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Syndicate
Simon Doonan!
I love this man because he has built an empire of styling, advice-giving, and window-dressing around his delightful and witty personality – which is why I practically sprinted over to the Corcoran last night when I found out he was giving a talk about his new book, Eccentric Glamour.
Although he’s not an interior designer, we like what he has to say about the topic. Through his New York Observer column, he warned us about the pitfalls of decorator bullies (“One client was…forced to embrace an overly ironic Rumplemeyer-esque ice-cream parlor scheme in her kitchen.”), the phenomenon of Color Me Beautiful (“Why do Winters love to cast nasturtiums on us Autumns?”), and the see-and-be-scenery that is New York’s Winter Antiques Show (“Avail yourself of this unique opportunity to observe these Park Avenue incroyables at close range.”)
In Eccentric Glamour, the Barneys New York creative director and VH1 talking head isolates three types of women: the Gypsy, an ethereal bohemian with a penchant for all things flowing, the Socialite, a classic preppy who loves sweet, bright color, and the Existentialist, a brooding, intellectual type whose attire reflects the wearer’s cerebral nature.
These three styles translate easily to home decor, he says.
The Socialite’s home is “tidy, crisp, clean, and colorful,” he says, with a “shrill, Palm Beach-y” vibe. Those with such tendencies should look to women like [designer] Kelly Wearstler,
Babe Paley,
and CZ Guest for inspiration.
The Gypsy is a “happy bohemian” who might be “living in a geodesic dome.” Her personal space might be “darker and cavernous,” with an air that fosters “chaos.” The Gypsy’s question: “Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell…how are they living?”
Existentialists, he says, are “a much smaller group,” prone to minimalism and conceptual decorating themes. Doonan imagines an Existentialist living in an art-filled barn in Texas. “John Pawson might do her house,” he mused. (We mused about Pawson right here just a few days ago.)
Doonan shares a New York apartment with his partner, the cheeky interior designer Jonathan Adler. The decor is “Jonathan Adler wall-to-wall.” “It was fun to let him do it,” says Doonan, who has “enough Joan Crawford control” in his day-to-day to sit back and let his partner take the decorating reigns.
“Our apartment,” he says, “is so abnormal.” As the guinea pigs for many of Adler’s inspirations, the space is populated with his current obsession – a line of “demented needlepoint pillows” bearing slogans like “Etc,” “Pill,” and “Hugs.” Adler’s book, Happy Chic, submits that your surroundings should inspire joy and contentment, even when the outside world has it in for you. Doonan says Adler believes that “your apartment should be like a dose of Zoloft,” very “upbeat and groovy.”
This theme of personal creativity and self-satisfaction is the undercurrent of Doonan’s rhetoric. Listening to him talk is great fun, and listening to him rail against conformity is inspiring. He wrote Eccentric Glamour in an attempt to shatter the Stepford-Wife-ization of fashion that he finds “deeply and intensely boring.” Doonan wants to expose “the utter pointlessness of ever being self-conscious,” a tendency that he finds “oppressive to women.” He wants women to “embrace their idiosyncrasies.” “You can set fire to yourself in front of Macy’s and no one will notice!” Clearly, this line of thinking has brought Doonan great success, and I’m willing to bet that it would be great fun for anyone else who wants to try.