Patricia Urquiola: Decorating with "Emotional Austerity"

Jay Johnson - It's fun to look through video interviews with designers from exactly one year ago and see if their predictions came true during the past year. I found this interview of design great Patricia Urquiola and she was talking about a curated show she did in January 2011 with the theme "Emotional Austerity."

Patricia's take on classic design for our times has held up well over the past year - and I think will carry us well into 2012 and beyond - primarily because she focused on the trend of using traditional building materials like wood and concrete and wool to enhance brand-new products; the fun and design twist and emotional energy behind rethinking our furniture, rugs and flooring, wall covering, lighting, and accessories is made "austere" or "pure" or "restrained" - well, think "new classics" - when comfortable, traditional materials like leather are used in the final execution. A shining example is her Klara Chair for Moroso (see top photo), a combination of classic wood and leather in a startling new form. So follow this iconic designer's visionary cue, still going strong, and go with traditional finishes and materials on sometimes startlingly new and exciting product designs to keep your interior design scheme fresh and creative. 

Shabby Chic - Timeless Style for Your Home

Janet Ramin - Like a grand dame in her waning years, a shabby chic home reflects faded beauty and elegance but with blurry features. Despite this decay, Shabby Chic became a very popular style that gathered steam in the 1980s and continues to be a fashionable choice today. In our continuing series on mood boards, we’ll delve into the elements of a shabby chic interior.

Despite its emergence as a somewhat contemporary style, shabby chic has actually been around for a long time – the style really derives from the faded elegance of old British country manors. The British upper class commissioned furniture makers to create long-lasting quality furniture and basically handed it down to their heirs. Sometimes their descendents replaced the furniture with newer styles but as fortunes waned, some kept the more popular pieces – the Georgian and neoclassical styles – until it broke down. What started as mere frugality eventually became a style statement in the 1980s. 

A shabby chic interior usually features furniture that has naturally faded by time and use, its paint peeling, its edges worn down but with its integral structure still mostly intact and functioning. Or a shabby chic interior can feature furniture that has been artificially “aged” using distressing techniques. The overall mood that a shabby chic style tries to achieve is elegance and a romantic atmosphere. Shabby Chic doesn't try to achieve a “funky," thrift shop look that may happen when using vintage pieces; it aims for more of a timeless, classic style. 

On our mood board above, this Shabby Chic bedroom includes the Montana chaise by Peninsula Home. The chaise frame has been painted and then partially hand-rubbed off to create an “aged” patina. The Lisbon table with its X-shaped legs, also by Peninsula Home, is used here as a bedside table. The Lisbon was distressed and then its edges studded with brass nail heads. 

The writing desk with cabriole legs from Guildmaster is

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