What: “Then a photograph
of her living room appeared in a magazine. Never had I seen such profusion, so much red! Red on the
floor, red up the walls, and textures, textures, TEXTURES! Plaid on top of
paisley, flowered chintz next to silk stripes, and silver, tortoise, ebony,
conch, gilt – a magnificent explosion in the midst of a beige decade, a world
in which the worst sin was to ‘clash.’ You knew the moment you looked at Mrs.
Vreeland’s living room that you had seen the future. And indeed, it eventually
became the great cliché of New York décor.” – Mary Louise Wilson, introduction
to D.V. by Diana Vreeland.
Who: Billy Baldwin designed the
living room in 1955.
When: Diana Vreeland burst
onto the scene in 1936, when she began working at Harper’s Bazaar. She later
worked at Vogue and The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
Where: Legend has it she
wanted her living room to look “like a garden, but a garden in hell.”
Why: “Why don’t you
paint a map of the world on all four walls of your boys’ nursery so they won’t
grow up with a provincial point of view?”
Images: With Fabulous Flair, Habitually Chic, Apartment Therapy, Architectural Digest, Harper's Bazaar (SJP as DV)
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