Irwin Weiner

This 150-year-old department store received a 2009 jolt, completely modernizing its departments and opening up a basement-level Design Supermarket filled with great objects from Italy and other countries. Breathtaking views, food, clothing, and home goods to be had - so let's get started with photos of our lunch at the La Rinascente rooftop lounge and some of our favorite finds, followed by a list of designers and objects you should look into for your home.

Favorite La Rinascente Finds

1. DMK Design - Vassoio Tondo round tray

2. The New English - InkHead porcelain

3. Becka Citron - Fabria Compana Piele fruit or pear glass domes

4. Rosaria Rattin porcelain bottles

5. Ron Arad Pirouette 5-piece cutlery set

6. Ulrike Pluschau pipe vases (S, M, L) with knitted sweaters in red, purple, green, and brown

7. Reichenback Taste collection

8. Skitsch - Imperfetti fruit bowl

9. Arik Levy - Twister vase

10. Piero Fornasetti - "Smoking is harm" vase with lid

11. Seletti

12. Wetter indochine

We highly recommend the Fiells new book Tools for Living: A Sourcebook of Iconic Designs for the Home.

• 768 Pages, 1000 illustrations, $59.95

• Covers the Fiells' "ultimate" things designed for the home

• Features everything under the home design sun, including chef knives, pots and pans (see below), garden tools, home-office furniture, door handles, calendars (like the Enzo Mari Formosa perpetual wall calendar, 1963), lamps (like the Ross Lovegrove Agaricon table light, 2001), cutlery (like Tapio Wirkkala's Kurve cutlery, 1963), and bathroom taps

• Items include a full description and explains the historic relevance and design excellence of the item - a new way to train your eye for enduring home design with the help of experts

• Web addresses are given for all manufacturers so Tools for Living serves as a practical sourcebook for homeowners and design professionals

Irwin Weiner - In a recent trip back to my hometown of Cape Town, South Africa, I stopped in at 109 Hatfield Street near the National Gallery to visit Okha Design & Interiors. Okha exemplifies the fresh, contemporary, bold, handcrafted African design look that naturally goes with beach-scene homes and lots of sunshine. The bold sun - South Africa boasts the largest hole in the ozone layer, so it's a hot place in many ways - brings out the need for strong, elemental art, sculpture, and clean furnishings that are bold and comfortable. Cape Town has a resort feel that Okha's designs pick up on.

As the planet celebrates the World Cup in South Africa, we wanted to celebrate Okha and all South African design. If you want to take a page from this interior design style for your home, here are a few suggestions:

• Add hand-crafted art and sculpture
• Look for furnishings with strong lines and architectural details,
• Make your living spaces clean and uncluttered

Here are some views of Okha's furniture and designed spaces in South Africa. Note the contemporary beach style of many of these homes.

Baird worked with her old friend and collaborator, Design2Share's Irwin Weiner. As the AD article notes, Irwin "has a lot of experience working with country structures," and he worked with the interior designer and her clients to create the architectural elements of a new open barn that functions beautifully as a residence, with all the modern amenities. After working on the barn renovation and redesign (see photos below), Irwin worked with Penny to plan the interior spaces, she then decorated them, and the result is magical.

Coinciding with his AD feature with Baird, Irwin Weiner announces the creation of his New Country Collection today, in collaboration with Designer Pages. Now design professionals and homeowners can see his favorite resources - from flooring and architectural materials to furniture, decorative plumbing, lighting, and accessories. Design2Share is featuring the New Country Collection in the right-hand sidebar of each page on our website. Look for the New Country Collection black-and-white banner and click on the title to go to the main collection page, or explore individual resources with one click on product names and photos. Irwin will tell us more about these resources, and will be adding more resources to the collection from time to time.

In the photo above, Irwin is sitting in a great chair. Its leather-inlaid arms and seat are bent wood in an Art Noveau style with intricate spindles, studded all over with antique brass nailheads. Irwin has an antique black-and-maroon paisley shaw from the late 1800s draped over its back, and he popped the chair with Sylvie's acid green, lemon, and cream pillow from her Fairy Tales collection (see photo below).

Irwin has an Ashley Manor sleep sofa (handy for those NYC guests) in his living room, upholstered in a gray ultrasuede fabric from Old World Weavers. In the photo below, you'll see how beautifully Sylvie's Ikebana pillow goes with the sofa's upholstery (from her Far East collection). "I love the 12 x 18 inch irregular size of this pillow," raves Irwin. "It nests beautifully along the sofa arm and makes a great headrest for anyone laying on the sofa and reading or catnapping. And it's fun to place pillows in unusual positions like this. Don't just line pillows up along the back of furniture like little soldiers." Beside the sofa is a vintage glass-top end table on a driftwood base and the African baluster-shaped vessle base lamp with the laminated silk tapering drum shade is from Waldo's.

In Irwin's spacious bedroom, he took us to a queen-sized bed, custom from Beckley Bed. The headboard is woven faux leather (actually made from paper!), and above the bed hang two long Polish collage-and-ink paintings which Irwin bought at a Rago Arts auction. The bed is dressed with white pillow shams from Schweitzer Linens, light blue pillow cases and sheets from The Company Store, an antique suzanni throw (which Irwin backed with white fabric to make it more practial as a bedcover), a striped Crate & Barrel pillow, and Sylvie's bright orange, blue, and white 12 x 18 inch Bamboo pillow from her Far East collection. "I like the way Sylvie's pillows pick up the orange from the striped pillow and the suzanni, as well as blend in with the Dreamsicle colored walls," Irwin noted. "And her use of birds in her pillows - from Japanese fabrics she admires - is actually very Victorian. There's a fine tradition of using the bird motif in decorating, and it adds a classic warmth to the bed."

Finally, Irwin showed us a French-polished art deco writing desk and a mod desk chair. It's a lucite mid-century 1970s chair with an aluminum base. He had the seat covered in a bouckle (nubby) weave fabric in dark tans and he added the smaller 10 x 14 inch Bamboo pillow to provide a color accent to the chair. "This smaller pillow provides great lumbar support when I'm working at the desk," said Irwin. "The Sylvie pillows have that longer, rectangular shape I recommend to my clients for good lower back support - whether it's for a desk chair, side chair, or club chair." The floor mirror in the background is from Ironies in Manhattan and you can see a large resin painting called My Delta.

Sylvie Pillows at OpenSky: Shop for these Sylvie Pillows - just like designer Irwin Weiner did - at the Design2Share Store at OpenSky. Click on the links for the 10 x 14 inch Sylvie Pillows or her larger 12 x 18 inch Sylvie Pillows.

Irwin Weiner ASID

Movies strongly influence homeowners. The lush interiors of The Bonfire of the Vanities influenced the 1990s be-tassled style of traditional decorating. Down With Love reinforced the popularity and eye-candy pop of 1960s and mid-century modern interiors. Something's Gotta Give gave us a Hampton's beach house to love and emulate for its clean, windswept style.

This year we have another crop of great-looking movies with interiors that help ground their stories as well as influence audiences and home style trends. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Avatar - This movie's lilacs, purples, and blues will be (I predict) the next hot color combo for home decor, wallcoverings, paints, and tabletop.
• 500 Days of Summer - The 20-something romantic comedy had some beautifully styled scenes with a teriffic roof-top party (lanterns and lights in strings are always a good look) and Summer's quirky apartment (photo below) reinforced her strong personality.

• The Blind Side - The main character is, of course, an interior designer, and her traditional home will be a big hit with young traditionalists everywhere (photo below).

• A Single Man - My vote (even though I haven't seen the movie yet) for Best Interiors is solely based on a few tantalizing still photographs showing some lovely interiors (see below). Director and fashion icon Tom Ford will no doubt be bringing his incredible eye for detail, color, and composition into the world of his film. I can't wait to see it!

• It's Complicated - All the movies from Nancy Meyers are huge hits with audiences and create interior design style waves. Again, I haven't seen this Meryl Street-helmed movie, but look forward to watching it.
• Julie & Julia - Nora Ephron's movies also play up domesticity and household settings, and this movie contrasted the stylish Parisian apartment of Julia and Paul Child with Julie Powell's starter apartment in Long Island City. There was no comparison, although both had their charms (still, loved the Parisian interiors!).

Go to designer Linda Merrill's fascinating blog Silver Screen Surroundings for her insightful takes on movie interiors and this year's Oscar-nominated films for Best Art Direction.

Dorothy Draper was one of America's most famous and influential interior designers. She pioneered the industry in this country, created a brand name for herself long before Martha Stewart came on the scene, influenced home decorating with her "you can decorate" best-selling books, and produced an impressive body of decorating work, from chic hotels and private homes to important commercial commissions like the interiors for jet airplanes.

Here are some Draper tips that we can all benefit from in our home decorating (and pick up a copy of her Decorating Is Fun! book for some great ideas):

1. Draper always believed it was important to have a good time decorating your home. She warned people not to be "grim and serious," and she said, "I don't believe there is any rule in the game that can't be broken."
2. "So many people stick timidly to the often uninspired conventional ideas or follow some expert's methods slavishly. Either way they are more or less living in someone else's house." To avoid this, she advised decorating where you live to make it "honestly your own - an expression of your personality."
3. "You need courage to experiment, courage to seek out your own taste and express it, courage to disregard stereotyped ideas and try out your own." She particularly advises against blindly following trends, fashions, or someone else's advice. But with that comes responsibility to try to research what's available, collect color and pattern samples that appeal to you, and begin to look around and find what's appealing.
4. "The Drab Age is over. Color is coming into its own again. Until very recently people were literally scared out of their wits by color." Dorothy Draper wrote these words back in 1939, and they are still true! Don't forget that lively colors in your surroundings are important, and she advises, "Be sure your colors are honest, fresh, and clear." She doesn't mean bright shades of color but instead, colors that aren't "wishy-washy."
5. Get rid of "junky knickknacks" in all your rooms. In fact, Dorothy Draper always eliminated all purposeless elements from her room and reveled in the "restful simplicity" of rooms that are well decorated.
6. Replace old picture frames with new ones to give your walls a fresher look.
7. Don't overlook the small details in any room. "Your lampshades," says Draper, "can make or break a room." She says to consider the decorating details in your room as carefully as you consider layering your body in clothes and jewelry; accessorizing is just as important as the basic outfit.
8. "No room can be called perfect unless it has real comfort. It must be livable for you. It must meet graciously every requirement you make of it." Take Draper's advice and look hard and long at how you're using your living room and dining room. Are these two underutilized rooms in your house? Can they be made more comfortable and livable for you and your family by accommodating more conversation groupings, spaces to enjoy media, great places to read a book, work spaces for homework and games and computer use?
9.  When considering wall colors, get a large wallpaper sample which has the background color you want. "Hang it on the wall until you find out whether you really like it. Then have your painter match that shade."
10. Don't forget celings when laying out your color plans for a room. Don't just default and paint them white. "Your ceiling can be a contrast to your walls, or it can match some color in your wallpaper or rug. It can be painted shiny black, or it can be covered with the same wallpaper you are using on the walls. Just don't treat it like a stepchild."
11. "A room that is weighted down at one end by a great, heavy sofa that is not balanced by similar weight at the other end is an uneasy room." Draper cautions against buying pairs of things to create balance. ("It would be dull if you did.") Instead, she recommends clever uses of color such as a pair of chairs with upholstery darker than the sofa being used to create that visual balance in the room. "Solid colors will usually make things seem larger and bulkier than they are. And bold, allover patterns will reduce their size because they break up the lines just as army camouflaging does."

Imagine life without a sofa! Well, can you imagine what life was like when the first ones came into the home? The sofa completely changed the way families lived and turned everything we know about interior space upside down. The sofa single-handedly

• brought comfort and casualness into the home

• introduced the first piece of furniture designed to accommodate two people

• contributed to an awakening of conversation between people in a room

• invited courtship, wooing, and seduction between couples

This time in France saw an amazing revolution in the way people live, with architects, the first interior designers, stylish trendsetters, and two royal mistresses (the Marquise de Maintenon and the Marquise de Pompadour) leading the charge. This era also saw the introduction of bathrooms (tubs with hot water and the flush toilet), living rooms, convenience furniture, home heating, and private bedrooms!

Fascinating Snippets from The Age of Comfort

The private bedroom acquired its distinctive personality between 1710 and 1730. Gone were the balustrades and columns. As visible proof of the room's new mission, the bed was tucked away in a cozy niche or nook (literally a recessed portion of the room) -- hence the new room's name: a chambre en niche, or niche bedroom. The niche bed was placed sideways in the niche rather than facing out into the room and was thus protected from drafts, thereby eliminating the need for heavy curtains.

We don't know how many modern bathrooms and tubs resulted from water's easier availability, although in 1782 still another expert did claim that "the public's new predilection for very frequent baths" meant that "every new home now includes a bathroom." At the very highest end of the new bathroom spectrum belong the spaces created for that great bath fanatic the Marquise de Pompadour. . . . The marquise [see photo below] had her first bath built [at Versailles] in 1747-1748. It had green and white marble tiles and a single tub, with the tanks and heater on the floor above. On September 11, 1748, a master metalworker named Martin delivered a "faucet shaped like a swan's neck" for the tub. From then on, everywhere she went, Pompadour immediately ripped out the old bath. Thus, when she took over the Hotel d'Evreaux, she moved the bathing suite from its original location near the fabulous garden to a more modern spot, off her bedroom.

Between 1675 and 1740, people went from living with only a few stiff chairs with no padding to being literally surrounded by a truly dizzying array of well-stuffed and padded, curvy, and "orthopedically" proportioned seats: from armchairs and sofas to daybeds and chaises longues. And this new seat furniture -- the first true designer furniture, the first furniture ever designed with comfort in mind -- was abundant, present in all interior rooms (even bathrooms), so that private life could be carried out in perfect ease. In addition, the original modern seat furniture positively forced people into a new take on life. Stuffy, formal ways were swept away as soon as straight-backed seating was replaced by designs in which it was impossible to sit bolt upright, designs that for the first time ever made more casual posture the norm. Well-padded seats encouraged people to lean back, even to lounge. They forced the French, formerly the most magnificent people in Europe, to learn to relax. The new seat furniture, in short, was responsible for a revolution in style, lifestyle, and consumerism on a scale rarely equaled.

By 1738, one thing was absolutely clear: the building boom that had reconfigured the cityscape of Paris was over. If French architecture was to remain prominent, a new direction had to be found. Interior decoration was thus brought to the rescue to teach people that even if they had a new home, they could not simply rest on their laurels: its interior style had to be kept up-to-date.

By the mid-eighteenth century, interior decoration had become what we think of as a field. For the first time, objects were valued not as dazzling showstoppers, but for their ability to work in a context and thereby to make a room into both a personal statement and a place that enhanced and facilitated daily life. For the first time, there were individuals whose business it was to help others choose their decoration, to have objects made to fit their clients' interiors, and to arrange them in their homes. For the first time, the world of style opened up to design in a new sense of the word, one that included the arts of design, those based on the union between form and function. The new field also gave official recognition to the fact that French craftsmen and designers were establishing the first industry of the decorative arts.

What's Alessandra's New Book All About?

When your grandfather is a Vatican Museum art historian and you've grown up in Rome surrounded by the greatest classical art and architecture, you're fated for a wonderful life in design. Alessandra Branca's book celebrates the classic while infusing it with everyday purpose. Her interiors are comfortable, elegant, and witty -- and her book gives a lot of inspiration for homeowners and folks in the design profession. Here are a few tips and observations that we loved.

• Most people find red exciting. I think it's calming. To make a large bedroom feel more intimate, I covered the walls in a red cashmere-and-wool felt. It's as if you wrapped a great big blanket around the room.
• I always start with the shell first, and I try to solve any problems that stem from the architecture. I consider the way the space will be used and plan what furniture it will need. Then we think of the styling of the furniture and finally only then do I begin thinking about color and pattern and how I will layer it in. It's a very painterly process, and I've learned a lot about color from studying art. Raphael has taught me intensity. Titian has trained me in nuance. Tiepolo, with his celestial blues, has coached me in clarity, and Caravaggio has instructed me in the mysteries of dark and light.

• Clients don't believe me at first when I tell them this, but sometimes a small room can end up being the best room in the house.
• I love tartan. I like the clean, crisp geometry of the plaid and the unusual combination of colors. It's a powerful symbol and a beautiful pattern, and it adds strength and warmth to any room.
• A traditional chandelier, encased in sheer white scrim, becomes modern and mysterious.
• It's fun to pull out the fine china and crystal for a party, or even an intimate dinner for two, but to keep the table from looking too formal, instead of candles in classic white, try orange. It's a surprise to see them in a silver candelabra. And I like the exuberance of a big bunch of a single type of flowers in one color instead of a more formal mixed arrangement, something anyone can do.

• I think of my kitchen as a working laboratory, and I wanted to keep it simple. This is the one place where I don't like a lot of color. I just wanted white marble and old wood.
• I like to play one pattern off another. My kind of decorating is all about layering, and I have no qualms about mixing high and low. In the same room, you will see luxurious damask next to humble ticking. That feels very fresh and modern to me. It's like wearing an elegant silk shirt and jeans. I paint with pattern. I will use it on the walls, on the furniture, and on the floor. Pattern is a way to give depth to a space.
• Pattern is forgiving. If a client has a favorite chair where I know they are going to sit all the time, I will cover it in a pattern. Pattern wells well. It will show less wear than a solid, neutral fabric. It is practical and elegant at the same time.
  

It's easy and convenient to shop furniture and accessories from a catalog or catalog outlet stores like Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Design Within Reach, Pier 1, Anthropologie, Williams Sonoma Home, and even the big box stores like Target, K-mart, or Wal-Mart. Here's my advice on how to wisely get the best home decorating look by "shopping around."

Remember that catalog stores are highly staged. You're going to see vignettes that are psychologically appealing to buyers. But don't be fooled -- most vignettes will look sterile if you transport them whole cloth into your home. You don't want your interiors to look like everything you own was purchased from one of these stores.

I had a recent visit to Pottery Barn, and based on this trip, here are a few tips:

1. When I go into a catalog store, I look for the Top 3 items they sell. Don't waste your time getting bogged down in trying to absorb their entire look and design sense. Know that many of their items are poorly designed or are of such mass-produced sterility, they aren't interesting enough to belong in anybody's home -- especially yours.
2. In Pottery Barn, I was blown away by their Ankara Patchwork Dhurrie Rug. It was a heavenly rug made up of squares of new rug made to look like antique carpet pieces stitched together. Beautiful color, very well made and executed, and lightyears beyond anything else in the store. That's the kind of merchandise you should hone in on, ignoring what clearly isn't very interesting or unique.
3. Find great pieces in a catalog store and visualize how they will look in your existing or in-progress home settings. Go for an eclectic mix of decorating elements and it's absolutely fine to add the best of the catalog stores' merchandise to higher-end custom furnishings, flea market treasures, and your personal collections. Look for the most interesting things you can possibly find, and avoid things that are "all the rage," like yet another fake deer head or yet another leather club chair that looks like every other club chair in the world.
4. You'll find an interesting mix of new home products and one-of-a-kind antiques at Anthropologie, and you can take that philosophy with you into your home decor. Mix your new pieces with the old, the mass produced with the unique, the serious with the whimsical. In the end, everything should look comfortable, stimulating, and filled with personality. Avoid making it look like a collection of catalog furnishings.
5. Some homeowners will only buy iconic furniture, originally fashioned by a famous designer. Design Within Reach specializes in newly manufactured iconic furnishings, but even here, don't just have one iconic piece after another. Your interiors will look silly, like you're living in a Furniture Hall of Fame exhibit. Mix it up and go with folk art and outsider art handmade pieces, mass produced no-name items that are interesting, a few iconic pieces if you must, and lots of old furnishings and accessories that form a warm connective tissue between all your decorating elements. Staying iconic 100% will rob your interior of accessibility and warmth, and that goes with duplicating the entire line look from any catalog store for that matter. Here's some inspiration: The lovely living room design in this photo shows off the eclectic beauty that designer Bunny Williams brings to her projects.