphis style. Started by Austrian-born but Italian-raised architect Ettore Sottsass, it was characterized by squiggle and geometric pattern, mixing of pastels with black and brights, and an overall playful, whimsical approach. Sottsass and his team designed for Fiorucci, Alessi and Esprit among others, and Karl Lagerfeld and Bowie were collectors.

Designer Sasha Bikoff created a buzz-worthy Memphis-inspired staircase for the 2018 Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse in Manhattan. New Yorker Raquel Cayre manages an Instagram account dedicated to all things Sottsass, and even created a temporary space in Soho called Raquel's Dream House, chock full of Memphis themed interior dcor.

Memphis originals are pricey, but you can find referential decorative items that are affordable. Street brand Supreme offers clothing and skateboard decks; designer Ellen Van Dusen's Brooklyn-based eponymous company makes clothing and home goods featuring her own versions of Memphis pattern.

Surfaces

Imola Ceramica has the Pop collection of ceramic tile, with Roy Lichtenstein-inspired art comics printed on subway-style tile. Its Let It Bee collection features groovy, semi-circular, tone-on-tone designs in brick red, indigo, apple green and dark yellow.

Designer/architect Luca Andrisani has designed a collection for New York Cement Tile called Geometrika. Inspired by midcentury op art, there are retro hues, square and rectangular shapes, and eye-catching optical illusion patterns. Walker Zanger has Australian designer Pietta Donovan's hip new '70s-patterned tile collection.

At http://www.spoonflower.com you'll find several peel and stick wallpapers and fabric by the yard with Memphis style or leopard prints. Here as well are '70s-style florals in wallcoverings and fabric.

European bathware designers have been featuring pedestal sinks, toilets and tubs in colors like cranberry, moss, mustard, teal and pink colors that would have been destined for the bin a few years ago. Here in North America, eBay and salvage sites like Retro Renovation are good places to source vintage wares. For new products, Aquatica USA has roomy resin tubs in dark red or moss green with white interior, while Bella Stone's got a fun one in fire-engine red.

Accessories

Check out http://www.roostery.com for whimsical '70s-style fruit and vegetable prints, geometrics and paisleys in soft goods like napery and throw pillows.

Sometimes it's the little things that bring the look home. Atomic starburst knobs, for example; and http://www.zazzle.com has several patterns. Cabinet and doorknob backplates come in starry shapes at http://www.rejuvenation.com.

At http://www.dusendusen.com, find soft furnishings printed with bold check, dot, stripe, cutout and squiggle patterns. There are patterned pet beds, pillows and shower curtains, too.

Furniture

In a collaboration with London-based Soho Home, Anthropologie offers the Adriana chair; in a deep terracotta velvet, the chubby, channel-seamed silhouette echoes Italian postmodern design. Kardiel's curvy Miranda gold-velvet two-seater has an Austin Powers flair.

At Beam, you'll find simple yet stylish chairs and tables made of powder-coated steel, hardwood and performance fabrics, part of a collaboration between Gus*Modern and LUUM inspired by the Memphis Group's color palette.

ModShop has a treasure trove of options, including the Chubby 2 lounge chair that swivels on a brass-clad base, and the St. Germain side table and credenza, with an abstract, patterned front in poppy colors, perched on chunky acrylic legs.

Ball-shaped and half-dome lighting in matte and polished metallics reference the '70s, as do embossed ceramic bases and cane and rattan fixtures. Look for combinations of pyramids, squares and balls, as well as thick glass circle shapes in '80s-style fixtures. CB2, Urban Outfitters and All Modern have well-priced designs, while Chairish and 1stDibs are good places to hunt for vintage pieces.

See more here:
RIGHT AT HOME: Its that 70s (and 80s) show in home decor - Worcester Telegram

In 30 some years of writing up weddings, it takes a lot to make me pull out my handkerchief. For years, I kept a scrapbook of badly worded headlines. My favorite came from the newspaper in Laurel, Mississippi, now the subject of HGTVs hit show Home Town. Neighboring towns included Hot Coffee, Errata, Soso, and Tuckers Crossing. The headline read, Boy from Hot Coffee Marries Soso Girl.

So it was wildly out of character for me to tear up when church friends had their wedding reception at the Carousel Pavilion, the new attraction at the Childrens Museum of Memphis, in November. Our staff affectionately called it My Big Fat Gay Wedding in the days leading up to it. Our choirs gift to them was an arrangement of Theres a Place For Us from West Side Story. Well, I took to blubberin and didnt stop until somebody stuffed a piece of cake in my face.

Location is the most important decision one makes, says Warner Moore, wedding designer and interior decorator. Everything else radiates from that decision. People know their venue when they see it. Once it feels right to them, everything can proceed from there.

The more the couple can hone in on their preferences, the more accurate a map he can draw for them, Moore says. Even the cleverest wedding planner cannot turn a casual space into a formal one, or vice versa. You also have to match the space to the number of guests. Theres nothing worse than having a small wedding in a big place because it looks like no one came.

Myriad elements go into creating a sense of place: lighting, color, season, formality, and the personalities of the couple. The variables are endless. The paper save the date card is the first hint at the weddings personality.

Kat Gordon, owner of Muddys Bake Shop, sees a consistent effort to match food choices to the mood of the venue. At a barn or vineyard wedding, for example, the couple may want a pie bar for dessert. That feels very Southern and authentic, she says.

The multi-tiered formal confection with the obligatory cake-cutting moment is rarely the centerpiece of the reception anymore. People are thinking about the experience they want their guests to have more than a photo opportunity, Gordon says. They want food thats not just edible but really tasty and represents who we are in our city.

With a seated dinner, a cake per table has become a Muddys signature. An 8-inch layer cake at each table in chocolate, lemon, or strawberry adds color and variety.

Whats trending in flowers in 2020 is a little tweak on the traditional, says Eric Lee Milner of E.L.M. Designs. Couples are wanting traditional flowers, but in unique colors. Calla lilies are a basic, but I had an October bride who chose them in dark purple and deep maroon and added a pheasant feather.

Milner predicts more saturated color in bouquets, centerpieces, and altar flowers. Youre going to see more strong orange, lime-green, and fuschia, and less white, pink, and peach, he says.

Short of having Oprahs money, Milner recommends brides concentrate their budget on one statement piece in a high visibility spot. You can get more impact with one singular wow arrangement at the entry or in the middle of your reception area than you can with an abundance of flowers all over the place, he says. Whether its a big raised arrangement on a table right when you arrive or one big arrangement in the middle of the buffet, that gives you more impact and its more affordable than trying to address the whole room.

In the world of wedding gifts, the charcuterie board (methinks) may be to the 2020s what the fondue set was to the 1970s. Charcuterie boards are big, both in terms of size and in popularity, says Brooks Terry, owner of Babcock Gifts.

Since couples are marrying later in their 20s and most have lived together, many already have the household basics. With their registries, theyre trying to equip themselves for entertaining, also a regional phenomenon.

Our vendors love the South because we still register brides, Terry says. In California and on the East Coast, wedding gifts are usually cash or Venmo.

Sorry I fainted there for a second from shock and dismay. Okay, Im back.

Another change is in the split between formal and informal dinnerware. The completion of a set of fine china was once the primary goal of every brides registry. Now the everyday set is the priority. Couples have gotten a little more casual, but they still like nice stuff, Terry says.

Going into 2020, Terry sees brides choosing a fine china as the dinner plate, but for the salad plate, theyll mix it up with some hand-thrown, artistic pottery. Three of the most popular lines are made nearby: Millers Mud comes from Dumas, Arkansas; McCarty Pottery is Merigold, Mississippis most famous export; and Potsalot is made on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Judaica pieces like Seder plates, Shabbat candles, and menorahs sell well year-round, regardless of the couples wedding date, Terry says.

If you want to go rogue and choose a gift not on the registry, you can never go wrong with crystal, Terry says. No ones sending back a Baccarat vase or a Waterford salad bowl.

What do you get when you mix newlyweds, a popular fantasy series, and Downtowns newest ballroom?

Why, the Game of Thrones wedding reception at Central Station Hotel, of course. The first couple to marry at the new hotel wed there December 29th. They chose the venue in July when it was still under construction. Everyone was still in hard hats, but this couple saw the vision, says Helen Nelson, director of sales and marketing for Central Station Hotel.

The same could be said for McLean Wilson, the principal in the redevelopment of Central Station. Hes the grandson of Kemmons Wilson, founder of Holiday Inns, known to generations of travelers as the nations innkeeper. According to Nelson, Henry Turley first saw the potential of bringing a hotel to the South Main Arts District, and invited McLean to develop the concept.

Built in 1914, Central Station still serves rail passengers boarding Amtraks City of New Orleans, the historic 19-hour route from New Orleans to Chicago. Wilson reimagined the former offices of the Illinois Central Railroad, Amtraks predecessor, as hotel rooms.

But its the lobby and bar that bear the stamp of South Main. A tower of record albums overlooks the double turntable built into an antique organ housing. One wall holds speakers of all different shapes. Memphis music plays in the lobby and bar, and guests hear Isaac Hayes or Sam and Dave in the guest rooms.

At 6,600 square feet, the Grand Hall is 33 feet high. It was the original passenger waiting room for trains for 80 years (Some of the stations original benches can still be seen on a lower level). In the Grand Hall, Central Stations original arrival and departure board is outlined in neon lights. Hidden uplighting can be adjusted to customize the brides chosen colors.

Entering the hotel grounds requires driving a little south of the station on South Main and doubling back up the platform to the hotel entrance. Brides may have a challenge keeping people in the Grand Hall, because the lobby and bar have so many things to explore. Weve had inquiries about using the hotel lobby for receptions, Nelson says, but so far the answers been a hard no. We want that area to be for the neighborhood, not cordoned off for private events. We want it to feel like South Mains living room.

Marrying at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church puts you squarely in the 25 percent of couples who marry in church, down from 40 percent just ten years ago, according to weddingwire.com.

The foremost reason to marry at a church would be to honor your faith tradition, says the Rev. J. Lawrence Turner, senior pastor at The Blvd., as the church is known. My view of the Christian wedding ceremony is that it is more than a celebration of two people joining their lives together. Its of the God who joins them together. So a Christian wedding is ultimately a worship experience.

Turner officiates at 12 or 15 weddings a year, but there are other pastors on staff who solemnize vows. The Blvd. also has a full-time event planner on staff.

Marrying in the church matters less than the church being in the marriage. It is not so much where the wedding takes place or whether the church recognizes it, says Turner. Rather, I have found success in marriage depends on whether that couple honors Christian principles in their marriage such as unconditional love, mutual respect, honesty, fidelity, and grace.

When Bellevue Baptist vacated the sprawling campus at Jefferson and N. Bellevue in 1992, Mississippi Boulevard brought its ministries to the heart of Midtown. The Blvd. is home to dozens of ministries including meal distribution, wellness initiatives, Room In the Inn overnight housing for the unsheltered, pastoral care to shut-ins, and a college tour for high school seniors. Facility rental generates 11.5 percent of The Blvd.s $6.5 million annual budget.

We are certainly open to the public to be rented out for weddings, says Turner. Our space is memorable for not only being the place for many weddings for our congregation for the past 26 years weve owned this space, but also for the previous congregation that owned the building, Bellevue Baptist.

Soaring limestone columns support the broad portico leading to Mississippi Blvd.s two-story vestibule. Accommodating up to 3,000 guests, the sanctuary has seating on two levels. Contemporary stained-glass windows, including one depicting the Pyramid and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, cast rose and blue highlights over the balcony.

Our chapel, which is where our smaller weddings take place, has beautiful natural light too, Turner says.

With 30 receptions already booked for the Carousel Pavilion in 2020, the bride who wants a merry-go-round wedding had best break out ahead of the pack. Like a jewel-under-glass on permanent exhibit, the historic carousel at the Childrens Museum of Memphis, located at Central and Hollywood, is the same one that thousands of us rode as children at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, later Libertyland.

Couples that are attracted to this degree of spectacle bring a lot of vision, says Melissa Latil, carousel events and operations manager. Theres not a lot of middle ground for this venue. People either say, Im in or rule it out quickly.

Brides may choose to make their entrance around the Carousel or through the sliding double doors. At a Disney-themed reception last month, a Tinkerbell pulled open the doors for the first look at the couple. The staff created a Mickey Mouse dance area with a round floor and two round tables to shape the ears. Guests watched a projection of the Happily Ever After fireworks spectacular from the Magic Kingdom.

While the Pavilion can accommodate up to 500 guests, Latil says the Carousel is ideal for weddings of about 150, which is slightly above average. According to weddingwire.com, the average guest list in 2019 included 126. Adjacent to the Carousel are a ballroom, lobby, catering kitchen, and separate dressing suites for brides and grooms. The Carousel Pavilion connects to the Childrens Museum of Memphis, formerly the National Guard Armory from 1943 until 1983.

With a four-hour wedding rental, the Carousel runs for 2 hours. Restoration of the 100-year-old merry-go-round carved by Gustav Dentzel began in 2015, and a team of woodworkers, painters, and machinists returned it to the museum in pristine condition for its debut in December 2017.

Of its 48 ponies, those on the two inner rings go up and down. The chariots were the first wheelchair accessible carousel seats installed in the U.S. In a three-minute ride, the guest makes 12 revolutions past scenes that evoke a Memphis of yesteryear: a paddlewheeler on the river, frontiersmen in canoes, mules plowing a farm, and deer pausing to drink from a stream. Cherubs keep watch over each rider while hundreds of Edison bulbs create a festive and photogenic vibe.

It doesnt get much more Memphis than marrying on the Mississippi. Two vessels, the Memphis Queen III and the Island Queen, have launched hundreds of couples into matrimony.

I have not had a single bridezilla, says Jodie Taube, director of marketing and events for Memphis Riverboats, Inc. Couples who book the riverboat for their rehearsal dinners or wedding receptions generally have a high sense of adventure and fun.

And just like in the movies, the captain of the boat can perform the ceremony. Captain James Gilmer is an ordained minister in the Church of God in Christ. He has officiated at 16 shipboard weddings. To his knowledge, hes the only African-American riverboat captain on the Mississippi.

With friends from all over the country in town for their October 12th wedding, Ginger and Josh Huckaby wanted their guests to have a quintessential Memphis experience. Josh owns the Green Beetle, the oldest tavern in Memphis, and Ginger moved here from Nashville to work as a nurse practitioner at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. Ginger says, The weather was perfect, the moon was full, it was Memphis to the T.

Of the two boats, the Memphis Queen III is the classic Victorian riverboat with gingerbread trim and twinkling lights. The Island Queen has a more nautical look, with an open section in the center for dancing. Both boats are 100 feet long, accommodate up to 300 guests, and are heated and air-conditioned as the season dictates.

The most popular wedding package allows a half-hour for guests to board; a half-hour for the ceremony; and then two hours for cruising. The vessel departs from Beale Street Landing and heads south under the light show on the Harahan Bridge. Turning back upriver, guests can then enjoy the Memphis skyline. Then Capt. Gilmer takes the party under the light shows on the I-40 bridge, cruises past Harbortown, and returns to the landing.

Riverboat weddings are available all year, but March, April, June, September, and October are the most sought-after months. Taube steers brides away from the weekends during Memphis in May because the closing of Riverside Drive limits access to parking and raises the level of difficulty in bringing decorations aboard. The temperate months also afford nicer views of each bank.

Capt. Gilmer has been on the river 36 years. One of his favorite pranks is to tell Tennessee couples that its not too late to change their minds about matrimony. He says, I can just carry them across the river to the Arkansas side and it wont count.

Just a plain and simple chapel where humble people go to pray may have been okay in 1960, but couples in 2020 want something a little more photogenic and upscale.

When Elvis recorded Crying in the Chapel, most couples married in church. The etiquette-bound formal wedding performed in a religious setting was the bread and butter of the wedding industry, explains Vicki Howard in her book Brides, Inc: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition.

In September, British actress Michelle Hardwick married soap producer Kate Brooks at Graceland in Memphis, according to the Daily Mail.

Youve got to be progressive in 2020, says Christian Ross, Gracelands marketing specialist.

More than 2,000 couples have married or renewed their vows at Graceland. The original chapel was tucked behind the mansion for 18 years, but in 2018, Graceland unveiled the Chapel in the Woods, which seats about 100.

And not all the couples are Elvis fans. Many just want an intimate venue in a woodsy, but still accessible, setting. A bride might choose to have a family ceremony in the Chapel, but she can still invite more guests to a reception in the ballroom.

Most recently, the chapel was featured in the Hallmark Channels Wedding at Graceland, released last year. That movie was the follow-up to 2018s Christmas at Graceland, which was Hallmarks fourth highest rated and most watched original movie in network history. Priscilla Presley had a cameo role in Wedding.

Elvis and Priscilla Presley married on May 1, 1967, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Ten days later, they came home to Memphis and put on their wedding attire for a belated reception at Graceland.

Weddings in barns, meadows, and vineyards have been all the rage in the magazines for the last decade, but people dont realize that rustic simplicity comes at a price.

Sure, you have a beautiful spot, but every piece of that party must be brought in so you can look out over a meadow, says Warner Moore, Memphis decorator and wedding designer. When you have to import virtually everything lighting, chairs, tables it gets expensive.

Unless you want people standing up the whole time, youre basically building an infrastructure, Moore explains.

A viable country in the city alternative is the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms Park. More than 60 couples have tied the knot there since it opened three years ago, says Kate Phillips, account executive with the Park.

You feel youre immersed in nature, but youre connected to the city, she says. We get the benefit of beautiful views, and we still have air-conditioning.

The event center faces west with floor-to-ceiling windows affording views of sunsets over the 80-acre lake. Natural cedar planks adorn the ceiling and look as if they might have been milled on-site. Stacked stone walls further connect the event center to the natural surroundings.

A grassy berm hides the view of Walnut Grove Road just a few hundred feet away. At night, the only reminder of the city is the light from Clark Tower to the southwest. A tree-lined field next to the center can be set for an outdoor ceremony in fair weather.

Since 2007, the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy has managed the county-owned land that is five times the size of New Yorks Central Park. The group needed a revenue generator like the event center, Phillips says, because the conservancy has 4,500 acres, a dozen lakes, a herd of buffalo, and the Greenline to maintain. Early this month, Starry Nights just completed its tenth year as the parks primary fund-raiser.

Long-time Memphians remember the property as the penal farm from the decades (1930s to early 60s) when inmates of the Shelby Count Corrections Center worked the acreage to provide food for inmates and staff. Situated at the geographic center of Shelby County, the Heart of the Park is just one exit away from the interstate, making it an easy drive for out-of-town wedding guests cooped up in hotels.

Original post:
There's a Place for Us: Six Extraordinary Bluff City Wedding Venues - Memphis Magazine

IKEA is excited about Classic Blue releasing a full line of new products including the STOCKHOLM sofa.

Pantone Colour of the Year reflects on the past while looking ahead

Uncertain times call for stable measures. Thats the message from the Pantone Colour Institute in selecting Classic Blue as 2020 Colour of the Year, a colour that can do no wrong, says interior decorator Liz Ditomaso, owner of Elegant Living Decorating based in the Niagara region.Classic blue is a grounding colour, says Ditomaso, who likens the shade to the classic blue business suit or navy pump often associated with wealth. Its a very sophisticated colour, a very powerful colour and it speaks to everyone, she says.According to the Institute, Classic Blue offers reassurance, confidence and connection that people might be searching for in an uncertain global milieu. It brings the colour forecast world full circle as a reminder of Cerulean, the blue hue chosen as the first Color of the Year in 1999 when uneasiness about Y2K was widespread.The versatile colour is both regal and edgy, conservative and unusual. How it manifests in your home dcor ultimately depends on you, says Ditomaso.I dont think theres any colour that doesnt go with it, she said, noting that clients have paired deep blue with yellow, black, chocolate brown, rose gold pink, black and even other shades of blue, like aqua. Classic Blue pairs well with modern greys and whites, she adds, and is an ideal complement to gold fixtures and hardware, or any wood grain.It can go warm against creams, brown or beige and then it can go on the other side against your cooler whites and cooler greys, she added.Early adopters of the 2020 colour gravitated towards a blue Christmas this season. Ditomaso adorned several white flocked trees with rich, glistening gold and blue balls, and hints of silver, and NOMA actually released a flocked blue tinsel tree. Heading into the new year, she expects to see the deep shade show up in kitchens and baths where it is a top contender for islands and backsplashes, home accents such as throws, cushions and chairs, and even as the backdrop for a stunning feature wall for those who really want to be out there and live it up a bit, she says.As the year progresses, expect Classic Blue to continue to show up in fashion, food, scents and cars. The team at IKEA is excited about Classic Blue, releasing its trend report in December to inspire home dcor enthusiasts, with items ranging from chairs, throws and lamps to the BILLY Bookcase with glass doors or the STOCKHOLM sofa.Paint guru and colour expert Annie Sloan says the Classic Blue shade perfectly matches her Napoleonic Blue paint colour, which is reminiscent of the ultramarine and cobalt blue pigments used in neoclassical interiors, yet still looks fresh and modern. Sloan adds that blue is one of her personal favourites because of its calming qualities.My bedroom at home is Aubusson Blue and it sends me into a dreamy sleep every night, she says.

See original here:
Tis the season for Classic Blue - The London Free Press

Elizabeth Sellars, the stage and screen actress, who has died aged 98, made her name on the postwar West End stage in Tea and Sympathy. Set in a New England boys boarding school, Robert Andersons drama created something of a sensation in an era still subject to official stage censorship: it showed the wife of a housemaster seducing a pupil branded as homosexual.

For such a subject to form the theme of a West End play in 1957, without mutilation from the censor, the theatre itself had to be turned into a club. For the run of the play, and of others in a season including Arthur Millers A View from the Bridge, the Comedy Theatre in Panton Street became the New Watergate Theatre Club. As a place of private entertainment with a nominal subscription for members, it escaped the need for the Lord Chamberlains licence.

Not that the seduction of the boy by the housemasters wife was undertaken without the greatest theatrical tact. Nor did the rumour of the adolescents homosexuality prove other than unfounded.

To explain the impropriety of the wifes conduct, she was shown to have been not only a former actress, but also unhappily married to a negligent and insensitive husband, while the persecuted young object of her sympathy strikingly resembled her first, dead husband.

View post:
Elizabeth Sellars, Glasgow-born actress who shot to stardom on the London stage in the scandalous Tea and Sympathy obituary - Telegraph.co.uk

With this tumultuous year finally coming to an end, let's take a look back and dig through some of the most exciting and stand-out news and feature stories on Archinect during the month of February.

Tiny homes are fitting symbols of economic precarity

We didn't expect "tiny-houser millennials" to be a thing one day either, but in 2019, they just seemed to be everywhere. The scope of motivations behind the movement is anything but tiny though.

Architect Julia Koerner blends design, technology, and fashion to help Black Panther win an Oscar in best costume design

Black Panther, released in 2018 and Oscar-awarded in the following year, moved the cultural needle in so many regards. Contributing to the Academy Award-winning costume design by Ruth E. Carter was Austrian-born and LA-based architectural educator and designer Julia Koerner. Archinect's Katherine Guimapang had the chance to sit down with Koerner and chat about Wakanda, Zulu attire, parametric design, and 3D printing.

Fuhgeddaboudit: Amazon drops NYC Headquarters plans

While the breaking news announcement of Amazon's New York rejection seems like an eternity ago, the online retailer has meanwhile reversed, or at least adjusted, course and made its intent to lease NYC office spaces for more than 1,500 employees public earlier this month.

AIA issues statement of support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal

Ah yes, the Green New Deal. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey introduced the ambitious proposal in early February because, well, you gotta start somewhere, right? As expected, the comment section flared up fervidly, just like our planet has been doing since the beginning of the industrial age.

Why is Florida's coastal real estate still booming despite rising levels?

Optimism: good. Optimism paired with lots of investor money and climate-change denial in flood-prone coastal regions: less than good. So what's driving South Florida's condominium-building boom?

Is it a Museum? An Up Close and Personal Review of Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Broad Museum

In the second installment of Archinect's Under the Skin series on significant buildings in Los Angeles, writer Patrick Geske visits and reviews the DS+R/Gensler-designed The Broad...art gallery? Public art storage? Art museum even? All things considered, the building earns, in Geske's critical view, a solid meh.

Does the future of the Los Angeles Rams go beyond football? The new $5 billion dollar stadium impacts more than just fans

Another LA structure made the headlines that month: the nation's second largest city is finally getting a state-of-the-art NFL stadium (haven't you heard?). At a budget of $5,000,000,000, those hot dog stands better be good.

Moshe Safdie's Chongqing megadevelopmentfeaturing the world's highest, tower-spanning sky bridgereaches structural completion

If you thought Singapore's Marina Bay Sands connected triple towers were cool, check out the eight-tower ensemble Raffles City Chongqing with its record-setting 300-meter sky bridge, also designed by Safdie Architects. After announcing structural completion in February, the behemoth development in China's heartland already celebrated the soft opening of its first phase, an enormous five-story shopping mall, in September, reportedly attracting a crowd of 900,000 shoppers in one weekend.

What will be the fate of Jon Jerde's iconic Horton Plaza?

While PoMo chic is enjoying some sort of a revival among the younger crowds who may have missed its original rise, the future of Jon Jerde's spectacular Horton Plaza in San Diego looks rather bleak. While a recent law suit may or may not have any impact on the planned redevelopment of the iconic shopping mall canyon, interior demolition is reportedly already underway.

First photos of Kengo Kuma-designed Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo

Ever sipped on your venti decaf soy frappuccino blended caramel crme eight-pump mo' whip and thought: "This would be so much better if the place was designed by a Japanese star architect?" Enter Kengo Kuma's new Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo.

An Interview with Frank Gehry, Who Turns 90 Today, Upon Receiving the Neutra Award for Professional Excellence

"For me and for my colleagues, you were responsible for liberating us, liberating architectureAs if architecture was rock n roll, you were the Woodstock for us." OrhanAyyce in conversation with the man himself, Frank Owen Gehry.

A Conversation with Theaster Gates; Archinect Sessions Episode #136

Chicago's Renaissance man Theaster Gates joined us for a delightful conversation on the Archinect Sessions podcast. Topics covered span from the reuse of the city's diseased ash trees for the new University of Chicago Keller Center, to hand skills, black labor, neighborhood communities, all the way to socio-cultural readings of beauty.

London's third Design Biennial to be directed by Es Devlin and will explore the theme of 'Resonance'

Award-winning British artist and stage designer Es Devlin has been making a splash for years now with her unique blend of technology, light, sound, and poetry. (Take a look at her country's Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai here.)

Throughout his legendary career, Karl Lagerfeld fused fashion and architecture

In February, we said adieu and auf Wiedersehen to a multifaceted and larger-than-life icon: fashion designer, photographer, director, curator, interior decorator, and furniture designer Karl Lagerfeld died at age 85.

Robots will be in charge of the design, manufacturing, and construction of the upcoming Seoul Robot Science Museum

Robots envisioning and building their own home. What could possibly go wrong. Human responses in the comment section are 0 and 1 on this one.

Introducing Archinect Jobs Visualizer; Browse the Best Architecture Job Board in a New, More Visual Format

Ah snap, did the best architecture job board just get better? February saw the arrival of our Archinect Jobs Visualizer, allowing job seekers to discover new career opportunities with a special focus on the work of firms currently hiring on Archinect Jobs.

Render vs Reality: Mecanoo nails it. Take a look.

The good folks at Mecanoo were showing off their sense of humorand commitment to qualitywith their"Render vs Reality" Pinterest board. Yeah, that's gonna be a yes from us dawg.

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Tiny Homes, 3D-Printing Black Panther, Green New Deal, and Woodstock Gehry: February 2019 on Archinect - Archinect

The fireplace must be the focus of every rational scheme of arrangement, Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr. wrote in their 1897 design classic, The Decoration of Houses.

Not much has changed since then. Fireplaces are usually the dominant element in rooms lucky enough to have them, and the anchor around which furnishings are organized. In fact, most fireplaces refuse to be ignored, whether theyre beautiful or ugly. And therein lies the problem: What if your fireplace is clad in dated tile or discolored brick, or your mantel looks out of proportion or out of place?

Giving a fireplace a new look may seem daunting, but its not as hard as it sounds.

Its an architectural ornament thats changeable, said Thomas Jayne, an interior designer in New York and the author of Classical Principles for Modern Design, a book on applying Wharton and Codmans ideas to contemporary interiors.

Transforming the appearance of a fireplace is usually well worth the time and expense, he said, because if you like your fireplace, youll like your whole room a lot better.

We asked Mr. Jayne and other designers for advice on how to deal with a problematic fireplace.

Its easy to write off old mantels and surrounds as unappealing when theyre damaged from years of abuse or covered in layers of soot, grime or caked paint.

But dont automatically assume that you need to rip out or cover up what youve got. Instead, try to imagine what your fireplace would look like if it were restored.

In a lot of projects, we start with ugly-looking fireplaces that are actually beautiful underneath, said Andrea Fisk, who founded the Brooklyn-based architecture firm Shapeless Studio with Jess Thomas Hinshaw.

A lot of them have just been painted over and over and over, Ms. Thomas Hinshaw said, so that theyve lost a lot of the detailing and character.

When Ms. Fisk and her life partner bought a rundown townhouse of their own in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, it had a dreary-looking living room fireplace covered in dirty cream-colored paint. But rather than immediately removing the mantel, Ms. Fisk performed a careful investigation.

We really had no idea what was under there, she said. They couldnt even tell whether the mantel was stone or wood. With a chemical paint remover, she stripped away layers of paint and was astonished by what she found: a stunning mantel of green and gray slate with hints of pink and carved floral details.

That was a wonderful surprise, she said.

Not only did she keep it after removing every trace of the old paint, of course she also based the color palette of the room on it.

Theres a reason old mantels are often thick with layers of paint: Its one of the easiest and least expensive ways to change the look of a fireplace. When done well, with an appropriate amount of paint not gobs, which can clump, drip and look unsightly painting can be surprisingly effective.

Susana Simonpietri, owner and creative director of the Brooklyn-based design firm Chango & Co., occasionally paints brick fireplaces white for a crisp, fresh look. Recently, she did so while renovating a 1970s house in East Hampton, N.Y., which had a two-sided fireplace between the living and dining rooms made from orangy brick that neither she nor her clients liked.

We painted the outside white and the inside of the fireplace black, for a lot of contrast, she said.

It was as simple as covering the brick with a sealing primer, she said, and then applying several coats of Decorators White paint from Benjamin Moore. The priming is very important, she said. If you dont prime, the color from the bricks will bleed through.

Almost any type of paint can be used on the outside of a fireplace, Ms. Simonpietri said, though she prefers an exterior-grade paint for durability. But inside the firebox, its important to use a special high-temperature paint that can withstand the heat.

A painted brick fireplace is easy to maintain, she said, even when its white: All you have to do is hit it with another coat of paint when it gets dirty, over time, from the smoke.

Replacing an existing mantel or chimney piece, or adding one where there was previously none, can immediately change the character of a fireplace.

A traditional fireplace can be made to look modern with the addition of a mantel composed of simple marble slabs, and a contemporary fireplace can be given a sense of age with a traditional wood mantel that has classical details.

Changing the mantel itself is not that big a deal, Ms. Simonpietri said, noting that they can usually be pried off the wall like trim. Essentially, you are left with walls that need to be healed. If youre a handy person, its a do-it-yourself project.

Replacement mantels are widely available at a range of prices, from home improvement stores like the Home Depot to specialty manufacturers like Chesneys. And reclaimed mantels can be found at architectural salvage stores like Big Reuse, Olde Good Things and Demolition Depot and Irreplaceable Artifacts.

You can also build a custom mantel, like Vincent DiSalvo, a principal of DiSalvo Contracting in New York, frequently does for his clients.

Installing a new mantel is fairly straightforward, Mr. DiSalvo said, as long as you work within the parameters of code requirements, and size it properly to fit the existing opening. Combustible materials like a wood mantel must be at least six inches back from the sides of a wood-burning firebox, he said, and the horizontal piece that runs across the top of the firebox should be around 12 inches above the opening, depending on how far the mantel projects off the wall.

The resulting gap between the firebox and mantel creates another design opportunity, he noted, and can be finished with distinctive ceramic tile or stone.

Of course, not every fireplace needs to be finished with a conventional mantel. There are countless creative alternatives.

When Mr. Jayne renovated a house for clients in Oyster Bay, N.Y., he designed a tall box clad in Delft tiles to surround the fireplace.

Rather than just having a fireplace with a row of Delft tiles and a pretty 19th-century wood molding around it, we tried to modernize it and make it more contemporary, he said.

Sometimes, Mr. Jayne eliminates a ledge or shelf above the fireplace altogether, as he did in the library of an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. There, he removed the existing pseudo Georgian Revival mantel and clad the wall around the fireplace in colorful mosaic tile a design loosely inspired by a fireplace in a dining room designed by Stanford White at Kingscote, a 19th-century house in Newport, R.I.

For a more monolithic appearance, a fireplace can be resurfaced in concrete or natural stone in the same way. If you use natural stone, though, choose a dark one, like slate, rather than a light one, like white marble, Mr. DiSalvo advised: You want to select a stone that isnt easily stained by soot. A darker-colored stone holds up better over time.

Attacking the mantel or the area immediately around the fireplace sometimes isnt enough. In that case, the whole wall that houses the fireplace may need attention.

When Shapeless Studio renovated a Brooklyn apartment that had an especially unappealing brick wall with a fireplace, they built a new wall with drywall in front of it, floor to ceiling, to conceal the entire expanse.

That slightly reduced the footprint of the living room, but it created a cleaner look and the opportunity to add a beefy custom limestone mantel. The architects also used the thickness of the new wall to create recessed storage nooks on either side of the fireplace.

Linc Thelen, a Chicago-based designer, used a similar strategy to conceal a dated-looking rubble-stone feature wall with a fireplace when he renovated a house in rural Indiana.

We had to reframe it, he said, because there was no other reasonable way to remove or conceal the stone. After adding cement board to the framing for a smooth surface, he installed a linear arrangement of buff-colored manufactured stone veneer from Eldorado Stone on top.

I wanted something that was minimal, but also warm and modern, he said.

Building a second wall may seem somewhat extreme, but transforming the appearance of an unloved fireplace can pay big dividends. The fireplace can help tie the whole house together, Mr. Thelen said. And it can say a lot about the personality of the person.

There are also family traditions to consider, he added: You can have Santa Claus coming down a stylish chimney.

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That Ugly Fireplace Isnt as Bad as You Think - The New York Times

Return Trips is a typical exercise in perambulating free association, opening with the narrators tryst (in Yugoslavia yet) with a sweet-natured youth named Paul who will shortly die of a congenital heart defect; for the rest of the long story were reminded of Paul, here and there, as a kind of idealized alternative to the other men in the narrators life before and after circling back to the ur-trauma, long ago in Hilton, when she was walking home with a boy and spotted her father kissing a strange woman in their wood-paneled Chrysler: I hate him is what I thought.

The perspective of the Fitzgeraldian hero simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life is most resonantly expressed in the pursuit of love, but one of the men with whom Adams pursued it, Saul Bellow, considered this a limitation of her first novel, Careless Love: Women like your heroine do seem to live completely in relationships and think of very little apart from their own feminine happiness, he wrote her. Such a formulation applied less and less to Adamss mature work, whose heroines are certainly concerned with their own happiness, romantic and otherwise, but tend to be unhappy each in her own lonely way. Ardis Bascombe, in Beautiful Girl, is a North Carolina tobacco heiress and former beauty queen who spends her days, in San Francisco, getting drunk in her kitchen and mooning about the past. Lest one think this a simple matter of lost youth and looks, we learn via a passing thought of Ardiss daughter (Adams has a nice touch with narrative point of view) that her mother used to be so much fun in a way that might explain why Ardis moved to San Francisco: I sincerely hope that both my daughters marry them, she once remarked to a Winston-Salem real-estate woman who wanted to keep blacks out of the neighborhood. I understand those guys are really great. Not, unfortunately, from personal experience.

Carol Sklenicka is a lucid, scrupulous writer, as readers of her acclaimed biography of Raymond Carver will attest. Her description of, say, a late-life surgical procedure that Adams endured the ghastly degloving of her face to remove a tumor from her nasal cavity would pass muster in a neurosurgeons how-to guide. Such a conscientious and (it must be said) rather humorless sensibility works well with inherently dramatic material, and so is perhaps better suited for a redemptive fable about the colossal alcoholic Carver, who somehow kicked both booze and the worst predations of his machete-wielding editor, Gordon Lish. By comparison, most of Adamss life had a fairly decorous surface (Never a harsh word) whose fraught subtext needs teasing out by a subtle fiction artist. Consider: At Myrtle Wilsons party in The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan breaks Myrtles nose, while, in Sklenickas first biography, a drunken Carver (Bad Ray) smashes a bottle upside the head of his long-suffering first wife, Maryann. Both are powerful scenes and yet: In the first case what we remember most (among a mlange of other nuances) is Myrtles story about the way her drab husband had to borrow the suit he married her in. In Alice Adams, however, the prosaic remains decidedly prosaic. The evidence of Adamss letters, fiction and later notebooks suggests that Alice probably did not go all the way with any of those Madison boys, writes the meticulous Sklenicka, who sometimes injects gravitas into these early pages the disturbing news from Europe, and so on in ways that seem tangential, at best, to the immediate concerns of her teenage subject. Such historical digressions go on for a page or a paragraph, or else are woven into a single sentence like a discolored skin graft: Back in Cambridge in the spring of 1945, as the Russians and Western Allies conquered Germany and revealed Nazi concentration camps to the world, Alice joined another short-story class with less satisfactory results.

Once Adamss professional career takes off, references to the wider world are largely obviated by discussions of her work, her book tours (and other travels) and her impressive royalty advances. Of her 11 novels, her most successful was Superior Women (1984), an all but explicit homage to Mary McCarthys The Group, which gives a portrait of the authors generation via the stories of a few friends from Vassar; in Adamss novel, the friends are from Radcliffe. Fawcett Crest bought the paperback rights for a whopping $635,000 perhaps the most noteworthy moment from that particular era in Adamss life, as Sklenicka readily concedes: As a result of her successful move into full-time authorship, the fiction she produced almost overshadows the biographical facts of her life in the early 1980s. Almost. Another piquant aspect of the story is the way Adamss life came to mirror that of her parents: Her oldest friend pointed out how Alice was beginning to look like Agatha her homely, unhappy mother at a time when she lived with a handsome interior decorator, Bob McNie, who drank and was probably bipolar like Adamss father. After the relationship ended, belatedly, Adams cast doubt on the mans reputation as the only heterosexual decorator in San Francisco with a novel, Almost Perfect (1993), that shed provisionally titled her Book of Bob. (We can be fairly certain that Alice did not invent the bisexual theme, Sklenicka certifies, pointing out that McNies children found a large cache of gay pornography after his death.)

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The Decorous Surfaces and Fraught Subtexts of Alice Adamss Life and Work - The New York Times

David Netto has always balanced a love of tradition with a pinch of iconoclasm. He grew up on the Upper East Side and went to the venerable boys private school Buckleybut hated it (they wanted him to be a jock, he wasnt). Later he went to Harvard for a masters in architecturethen dropped out. Now hes a respected interior designer working out of Los Angelesbut he spends half his time writing (books, and a column for Town & Country).

In this weeks episode of the Business of Home podcast (sponsored by Chairish and Google), Netto speaks with host Dennis Scullyanother Buckley graduatein front of a live audience at the New York School of Interior Design. They cover a wide range of topics, from the effect of the AIDS on the design community to the wit of Dorothy Draper.

Below, listen to the episode and check out a few takeaways. If you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast (free of charge!) and a new episode will be delivered to you every week.

Go BoldSurprise: Media is in trouble. But there are silver linings, according to Netto. For one, the rise of digital media has made certain print mediumsbooks, specificallymore desirable. Magazines occupy a dangerous middle ground, and Netto says its time for something new. The time when youre on your ass, and theres no end in sight, no backstop to the adversitythats not the time to try and be a people-pleaser; I think thats the time to lead, because you actually have nothing to lose, he says. I think terrible mistakes are being made at certain magazines that I love, because the leadership is not really invested in anything but trying to keep it alive. Its the time for bold new points of view. Maybe none of it will work, but if you dont stand for quality, I really dont see that youre doing anything but looking at your watch and trying to pay your kids college tuition before it all goes away in a couple of years.

Watch for happy accidentsWhat does a 1936 Bugatti coupe have to do with great design? Everything, says Netto. When they made the prototype of the car, they were using a lightweight aluminum that couldnt be welded ... so they riveted the prototype together in two pieces. When they used the actual car, they didnt need to use the riveted spine, but by then everyone had realized that this detail was the whole soul of the car. Its a lesson in keeping your eyes open and embracing mistakes, he says.

Tell a StoryIn addition to his design projects all over the U.S., Netto writes a regular column for Town & Country, and has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in addition to authoring several books. He finds that theres a lot in common between both halves of his career: A good decorator is a storyteller. Ive met great decorators that couldnt write or draw anything, but they tell a story.

Homepage photo by Marc Hom

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David Netto on a life in design - Business of Home

New digs, same belongings, different take. I brought so much stuff up here, says interior decorator Bunny Williamsfirst named to the AD100 in 1995 and elevated to its Hall of Fame three years agoof the Manhattan apartment that she shares with her husband, John Rosselli, the legendary antiques dealer and home-furnishings maestro. It was just fun to rehang all the pictures, add some new things, and change it up, she adds. I can spend hours playing house.

Located on an upper floor of the palatial 1920s French Gothic Revival pile that Williams has called home for decades, the two-bedroom flat fell into her expert hands in 2018, right at the time she and Rosselli began craving something different. We wanted a little bit more space, and I wanted more light, she explains. Rosselli, stepping into the library to join the chat, chimes in, At ten minutes after nine, the sun starts to turn, and this whole section of the building just brightens up.

Solar desires answered, a swift, smart, inspiring renovation followed. Moldings now ennoble the formerly detail-free walls, an aristocratic marble mantel went into the living room, down went eye-catching carpets old and new (I didnt want to do sisal again, the decorator says), and up went the art, from 19th-century Orientalist paintings (Rossellis passion since boyhood) to colorful canvases that only look important. People say, Oh, your art is so wonderful, Williams explains with a delicious laugh. And Im like, I think I paid $200 for that in a junk shop. You dont have to have a lot of money to have a very chic house.

Link:
Inside the New Manhattan Apartment of Decorating Legend Bunny Williams - Architectural Digest