Kathryn Ireland.

As you know I got to see Kathryn Ireland speak a couple of weeks ago at the Houston Design Center. She was SO great. Down to earth. Humble. Funny. Here are some things I learned from Kathryn...

• She is absolutely in love with her farm in France, so much so she wrote a book about it. She rents it out if you're interested.
• She curses. It's perfectly natural in her talk & doesn't sound as harsh with her accent. We all curse though, you know. But in the uppity, trying to be society world of interior design we pretend to act proper. Kathryn doesn't & it's so great. Completely shocking to the Houston crowd, I loved that. I wonder what Kathryn really thought.
• "Teach clients not to be grim and teach them how to live in their house." This concept is often lost on designers, especially in such a turbulent economy. We go along with clients even if we disagree for fear of losing them as a client. But actually we're there to guide them and show them how not to be grim.
• When starting a project she always starts with a basic color scheme.
• Her 1st client was Steve Martin. Yes THAT Steve Martin. She was quite sure the only direction she could go was down after starting with such a high.
• "We've come to a time when excess is finally over."  This was her most important concept. Now that we can finally breath and relax a little, we should be relieved that we no longer need so much stuff. We need to fill our houses and lives with beautiful useful things. Not just a bunch of stuff to impress others. We need to LIVE in our homes. Design them for ourselves, not for our guests. Learn to live in this endless recession.

Ms. Apfel.

“I don’t do minimal,” Apfel says of her design approach.

My love of Ms. Iris Apfel is no secret. I think she's incredible in her ability to express & maintain her person style. As well as the fact that she co-founded Old World Weavers with her husband. They make the MOST beautiful historically relevant fabrics. Stark purchased Old World Weavers in 1992 & also carries many other incredible fabrics & paints & carpets/rugs. FINALLY Architect Digest is featuring Ms. Apfel's incredible Manhattan apartment.

Her interior style mirrors her personal style. Bold, over the top, bohemian & completely her. Personally, it's a little bit much for me. But that's why I love it so much. After seeing home after home in my daily career it's refreshing to see a home completely out of the ordinary from what I see in Houston. I also LOVE when a person understands their style so completely that it envelopes every part of their lives. That's a hard concept & one that I think takes a lifetime to hone.

"Taste you can learn, but style is like charisma. You know it when you see it.” - Iris Apfel

Reading about other creative types journey are the most inspiring articles. I devour them. This quote is directly from Architectural Digest because I just couldn't get the point across as well as they already have. "A stint working for a well-connected woman who tarted up apartments to make them marketable during the World War II housing doldrums followed. “She couldn’t decorate her way out of a shoebox,” says Apfel, but she had a talent for scavenging from junkyards and flea markets the kinds of furniture and fabrics that were hard to come by in wartime. The thrill of the hunt was contagious, and the conviction that Apfel could outdo her employer was inspiring. “I realized I had found my calling,” she declares. “Interior design was for me.”"

“I guess people thought if I could decorate myself I could decorate a room or two.” -Iris Apfel

Iris Apfel became a household name in 2005 when the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute featured an exhibit displaying many of her unique accessories and fashions. Rara Avis (Latin for rare bird) highlights her exuberant style and ability to combine both high & low fashions (Dior with items from a flea market) into the same stunning outfit. The exhibition has traveled the country and changed the way people view person style. A book of the exhibition has been done, it's so beautiful I have been dieing to get my hands on it. I've seen peaks into her home before, but it's incredble to see her home as it relates to her personal style. Ms. Apfel is currently a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Human Ecology, designing her own line of costume jewelry and photographer Bruce Weber is working on a documentary about her.

“People write to me: ‘You’ve changed my life!’, I’m giving them permission to be individual again.” -Iris Apfel

This is exactly how I want to grow into my career, with new exciting opportunities all the way into my 80's. Who needs to sit around being retired when you LOVE what you do. You can find the Architectural Digest article here, also each image above links to the article.

xx,

Jamie

Words of Wisdom from Michael Graves

“I am inspired by architects who address the entire gamut of design, from buildings to the smallest artifacts they contain. When I was in school, I thought that was what architects did.” -Michael Graves

I was going through some of my old papers that I saved for their inspirational value & came across an amazing interview with Michael Graves from O at Home .

Michael Graves founded his firm in Princeton New Jersey in 1964. You may recognize his name from his line of home items he's been designing at Target since 1999. His firm's projects include the Detroit Institute of Arts, Disney's corporate Burbank campus, US Courthouse in Nashville, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in Houston, Rice University South Campus Master Plan, check out Wikipedia for his entire list of impressive projects. He's arguably one of the most influential American Architects in history. He's amazing at incorporating architecture with Interior Design & furniture & product design.

He has some good things to say...{his thoughts are quoted, the rest is just me blabbering on}

1. "Form must never trump function." I follow this mantra daily. If you first figure out exactly how something has to perform you can then make it look super cool.

2. "Views are overrated; it's light that counts." I don't necessarily agree with this, but natural light is uber important to any design.

3. "Over-matching is always a major faux pas." I have a discussion similar to this with someone nearly every week. Think about your room like you think about an outfit. It doesn't have to "match", coordinating is the better route to take. Just relax & have fun with your space.

4. "Architecture only does part of the work." The rest of the work is done by how the interior functions with furniture. "Every room has a foreground and a background. But you also need a middle ground- like a table- to go between."

5. "Sisal is an easy solution to a bare floor." I love adding a sisal rug to any style room. The texture works well in any space, plus it adds the same sound dampening as a wool rug.

6. "Playfullness has universal appeal." Interior design shouldn't be taken too seriously. None of it is permanent, relax & experiment a little.

7. "It's more important to make yourself happy than to be like your neighbor." Amen to that, I couldn't have said it better myself. Your neighbor doesn't have to live in your home. You do. Figure out who you are & what you like & your home will fall into place.

8. "Well-chosen paint conveys richness without costing a lot." This is said a lot. Paint is the most inexpensive way to create a big impact in your room. I've been into high-gloss paints lately.

9. "How you arrange furniture affects interaction." I heard this saying before I went to design school, "pay attention to how your guests rearrange your furniture during a party, that's how you should have placed it in the first place." I don't know where I heard it or if I'm even quoting it word for word, but it's stuck with me & it's what I think about when I'm laying out a furniture plan.

10. "Good design should be available to everyone- and I do mean everyone." Michael Graves has always believed in this, but he's even more passionate about making it a reality since a virus left him a paraplegic years ago. Good design is important, it improves lives. That's why I started this business, all people deserve good design in every aspect of their lives.

{pictures found on google images, Michael Graves website & Architectural Digest}

I'm loving that it's summer here! Not that it ever gets too cold in Houston. What are your big plans for the week? I have some big goals to get through. Here's to getting through it & making it fun! Happy Monday!

XX,

Jamie