Some of you may have been as stunned as I was when Eileen Gray’s Dragon Chair went for $28 million at the Yves Saint Laurent auction a year ago. While I find this figure rather ridiculous, I glean a lot of inspiration from my latest book acquisition, EILEEN GRAY. I’m also seeing some of the roots of Kelly Wearstler’s latest Bravura Modern phase (I’ve been trying to understand that since that Domino with her pool house in it came out). Now I am starting to see it everywhere!

You are probably more familiar with the Eileen Gray side table. They use it on practically every episode of HGTV’s The Stagers (I love that show, Canadian accents are the greatest, eh?):

My latest inspirations have come from her early play with geometry, namely the squares and rectangles she seemed to embrace before she got into curves. The following are from her lacquer phase:

Her Bilboquet Table: I love those Jenga-like legs!:

This woman was rocking tassels on her Lotus Table before Jonathan Adler’s parents, maybe even his grandparents, were even born:

You know, this post is going to get to darn long. I think I’ll stop here before Monday is over and continue showing you some treats from the fabulous Ms. Gray next Monday!

Dragon Chair image via Unbeige

Side Table image via amazon

All other images via EILEEN GRAY: Design and Architecture, published by TASCHEN

Name: Ellen and Everett

Where do you live? Oakland, CA

What do you do? Sr. Public Events Manager, UC Berkeley

DP Purchase/s: Pkolino Little Reader Chair

How would you describe your design style? Modern with a splash of vintage and craftsman, and a dash of romper-room for good measure

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? That amazing blue that you see in the sky at the very top (which is especially visible on cloudless sunny days).

Any favorite design ideas? I’ve started re-using my son’s favorite cool shirts to make into Read the rest of this entry »

We dropped in on the always delightful DwellStudio booth at the New York Gift Show yesterday. Here’s a preview from their soon-to-be-available Spring 2010 collection. More to come!

DwellStudio Peacock Bedding at the NY Gift Show:

I love to keep an eye on Lady Gaga’s wardrobe. She is the first person who has really kept me interested in all of her changes since Madonna.

While most people would think of Glenda the Good Witch when they see this, I think of…

The Bird’s Nest from the Beijing Olympics, by Herzog and de Meuron:

• Gaga image from who2.com.
• Nest image from archdaily

Phil says there are going to be six more weeks of winter. Why console yourself by grabbing a copy of Groundhog Day and laughing at Bill Murray tonight?

image from amazon.com

I can’t tell you how many times since I started blogging that I feel like I have design A.D.D. I don’t tend to jump on trends too much in my own home, but my personal design style is constantly changing and evolving, and I tend to tire of certain looks and trends that I once loved very quickly. So when I was window(s) shopping at 1stdibs tonight, this quote from Jamie Drake (along with the beautiful photographs and the fact that he loves David Sedaris*) made me really happy:

In case you can’t make it out, it says “I must have design A.D.D., because I constantly need to work on different projecs. If I didn’t evolve, I’d be bored out of my mind.”

It is fun to watch my favorite designers evolve. Sometimes they are so far ahead of the rest of us, it’s a shock to the system (remember the first time you saw that Domino with Kelly Wearstler’s poolhouse all decked out in Bravura Modern and thought “what the heck is going on here?”?). Regardless, it’s those jolts that keeps us all hooked on design.

*I’m not sure I ever want to hang out with someone who doesn’t love David Sedaris. Whenever I need to let out a belly laugh, I pick up one of his books and read a story.

image by William Waldron, via Style Compass on 1stdibs.

This week’s pick comes from flickr member abbozzo. Abbozzo is also an architecture firm in Glasgow. I love this striking design for the Hyndland Afterschool Club that they shared in our Fresh New Spaces group:

By the way, abbozzo’s photostream is fantastic, I highly recommend checking it out here.

image from flickr member abbozzo

Drew just sent me a link to this website and I literally belly laughed as I read it. It’s called Unhappy Hipsters and it’s the most refreshing thing I’ve seen in awhile, even if I can see myself in the things the author mocks! Here are a few teasers. Check out the whole Tumblr blog here.

This one made me laugh the hardest!

so, images originally came from Dwell, witticisms from Unhappy Hipsters. I’ve got to keep reading and see if they have any hipster mustache mocking in there.

For some reason, I am now receiving Southern Living and Bon Appetit. Since I don’t cook, the latter goes straight tot the recycling bin. Oh, the reason I get so many random magazines I never asked for is because I subscribed to so many magazines that went under in their slaughters the past few years, this is what they have left to offer. Anyway, Southern Living was never usually my bag; I felt it was all about heavy damask and fried chicken recipes, but I have to admit that now I have been schooled!

The February issue absolutely rocked. After many years of suzani fever in the design world (I mean, my god, I think PB has some sort of faux Suzani thing going on right now, that completely defeats the purpose, esp. after you read what it means. It’s like calling the brand new piece of junk McMansion next door to me a “Craftsman”), I learned that “suzani” means “needle” in Persian. I learned about super cool places to travel to in Georgia (I mean, besides the ATL, where I live, we have beaches and mountains and old towns, YO!), I saw an article about Alabama Channin, a label that I love, and articles about interiors that I admired. Consider my opinion of Southern Living completely turned around!

The best thing I found out about was the Postcards on the Beach Inn, on St. Pete’s Beach in Florida. Before this, my knowledge of St. Pete’s consisted of the HILARIOUSLY decorated condo we rented for a wedding, and the HoJo’s Tiki Bar (which still rocks; we had many cheap frozen drinks, and we had a former American Idol contestant tell us all about how she got kicked off the show for smoking weed while we were there, then she rocked out a great song. Priceless.). Anyway, the Postcards on the Beach Inn seems like the coolest spot I’ve seen since The Surf Lodge, and it’s a LOT less expensive. I’m loving the current combination of surfboards, retro paneling, groovy Greg Brady beads with a wink towards Americana Route 66 motor lodges and a nod towards no-tell motels  beachy response to boutique hotels. Sorry for the bad sentence structure on that one. Anyway, the Inn’s website is really cool too, hence the taped-up, postcard-esque, crooked images below.

http://www.postcardinn.com/

Oh, and speaking of Modern Lincoln Logs, check out the new Vitra Museum building by Herzog & de Meuron. First we had a bunch of Jenga architecture, and now everywhere I look I see Lincoln Logs.

I spied this over at Modern House Notes, and they spied it over at Architecture Lab: