i think many of us struggle with the notion of how to incorporate that slowly curated and collected-over-time look into our homes.
i know i do.
i buy one thing because it's such a pretty color and then i place it around my house and hate it everywhere because it sticks out like a sore thumb.
so the other day i stumbled upon rebecca de ravenel's nyc apartment featured in vogue.
i had seen it before and always thought it was pretty. but i looked at it differently this time.
maybe because the shine wore off a little...but i noticed something i hadn't noticed before:
just how brilliantly collected it is.
but the thing for me is this-
it all looks personal, like it's been carefully collected over time and yet, it's still stylish!
rather than hoarded without thought and then thrown together.
maybe the key is just editing.
because the truth is this woman comes from 2 antiques dealer parents and her upbringing was shuffled between paris and the bahamas with loads of travel to far off places in between.
so she certainly had the opportunity to not only hone her eye but to be subjected to the prettiest things on earth.
so in that sense we are all fucked.
maybe it works so well because it's primarily blue and white.
easy to shop when you have parameters in mind.
so how do you get this look without a lot of money and without access to probably a stash of antiques in your parents' home(s)?
my advice is this:
have a color palette. sounds easy enough but do we all really stick to it once we have it?
i think this alone would help us all tremendously when we were out "collecting".
yes, buy what you love but make sure you really love it.
shop your parents' house! even if they live modestly, or have very different tastes than you there are things there that hold special meaning to you that they'd probably be happy to give to you.
don't be myopic. find interest in odd things...old photos, special birthday cards, costume jewelry, books, blankets etc...
group, stack, layer, lean. repeat.
have somewhat of a theme....rebecca's theme is clearly "beachy".
i use "theme" loosely as i don't want you to pick "trains" as your theme.
the theme itself should be loose.
and lastly...work with a decorator to help you hone and reign in that loose theme.
if blue and white is your theme your decorator can help you pull fabrics and accessories and get shit rolling for you.
