The World's Best Fabric & Textiles Stores

I was in a favourite fabric store yesterday, which has the charming name of Odette. It's the smaller sister store of the hugely popular Scarlett Jones in Hawthorn. [scarletjonesmelbourne.blogspot.com] The charming girls and I struck up an animated conversation about our love for linen, as they explained the differences between French, Belgium and Irish. (French is thicker; Irish is finer.)

Then the most glamorous, elegantly svelte woman wandered in, wearing a linen ensemble so fabulous we all stopped talking immediately. She revealed that the long, narrowly cut linen pinafore and pants had been made by Amanda Tabberer (daughter of Maggie and the author of My Amalfi Coast), and had long been one of her favourite outfits. She'd owned the two pieces for years, she confessed, and had even worn them gardening. (My friend Fiona laughed at me on this blog the other day for suggesting linen for gardening, and I admit I was sceptical until I saw this woman's outfit: it was incredibly beautiful and clearly hardy after years of dead-heading the roses.)

The glamorous linen lady then told us what the colour of her outfit was – "Humble Potato".

"You should have seen the other colours – fuchsia and such, ugh," she said as she twisted her nose in horror. I wanted to say: "I would have like to have seen the fuchsia" but didn't dare. Clearly Humble Potato was the only colour one should be seen wearing. (See colour palette above.) I sense I have a lot to learn about the world of linen.

Curiously, the most popular post on this blog was the one on fabrics late last year. Obviously there are lots of other fabric lovers out there. 

So here are a few textile links, fabric sources and stores around the world to inspire you.

(3 images above from my linen pile. Store pix from Odette.)

NB If you're attending the Trade Secrets Garden Fair in Connecticut in May this year, be sure to wear some linen there. It's a linen lover's kinda place...

Blog post on Trade Secrets here – link

or here:

http://janellemccullochlibraryofdesign.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/bunny-williams-and-her-trade-secrets.html

PS I do love a bolt of fuchsia linen... 

But will no doubt be struck from The Linen Lover's Club now.

A SELECTION OF THE WORLD'S BEST FABRIC & TEXTILE STORES AND SOURCES

TRAVEL & LEISURE GUIDE'S TO THE BEST LINEN SOURCES IN EUROPE

[Link here]

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/sources-of-softness

APARTMENT THERAPY'S BEST SOURCES FOR LINEN BEDDING

[Link here]

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/best-linen-bedding-43411

APARTMENT THERAPY'S TOP 10 DESIGNER FABRIC & TEXTILE STORES

[Link here]

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/top-10-designer-textile-stores-140731

DESIGN SPONGE'S TOP 20 FABRIC RESOURCES

[Link here]

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/09/top-20-fabric-resources.html

FABRIC SHOPPING IN LONDON

[Link here]

http://www.tillyandthebuttons.com/2012/05/fabric-shopping-in-london.html

TEXTILE TOURS TO INDIA

www.fionawright.com/tour.html‎

or

www.colorsofindiatravel.com/textile-craft-tour.htm‎

THE FABRICS OF INDIA

Link here

www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-fabric-of-india‎

and

http://www.travelandleisure.com/trips/discovering-indias-resplendent-textiles

Link here

The Sins of Instagram

Confession. I really, really, reallly dislike Instagram.

Sure it's quick, and it's easy, and you can share the photos with the world in seconds. And you don't need to drag an enormous camera around. You can snap life with your iPhone while on the run. But the quality of the photos is so depressing.

When there is so much colour in the world, why would somebody create something that bleaches or sepiarises life? It doesn't make sense. Even the brighter photos have a kind of washed-out feel to them. It's the filters. They're designed to make everyone look like a great photographer but the irony is that all the photos are starting to look the same.

Gauguin and Monet and Van Gogh laboured for years and cut off their ears to show us the beauty in blues, greens and bright, sunflower yellows. Yves Klein created his famous reputation by capturing the joy of the infinite in an ultramarine, lapis lazuli-style pigment now known as International Klein Blue (IKB). While Jackson Pollock spent much of his life in seclusion in the Hamptons, trying to perfect the beauty of his fantastic, multi-coloured messes canvases. So why are we resorting to filtering our life down to browns and greys? (And I bet Oscar de la Renta and Valentino didn't use Instagram to inspire them for their palettes. Why would they, when there is so much inspiration in bright shades?)

           

Instagram is a gimmick, a tease, an invention designed to make us nostalgic for old 1970's polaroids and faded happy snaps from our glory days. We're sharing our lives on it, but are the photos really doing our lives justice?

I don't know about you but I can't look at any more brown sunsets. I can take any more dull, muddy-coloured scenes. Forgive me while I go and take a photo of a spring flower in full bloom, so I can remember the heady sight of natural, unadulterated colour for once.

I suspect Instagram, like many other things, won't be around for long. And I fear for all those people who have taken photos with it. Their computer archives will be full of muted scenes that, in years to come, will seem devoid of energy and life. (NB These photos of Paris are mine; I've bleached them to make them look Instagramish for the purposes of this post. The original ones are much prettier. I don't use Instagram. It's the devil's work, as Miss Faux Fuchsia would say.)

Please don't forget the joy of real colour. Pack a tiny Leica or Panasonica DMZ in your handbag and use that instead. If you can find room for a mobile or cell phone, you can always have a camera in a spare pocket of your bag. The photos from a camera taken without a filter, without a phone, without some nifty Instagramesque influence, will look far more beautiful in years to come. Believe me.

A LITTLE STUDY IN COLOUR

As a quick PS, my niece Alex is studying styling at RMIT University in Melbourne. (Who knew there was a degree in it?) She's asked me to help her with a project this week, so I've been practising beforehand, with a 'faux project' based around the theme of colour. (Just like we did at university all those years ago.) Here are some poor attempts, which Alex will no doubt laugh at. But don't you just love the colours?

Book Covers: The Harland Miller Way

Reading through the New York Times' Style magazine this morning (the Spring Design Issue is now online at tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com), I stopped in my reading tracks at the London home of designer Harriet Anstruther and her photographer husband Henry Bourne. It was a curious and intriguing mix of interior decoration – minimalism meets Cecil Beaton with a lick of hot pink – but what was really interesting was seeing a Harland Miller print over the fireplace.

If you haven't heard of Harland Miller until now (and I admit I'm still coming up to speed: where have I been?), he's a British artist who has achieved a level of fame – or perhaps notoriety – for painting enormous Penguin book covers. Courtney Cox bought one for her Malibu beach house. So, too, did the Soho House hotel group and Elton John, among many others. But instead of the usual (and perhaps ubiquitous) Pride and Prejudice-style cover, Miller reinterprets them and puts his own rebellious spin on them. A Harland Miller title is nothing like a Jane Austen one.

His work is described as "switching between being sardonic, hilarious and nostalgic". He claims the covers reflect the contradictions associated with love – the idea that it is a torment as well as a pleasure. I, like many, just like the humour in them.

And if you don't like the ones floating around the auction houses, you can also commission him to do your own cover. I'd have 'Don't Become An Author' on mine.

Here are some examples. (And if you're offended by profanity, please look away now. I apologise for what's to come. But I didn't paint them. Although for the prices he gets for them, I wish I did!)

The Hemingway one, an oil on canvas measuring 213.3 x 154.9 cm,  sold at a Christie's auction in New York in 2009 for US$22,000. That was a bargain. Miller's Penguins can go for as much as US$50,000.

The prints go for slightly less, but the paintings have that grubby, rough, old-book-cover look about them that I like.

Do you ever think, like me, that you should have continued with those painting classes at RMIT...?

Design Wise: Schappacher White

We're not design snobs here in the House of the Frugal Decorator. We have $300 Italian lamps beside $50 Ikea ones. We have a $400 Bose iPod speaker on a $40 chest of drawers (found at a garage sale and painted matt black to match). We have $1000 Bruno Benini fashion photographs next to my rough old amateur ones. And we have a $250 limited edition Louis Vuitton book (a gift from RR) sitting beside $1 titles found at The Strand in New York.

Interior design should never be precious, in my opinion. It should consist of the things you love. I don't want to lecture you because you're all quite capable of decorating your own homes, and you should do it the way you want to! But the moment I see a room that is styled to within an inch of its life with high-end furniture and precious antiques, I quietly shudder! (Where do they put their feet? Where do they sit their coffee cups without worrying about marking the mahogany? And where – oh where – do the poor dogs go?)

Someone else who shares my down-to-earth design philosophy is Ms Rhea White. She is the kind of woman I love: practical; innovative, creative, funny, and fond of a decorating bargain.  She is a woman who can make a flea-sale find look like an antique from a Sotheby's auction.

I spotted Rhea sitting next to Celerie Kemble in a Habitually Chic photo last week and it prompted me to do a Design Wise post on her firm. I had the great pleasure of meeting Rhea and her design partner Steve Schappacher on Shelter Island near New York when I shot their beach house (above and below) for a book on coastal architecture. Steve Schappacher is the architect of the duo; a design genius who can see possibilities where the rest of us see run-down wrecks. Rhea White is the interior designer of the family; a woman who can style a house like no one – and I mean NO ONE – I've ever met!

I'd like to show you. This, my library friends, is how the pros make over their homes!

(Note: Depending on where we end up living after The Big Move, I'm going to see if we have enough money to get these two to do our next house. That is, if they have time between all their other Manhattan commissions...)

The whimsical black-and-white dining room. The rusty old garden chairs were picked up for a song at a second-hand store on Shelter Island and deliberately left as they were. (Rhea simply put some striped cushions in for comfort.) These chairs really make this space. They are adorable. 

Notice how many of the fittings and furniture pieces are black? It's a clever move because the dark colour outlines the beauty of these pieces by silhouetting them against the white backdrop. 

I've forgotten where she picked up this fabulous vintage chair (I was too busy gawping and photographing madly to make copious notes, sorry!), but I love how it sits beautifully with the gently aged kitchen cabinet behind it. Look how Rhea has painted the back of it, to highlight the dinnerware.  Normally people paint cabinets or bookshelves black and then leave the back of them white. Rhea, however, has gone the opposite direction. I told you she was clever.

The kitchen. This is such a lovely cooking space for an island beach house. Look at how the black dinnerware makes a statement on the white shelves. And how the cupboards are like old-fashioned farmhouse cupboards. The modern twist to this room is the stove. It's black. (I desperately want one of those!) Love the geometric sink in the island bench too. And the elegant tapware with the simple benchtop. Just beautiful.

Chalkboards have been in so long they're bound to go out soon, but Rhea and Steve have given theirs a contemporary look by painting the entire kitchen wall in chalkboard paint and doodling cute pictures on it. It works because the wall beyond it is black too, while the door trims have been painted white. The layers of black and white are instantly dramatic. Even the shell hanging on the far wall has been painted white. And look at the cream sandshoes. Very cute.

This is a detail of the hallway in the previous photo. Rhea has simply strung up an old fishing rope and thrown some hooks over it. So creative. The beach bag is a witty play on words. (The house is on Shelter Island.)

The powder room. Located off the side entrance, this was my favourite room. That steel shower screen is actually VERY expensive.  (I doubt their laundry/powder room was a $30 makeover like ours!) But look at the retro-style black tapware. Isn't it beautiful? It's a lot like the bathrooms in the guest rooms of Ace Hotel in New York. And those light fittings! I love this powder room. Such a glamorous beach house ensuite. It makes you want to wear a retro-style, polka-dot black maillot, and then hang it up on a hook to match!

The living room. The top image is out of focus but it doesn't matter as many of you will have already seen this room in the blogosphere. The bottom image is the one I wanted to show you. It's home-made artwork, created out of rusty old bits of steel. Love the 4-by-3 configuration.

The bedrooms. These were ordinary farmhouse bedrooms, located either side of the landing at the top of the stairs. But look how lovely they are with a black-and-white palette?

The garden. The garden was as gorgeous as the rest of the house. Rhea and Steve built the long pergola and the outdoor fireplace, and converted the carport to a cool pool house. I'm told by another architect (a famous New York one, who knows about these things) that this pool is VERY expensive because of the long steps on the side. I'm too polite to ask how much it costs, and it doesn't matter, because it's the final exclamation design on this spectacularly clever Shelter Island beach house.

For more details of this creative duo's projects, look up their website schappacherwhite.com, or click here – Schappacher White