Tribute to R.L.

Ever since I was old enough to watch movies and discover styles I have always been facinated with elegant homes.  There are a handful of movies that I can just watch and watch just to look at the homes that are featured in them.  I mostly loved movies with homes that featured a cozy elegant yet masculine study - hence my love for Ralph Lauren.  I used to model when I was in my teens, for a year or two the most.   A young designer who died of aids many years back, Antonio Gil DiRubio, took an interest in me and taught me runway stuff like walking and pivoting and stupid stuff that you never use in life.  I learned how to remove a jacket while twirling and keeping eye contact with the audience.  I learned to walk in four inch heels and pivot and do 180 turns to music on a very high runway.  Stupid stuff like that.  I learned that if you just wear panty hose and no underwear you won't have any lines appear.  I also learned that it is very uncomfortable.   I never pursued it or had the makings of a model but I enjoyed doing it. I did a show in NYC where one of the models was Andie McDowell.  She was about 6 or 7 years older than I was but I didn't know who she was until a few days after I did the show with her when I saw her face in Glamour or Cosmo don't remember which one.  She told me she was doing work for Ralph Lauren.  I smiled but didn't really know who he was at 15.  Now I do!  She later became a big Calvin Klein Model as well as known all over the world.  In that year I was exposed to fashion and although I didn't travel because I was young and my parents would have never allowed it, and I was under the height of 5'7" which was frowned upon in the modeling world.  That meant you were some kind of a midget.    I bought an incredible amount of fashion magazines and would stare at the pages of these women, their clothes and surroundings.  I became enamored with sailing and regattas and anything having to do with them.  Hence my love for blue and white, clothing and decor.

I fell in love with Jackie Kennedy and her equestrian look.

And of course, John.  Always John.  I've blogged before about how I used to try to stalk him or at least the places in Manhattan that I would most probably find him when I was a student at Baruch College for Journalism and also when I worked in the city too.

I used to see these adds in Vogue or Harpers with Ralph Lauren models sitting on a schooner at a Regatta dressed in their beautiful blue and white striped attire with their white sweaters laying over their shoulders.  Everyone looked so beautiful.  I used to pose in front of the mirror trying to mimic some expressions the models had.  Too funny when I think about it today.

Now those images have remained in my head all these years.  I look at specific places in my home and although I worked on them with much help form my friends, KC, Lisa and copying from BES and Mary Carol Garrity, and of course the queen mother in my book, Carolyne Roehm, I see glimpses of memories of photos, and magazine pictures and movies that were all filed in my head.  

My poor husband is being so patient as I plan his New Study.  We hopefully break ground in a few weeks, once the septic has been moved.  (Aye!) and then we can get to work.  

I wanted to post what I was going for but had to give you some exposition as to where all of it comes from.  

From the Regattas and sailboats that I have loved for so long, traveling to Cape Cod and Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and enjoying our summer place by the sea in Cape May, and asking Rob too many times: "So how much would a Schooner cost?"  My love for the ocean and the color palette given by nature and God for us to use.  The glorious Blues and Whites.

From the movies that I watched that showed elegant study's all with burning fireplaces and warm chocolate and honey palettes all portrayed beautifully through fine leather and incredible plaids and plenty of luxurious Art.

The warm lighting and beautifully handcrafted bookshelves to display beautiful books that I adore.  (Sorry don't want to read a book on some computer or ipad.  I want to smell the pages and hold the spine in my hand and use book marks and  when I'm finished I want to place the books where they can be seen and loved forever.
That's what I'm going for.


I ordered my curtains yesterday for the Study.  This is the fabric I used.  It is a Ralph Lauren Fletcher Tartan in Green.
Calico Corners had 20 percent off.  I got quite a deal.   KC and I loved it.  It reminded KC of her father and a lovely sports coat he used to wear.  For me, it felt masculine, elegant, and from another time years back where men and women cared how they dressed and no man would think about leaving the house without a hat and women without gloves.  It was an elegant time where dinner parties were often planned and conversation was enjoyed over cigars or an after dinner    coffee or liquor.  Women were refined and children behaved.  No one cursed in public and manners were an art form.  So much is gone.  I want to bring it back.  Even if it's only in my Study.  Hee Hee.
Here are some of the pieces that I have put together to create that look. (also include my beautifully tufted honey velvet chair I posted about last week.) Also the couch below  will be in a velvet green velvet with nail heads matching my curtains.