There is no inherent superiority in an decorating style. In the business, reinvention is the way to generate profit. That said, I wish there were more pictures because the ones provided reinforce what I have noticed about the British style: an incoherent mishmash of designs appropriated from various indigenous cultures with some discordant tacky poked in here and there.
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It makes my eyes hurt. How could you ever relax in such an environment? Way too busy to live with....
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...And while we're at it:
No more lofts! - Especially faux-lofts!
No more open-plan anything - especially kitchens!
No more windowless bathrooms!
No more stainless steel and no granite anything, anywhere!
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The great thing about this is that it need not be “uppah clahs.” I can take you to a dozen thrift stores and with a few yards of fabric, de coupage and spray paint and you can reproduce this quickly and with little money.
Yeah for color and chaos!
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A marvelous idea excellently described by Ms. Hass.
I have only three comments to make:
1. A club without smoking space is an unnatural abomination.
2. The color combination of a green suit and mustard socks of the man sitting on the floor is for the bohemians.
3. The dining in the Flower Room is not expected to serve haute cuisine, as evidenced by the very small assortment of cutlery at each place.
Good Luck to the valiant entrepreneurs!
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Maximalism, with its ability to incorporate from a plethora of sources, may be our best mode forward -with a focus on sustainability. The ability to reuse what helps ground us, or at least items which have memories associated with them, should also count heavily in what makes for good design. One will still need a good eye to know what are complementary combinations for the intended user (which may range from the individual client to thousands), but judgment should be on this basis.
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I don't to be honest at all like any of these rooms (except the library at top), but I do like the notion of something human, warm, and unconcerned with minimalism's self-righteousness. Looking at interiors has frankly become boring and same-y, and I'm all for something not trying to imitate whatever style it is that everything else seems to be.
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What a lovely article with all the beautiful pictures.
I have inherited numerous English antiques, ranging from a George II drop leaf dining table, small side tables and a wooden leather upholstered rocking chair. My oldest piece of furniture though is a hand painted armoire form a valley in the Austrian alps that dates back to the late 1600s.
My mix and match upholstery and curtain pattern in the sitting room though is blue and white in stripes, checks, toile and paynsley.
I guess after seeing the picture here, I'll at least will add some more colour to it with pillows and vases in contrasting ones.
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This is possibly the best sentence ever written in a newspaper, and it deserves repeating:
“In defiance of the well-disciplined, if sometimes dour, minimalism of many contemporary interiors, their reinterpretation of the British maximalist tradition — exuberant, peripatetic, proudly eccentric — seems to bypass the brain entirely, chugging in by vintage railway car from an emotional terrain located somewhere between the Cotswolds, the Rajput dynasty of India and the eucalyptus-splashed Beverly Hills compound of the flamboyant 20th-century artist and designer Tony Duquette.”
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I found this article to be quite a chore. Non-Anglophiles will be bored by the end. Finding that a subject’s first commissioning was merely 8 years ago does not surprise me. To call this “style” “unmistakably British” makes me think cuisine is not the only area the British are lacking in interesting elements.
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Did someone twist your arm to force you to read it? And, if your goal/assignment, as author, was to set out writing an article with Anglophilia as your starting point, how would you otherwise imagine it would not be what it is? It’s like reading an article on hamburgers and blaming it for not being about chocolate cakes.
And finally, what is the prevailing “style” of Ava, MO?
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Finally, we can celebrate the return of the book, the library, the China collections and decorative arts like sculpture, ottomans and the decorative soul released back to us from imprisonment in ages passed. I was so pleased to read that cold minimalism is passing because we live in homes, not clinics. It’s had its day. Maximalists have a shared humanity on display, as a celebration. Starting as humbly as a mural, designers want to design and they want to fill homes with nice things. We must all de-clutter at some point sure, but our living spaces are designed for living and celebrating ancestry. We are not bacteria in a Petrie dish.
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LOVE this style. Homey, comfortable, practical (reading chairs that are comfy, fabrics that are soft, carpets that hold up to stains and foot traffic), and interesting to the eye. If I want minimalist I’ll visit one of those Zen day spas that are everywhere these days.
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I’m ambivalent on this notion. Whether it’s the “colonial baroque” hodgepodge of an ‘I dream of genie’ harem, or the rigid whackiness of declarative wall signage in faux weathered wood alongside bright plastic amoebic mirrors. Whimsy takes time and sensibility, and a welcoming esthetic takes sensitivity and subtlety. None of which is exactly leaping out at me from these pictures.
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Aaah! Anything but minimalism. Humans need details and whimsy and curves and weird color juxtapositions. Full disclosure: Bauhaus is a curse word to me.
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How refreshing! I am not a fan of the current trend of greys, whites and beiges combined with minimal furniture. I grew up with that aesthetic and liked it, but as an adult, I did an about face and have embraced color on every wall, patterns and mish-mash of furniture styles. "Bonkers Aesthetic" is the perfect way to describe it.
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They can paint and they can write, but the English know nothing about how to live.
Love it. The patterns, the color, the texture, the personality and the warmth. Minimal bland beige and grey neutral decor is let’s face it, very boring.
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Is the end of the white-box house on the horizon? It can’t come soon enough for my beleaguered central Florida town, where Spanish villas and expansive ranches are bulldozed for Bauhaus boxes.
I predict that 20 years from now all those white-box houses will have shutters and flower boxes on the windows. ;-)
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“magpie English design”
Ha, no better way to describe it. While I’ve always loved and lived the “florid kookiness” of the English tradition of surrounding yourself with the colorful and personal, from acquired momentos of far-off travels to that “wretched thing your grandmother gave you”, what I love most about this piece is the fantastic prose.
“...their reinterpretation of the British maximalist tradition — exuberant, peripatetic, proudly eccentric — seems to bypass the brain entirely, chugging in by vintage railway car from an emotional terrain located somewhere between the Cotswolds, the Rajput dynasty of India and the eucalyptus-splashed Beverly Hills compound of the flamboyant 20th-century
artist and designer Tony Duquette.”
I’m doing some painting, reorganizing, and redecorating this month as this final Chinese New Year of the zodiacal cycle closes a decade of challenge and change. Though I began with the Marie Kondo job of paring life down to what sparks joy, I’m also now inspired to embrace my inner English and not be “afraid to seem a little mad”.
Long live the Queen!
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These rooms are soulful, captivating and exuberant, and they have stories to tell - so much so that a very interesting article can be written on the subject. Try writing an interesting article on today's gray/white minimalism - ha!
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Theses rooms seem so full and full of themselves that there is no room for colorful characters and experiences.
I need spaces that are backdrops to my life.
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Hooray for eccentricity, fearlessness, and wretched old things. And walls, lot of them, for books shelves and framed pictures. White walls are for hotels and HGTV. Long live color and pattern!
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Visual diarrhea by a bunch of dandies.
I think I'd throw up if I had to stay in any of those rooms.
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Are you being ironic? With the moniker “Lord Snooty”, one can only imagine you’d find these spaces too spare.
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@Lord Snooty
So don't. But you did click on the article. Maybe you are a closet colorist.
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Bean counters, calculating the price of sheet rock, concrete, plywood, and the cost of unskilled labor needed to install it. Or, if you prefer, "the minimalist urge."
Three cheers for the imagination!
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Luscious and fun. Life is too short to be ascetic. Color and flamboyance remind us to be playful and use our imaginations. Three cheers for these light-hearted designers!
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what a fine article! while i'm not in love with every room shown, i heartily agree that the current 'modern' trends are cold, person-less, and most un-comfortable, stripped of any personality.
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