Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Instagram

I have not posted a "Chinoiserie Gone Wrong" in months, but this showed up in my Instagram feed yesterday and I couldn't resist. I'm not even going to begin to outline all I hate about this kitchen; it would take all day. But these are my fave Ballard Designs (now discontinued) Chinese Chippendale stools in this ghastly kitchen. They even left the original ugly fabric cushions on them.

Here are mine in Brunschwig & Fils Xian. The fabric was plasticized and I have been using them daily for years and years and they look like they are brand new.

CCC

OK, what is the story with those hideous floral arrangements?
 

Chinoiserie Gone Terribly Wrong

Eric Cortina

 I just received the new Gump's San Francisco holiday catalog today in the mail and these are on the cover. Crystal encrusted ginger jars for the holidays - $3,300.00 each. I have no words for how tacky these are. Lyrics from my favorite Annie Lennox song No More "I Love You's" are perfect here - "the language is leaving me in silence. " Speechless. Money and style are not the same thing. Poor ginger jars.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Aerin Lauder - House and Garden

Today's Chinoiserie Gone Wrong is about scale. Above is a photo of Aerin Lauder's East Hampton home's foyer from a 2007 House & Garden Christmas issue. The scale of that short and wide palm in a blue and white Chinese porcelain pot does not work at all in that space. Perhaps it was just pulled in for the photo shoot, who knows, it is just wrong. Not to mention that the poor thing would have perished in that dark corner. Here below is the same space more recently with furnishings in scale.

Harpers Bazaar Arabia

I love a potted palm in a home. But please use a large blue and white Chinese fish bowl with a big palm and add some drama! Here is a perfect example in a Ralph Lauren room. If in doubt, go larger, as opposed to small. Dinky does diddly-squat in a room. I am not a houseplant fan anyway, with a few notable exceptions. I love potted orchids. Trader Joe's are the best quality and price. Feed your orchid three ice cubes a week and it will last for months. I love a large potted palm or a large potted fiddle leaf fig. Put them in either a blue and white Chinese fish bowl or a beautiful big basket. But with both, go bold or go home.

Ralph Lauren

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Trying Too Hard?

I do not get the styling of this table. The more I look at it, the odder it is. First, that blue and white ginger jar looks ridiculous on top of that ugly pedestal. Why is it up there? And why is the blue and white rose bowl nestled up against the pedestal instead of centered on the books? And that green and white pair of cachepots on the left is sad and ugly - they look cheesy to begin with and one has preserved boxwood and the other is knocked over and has something spilling out of it. What and why?

Elevating that poor ginger jar makes the arrangement taller than the art. It all looks like there has been a minor earthquake and the rose bowl moved and the cachepot fell over and the ginger jar miraculously survived. And that arrangement is ugly to boot. Let's take the ginger jar off the pedestal and fill it with beautiful flowers. Get rid of the cachepots - there is enough going on with that small table. And center the rose bowl. Done. No, not quite - get rid of the tacky bench. Moreover, that piece of art is somewhat hidden by the arrangement, but it looks very washed out and nondescript. This whole vignette is really bad.

Below let's look at a very similar table styled beautifully by Mark Sikes. Now this is how it is done!

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Tory Burch - Vogue

These dining spaces are both stunning, BUT......... I have such a thing about tablecloths that do not reach to the floor. Please use either floor length or use beautiful placemats - I have a collection of really lovely placemats because of this tablecloth issue. I have everything from hand painted mirrored Chinoiserie, to leather hand painted with Greek key, to beaded crabs.

And it is even more egregious here because these are staged for photo shoots which by definition are styled for perfection and not always completely reality based. Let's face it, we don't all have floral arrangements all over the house and perfect bowls of fruit in the kitchen every day. Unless you are John Heilemann who has perfect bowls of fruit in his kitchen along with his gorgeous dogs for his pandemic from home interviews every day. Now that is staging. I am envious.

These tablecloths look wrinkled, don't hang well, and ruin the sartorial splendor of these rooms for me. Use what you like for every day - but give me a floor length tablecloth or a nice placemat every time. I know shorter tablecloths are more functional, but they are unattractive.

Meg Braff - Portfolio

In both these pictures, IMHO the tablecloths bring down the aesthetics of beautiful rooms. The Meg Braff photo is her own dining room BTW. Your thoughts? Do these look good to you? And please don't tell me about long tablecloths in people's laps - use elegant placemats if that is an issue for you.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Traditional Home

This entire house was featured in Traditional Home and is obviously a lovely home. However, to me there is too much blue and white and too much blue and white Chinese porcelain and I feel like they are soldiers in a Chinoiserie Army all lined up in rows. The Traditional Home website is no longer up, but every room in the house is blue and white.

I never thought a house could have too much blue and white and too much Chinese porcelain, but IMHO this does. I know this collection of blue and white plates below is not Chinese, but again too much and all in rows. To me, the styling gives the home a rigidity and sterility that comes across to me as cold and uninviting as well as a bit boring. For me, this overly formal style misses the entire point of Chinoiserie, which is adding whimsy and personality.

Here below an example of styling with a collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain by the master of blue and white, Mark Sikes. Note the dining room sideboard above versus the dining room sideboard below. Both are dark brown wood with a collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain. In the example below, the pagoda, basket, shells, glass orbs, and palm fronds give it texture, warmth, and personality. The greens of the Chinoiserie wallpaper and the palm fronds make the blue and white Chinese porcelain pop.

Mark D. Sikes

What is your opinion? Do you love the Traditional Home rooms, or do you agree that they lack personality and charm?

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Miles Redd

This is the worst example of Chinoiserie Gone Wrong to date. I challenge anyone to offer a reasoned explanation for this classic hand painted silk Chinoiserie Fromental wallpaper with -

*This rug that does not belong anywhere but a Las Vegas casino
*His signature overdone silk ruffled curtains that I have never understood in a blue color from out in left field
*The dinky chandelier hung too high with dated itsy bitsy shades - I think he was trying to copy one of Alessandra Branca's signature touches (red chandelier shades) and missed
*That ugly clunky dining table with white columns - why white?
*A piece of modern art that looks like some sort of explosion
*A centerpiece of crystals that is so wrong
*Jarring black and white abstract chevron chairs that were so 15 minutes of fame
*The pedestals for the obelisks look like formica lecterns
*The sideboard looks like an office desk

If this were my dining room I would take that obelisk and impale myself on it. This absolutely falls under the category of "I can do whatever I want because I'm Miles Redd." Words cannot begin to describe my dislike for this room. It is mismatched, tacky, and downright ugly. As my mother would say, it was beaten with an ugly stick.

And you can be sure this room, featured in Architectural Digest, cost an absolute fortune. Here is the description from Architectural Digest:

"The most intense arena is the dining room. With its pale-silver wallpaper painted with exotic foliage, neo-Cubist sisal, peacock-blue taffeta curtains sparked by a John Fowler design, and chairs clad in a black-and-white velvet whose wavy motif vibrates like Op Art, it’s a dynamic space for making a grand sartorial impression. 'The great thing about Houston is that people come all decked out,' Redd notes. 'It’s a lot of stylish ladies in stunning clothes, and that works perfectly with the room.' "

"This Houston mansion’s dining room is lined with a Fromental silk wall covering; a Brunschwig & Fils silk taffeta was used for the curtains, the Oscar de la Renta Home for Century Furniture chairs are upholstered in a Turkish velvet, and Agustin Hurtado custom painted the Patterson Flynn Martin sisal."

More money than taste.

Ok, I'm game. Love it? Hate it? This should be interesting. I'm just waiting for, "As long as they love it, that's all that matters." Well you don't need to pay someone a fortune for a room that looks like it was the result of a bad acid trip.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Miles Redd - House Beautiful

Can a room cause vertigo? I have a physical reaction to the wallpaper on the ceiling like the room is sideways or topsy-turvy. I feel nauseous. I literally can't look at it for very long.

But I also just don't get it visually. I like a room where the entire room in papered, including the ceiling, but with the same paper on the ceiling as the walls. White walls with a dark wallpapered ceiling is beyond me. The room is top heavy. Do you feel like interior designers sometimes try to be unique and it just doesn't work?

It really annoys me, because Quadrille China Seas Lyford Trellis is a favorite Chinoiserie wallpaper of mine.

And the staging is so funny. How do you get in and out of bed - crawl in between the table and chair?

I also must say that purple is my least favorite color in the world. I do not have a single purple item in my home or wardrobe. I love a soft lavender, but not this color. I also dislike the purple trim in the corners. Gimmicky.

So I guess I hate the white walls, the papered ceiling, the trim, the staging, and the color palette. And as for the art.....

I do love the Paule Marrot piece of art, but don't get it used here at all. Not sure how those colors work in this room. It seems out in left field.

I adore Paule Marrot art. I wish I had a place for her "Feathers," but I don't. I have so much art I love and with an open floor plan and tons of windows and sliders, wall space is at a premium here.

Update - I just found this photo of the same room - I dislike the door and the curtains as well. Yikes. And the photo on top appeared on the cover of House Beautiful - June 2016.

So guys, weigh in. Love it, hate it? What works for you, what doesn't? To me, Miles has missed by a mile.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Red, White, and Blue Miss

I suspect that the interior designer here was trying to combine Country and Chinoiserie, but it does not work at all. That glamorous chandelier and that log cabin braided rug are about the worst mismatch imaginable. IMHO, trying to meld these two styles is an impossible task to begin with, which is why you never see it. The room needs a serious intervention. It's having an identity crisis. And BTW, this room was published in Traditional Home.

I REALLY DISLIKE -

The Little House on the Prairie braided rug - this is really what ruins the room for me.
The plates on the wall
The beige wall color
The badly tarnished platters on the wall - has she not heard of silver polish?
Those odd diagonal stripe curtains
The too small ceiling cap for the chandelier
Those red, mint, and blue pillows
The ugly clunky vase in an even uglier color green
The dinky crown molding
The table
Overdone palette of red, white, and blue

I LIKE -

The red Chinese Chippendale chairs
The beaded chandelier
The banquette with Chinoiserie fabric although the back is too high and does not look comfy
The built-ins (but the china, etc. doesn't have to be all white/boring)
The floors

LET'S SUBSTITUTE -

A sisal rug
A blue and white Chinese porcelain vase on the table for the tulips
Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray (soft blue/gray) on the walls
A mix of blue and white porcelain and white in the built-ins
White linen curtains with a hefty navy and white trim
Larger crown molding
A table with a less busy base
Pillows in a solid color velvet

What are your thoughts on this room? Love it? Hate it? Just don't quarantine me in it, please. And burn the rug, I beg of you.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Alessandra Branca - Architectural Digest

I guess they are supposed to be whimsical and retro, but I am not into the mounted fish in these Chinoiserie rooms. These are two of my favorite designers, but I think they were trying too hard to be fun or kitschy, and IMHO, the fish just look stupid. I am guessing the ones above are faux, and the one below is a real fish, I am not an expert, but make them go away and I will like both rooms. It said in the description of the room below that the fish mount is a throwback to 70s beach decor, but some past trends should stay buried. In the Meg Braff rooms below, I feel that the fish take over the rooms visually, and I find something very unappealing about dining or sleeping with a massive dead fish above me.

Love the fish, hate them? Your thoughts?

Meg Braff - Coastal Living

And it is clearly not just a one-off with Meg, because here is a fish mount in her sons' bedroom.

Meg Braff - House Beautiful

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Speechless

There is so much to like about this dining room - navy blue grasscloth on the walls, the distressed Chinese Chippendale chairs, a dramatic brass pineapple chandelier, elegant tray ceiling and millwork, a classic table and sideboard.

I love the piece of art - Hunt Slonem from his cockatoos series.

But the styling is frankly horrible. All my eyes go to are those hideous gargantuan vegetables, those ugly lamps, and that awful vase. Get rid of all of it including all that little ditsy stuff on the sideboard. It's frankly hard to believe how ugly it is. It almost seems like a joke. BTW, I did find those veggies online and they run about $4,500 for the two. I looked at their dimensions, and it leaves diners about 8 - 10 inches of space at most.

Let's use a pair of either of these instead on the sideboard -

Bunny Williams

Or these -

Arteriors

I would leave the sideboard very simple so as to not block or distract from the piece of art by this important contemporary artist.

Love it? Hate it? Thoughts?

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong - No - It's Fabulous!

Oscar de la Renta's Dining Room - circa 1969

Last Monday, my Chinoiserie Gone Wrong post featured this photo below and everyone agreed this lamp looked ridiculous on the Chinese garden stool.

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

I have always loved seeing pictures of Oscar de la Renta's homes and when I found this I just had to share. The dining room is wonderful, but he has a pair of Chinese lamps on garden stools. LOL! He gets a pass, the room is gorgeous, but I thought it would be fun to share. Here is another shot of it - note the animal print Chinoiserie on the ceiling, table, and chairs. The lampshades are different colors in the two photos as well. I prefer the white, but doesn't it look like they still have the cellophane wrap on them?

The fabric on the ceiling, chairs, and table is Brunschwig & Fils Chinese Leopard Toile.

 Here's my Margot on her miniature chaise that was originally in my daughter Kate's nursery. It is upholstered in a vintage Brunschwig & Fils fabric from their Winterthur Collection circa 1974 "English Leopard" - it reminds me a bit of this room's style.

My Japanese Chin Margot

A Happy and safe Easter to all. Stay tuned for a really unbelievable Chinoiserie Gone Wrong tomorrow.

A New Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

de Gournay

I received a great response to my new series on Chinoiserie Gone Wrong. Lots of comments, lots of emails, and some great ideas for upcoming posts. Thank you!

I am a huge fan of de Gournay wallpaper. My first post when I created Chinoiserie Chic more than 11 years ago below is of de Gournay wallcovering - a room by Ruthie Sommers. I still love this.

Ruthie Sommers - de Gournay

I had never seen a de Gournay wallcovering I have not liked. Until now. Yikes. Check out the green blobs.

Can you guess what this is supposed to be?

1. Melons?
2. Avocados?
3. Breasts?
4. Alien pods?
5. Green rainbows?
6. Rocks?
7. Exotic eggs?
8. Some strange fruit?

And the correct answer is Kiso Mountains. Wow. And the scale of those flowering trees? Some are as tall as the mountains. I cannot imagine decorating a room with this or living with it. I don't find anything aesthetically pleasing about this at all. Perhaps in a commercial space like a restaurant. Otherwise a hard pass.

Love it? Hate it? Thoughts?

New Series - Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Tree Root Coffee Table

Lots of people seemed to have enjoyed reading and weighing in on my post on Saturday on the Miles Redd living room.

I thought it might be fun to start a weekly series called Chinoiserie Gone Wrong - rooms done by interior designers with Chinoiserie elements that just don't work for a variety of reasons which we will explore. If you have a photo of an interior designer's room you think would fit, please send it to me at Bethaconnolly@aol.com. I am purposely not posting the interior designer's name as a general rule (although there may be a few exceptions).

I like much about this room above, but simply do not get the massive tree root coffee table - either the scale or the look. IMHO the blue and white Chinese porcelain looks bizarre on top of it. I don't get at all the velvet sofa, silk curtains, gilded mirror, and Chinese porcelain combined with a tree root. It looks to me like a tree might have fallen through the roof in a storm and they kept it. It is also so large it takes over the room. The scale is seriously off.

Love it? Hate it? Thoughts?