You know what I think? I think it’s time to get a little bit abstract. To loosen up a bit. Get our hands dirty and add a bit of glamour to the occasion…
It’s a Charleston thing. Mixed with a 70’s thing. With a pinch of Thirties glamour and a spot of Gypsy darkness for balance. All layered on a Shabby Chic base. Got that?
Yes I know. It’s a complicated business, is calculating the mood of a nation. Especially when you are making it up. It’s right up there with micro surgery and Angelina Jolie’s love life.
It’s just that I am a teeny bit tired of pink roses. I want them everywhere. But I want them wearing leather jackets if you know what I mean. I want them embroidered on to a black fringed tablecloth. Lit up by a Vanessa Bell print lampshade, and sitting below a battered old Francis Hoyland nude. I want them printed onto orange brocade on a chocolate brown loveseat. I want olive green velvet drapes…
I wanna mix it up a bit. I want the odd bit of furniture painted in a dirty colour. A chair upholstered in leopard skin sitting cheekily in with my chintz. A bedroom scented with amber musk. My reflection in an over the top wall full of Venetian glass and my toes blessed by 70’s cream shagpile. The living room glowing in a tangerine haze, an ebony side table and a Victorian fern…
I want all this and I want the creamy white walls I’ve already got. The powder pink cabinet in my bathroom and the patchwork quilts on my bed.
I just want Vintage chic to be a bit ruder. To push the boundaries a bit. To get a bit dirtier…
Know what I mean?
I sure do…..I don't just love Amber musk….I wear it daily.
I frequently step back from my Retro Pink Palace and slink into my leather-clad roses parlor–Thank You Alison…I couldn't have said it any betta!
Oh yes yes yes I certainly do know what you mean! When I was a little girl I wanted to live in a Gypsy caravan or in a Genie's bottle … If I'd had to analyse it back then I'd have been hard pressed to understand why … Now I guess I can see that the allure of the mysterious started the day … well the day I was born. In a Shabby or Kidston world ~ where these days it seems there's so much cloning and less and less originality ~ there's always joy to catch a glimpse of personality amongst all the pretty pink roses and chippy dressers! A faux leopard skin lampshade or a splash of shocking shiaparelli pink amongst the pale hints to those observant enough to notice that beneath the polished princess exterior there just may lurk something more. We all love surprises … sweet surprises … surprising surprises. And coming across something which surprises or amuses or even slightly shocks us like reading the first page of someone's diary … exciting and a little wicked.
Albert Einstein agrees …
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science."
(And, if you listen to girls like Alison and me, interior decorating too!!!)