Design is coming to grips with one’s real lifestyle, one’s real place in the world. Rooms should not be put together for show but to nourish one’s wellbeing.
The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live.
Flair is a primitive kind of style. It is innate and cannot be taught. It can be polished and refined. When a person has flair, a grounding in the principle of design, and self-discipline, that person has the potential of being an outstanding designer.
Design is defined by light and shade, and appropriate lighting is enormously important.
So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious. They're striving to do things that have never been done before. Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste. They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.
An interior designer must be able to clarify his intent keeping ever in mind that decorating is not a look, it's a point of view.
Decorators should always remember that letting a client see too many beautiful things is a pitfall.
I have always believed that the more educated the clients are, the easier they are to work with. Clients with a knowledge of decorating, and an ability to articulate what they want from the finished project, make the designer's job easier.
To create an interior, the designer must develop an overall concept and stick to it.
Deep downy upholstery is absolutely what I've always been about.
Too much of what passes for design now is theater. It's one thing to be eccentric- and by the way, most eccentrics tend to be rather well-educated people - and quite another to be a faddist, by which I mean someone who tries to conjure a totally foreign aesthetic in a misplaced environment.
After the design is firmly fixed, the decoration is added. Decorating is the final enhancement.
When Van Truex defined the difference between designing and decorating, he used the analogy of preparing a roast of beef. Design, he said, is the preparation and cooking; decorating is the final seasoning, the savoring.
Design is about discipline and reality, not about fantasy beyond reality.
We're all collectors by nature. But if you're talking about an orderly life, there has to be a stop sign somewhere. Building a collection requires a strong constitution and the ability to resist.
You cannot make a modern apartment out of a traditional space.
