Sister's Soldiers
Design November 10th, 2009
To read Sister Parish Design: On Decorating is to sit in a room with more than two dozen of the most talented designers in both the United States and England—and to be completely enthralled. Designers including Bunny Williams, Jeffrey Bilhuber, and Taigan’s own Suzanne Rheinstein reminisce about storied projects and famous clients, share fresh ideas and strong opinions, and summon influences from Dorothy Draper and Billy Baldwin to, of course, the great Sister Parish herself.
Parish, who started working in the midst of the Great Depression and died in 1994, became one of the country’s most iconic interior decorators. She loved chintz and often elaborate window treatments, and created stunning spaces for such A-List clients as Bill and Babe Paley. But she was also all about using family heirlooms, found objects, and such humble fabrics as mattress ticking. She knew that comfort was the hallmark of good design and that above all rooms are to be lived in.
Authors Susan Bartlett Crater and Libby Cameron run Sister Parish Design, a company that produces a collection of hand-screened fabrics and wallpapers inspired by the designs Parish loved and used in the decoration of her own houses. But their connections to Parish go much deeper—Crater is Parish’s granddaughter and co-author of Sister: The Life of Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II, and Cameron is a designer who worked for Parish at Parish-Hadley Associates for fifteen years.
Among the tidbits they’ve gathered: Parish’s close friend and partner Albert Hadley recalls, in delicious detail, the meeting with Brooke Astor that resulted in her famous lacquered red library and imparts his opinion that “overhead lighting is a tragedy.” Suzanne Rheinstein explains why porch ceilings should be painted pale blue and Miles Redd describes his chic—and cheap—college apartment. Todd Romano tells why it’s okay to ditch Aunt Edna’s Victorian parlor set, while Mario Buatta says it’s perfectly fine to show the TV—“Those things that pop up from the foot of the bed look like caskets.”
The charming tales and useful revelations are matched only by Mita Corsini Bland’s breathtaking watercolors of many of the interiors under discussion. This book is a gem—and a must-read for anyone who is remotely interested in where, and how, they live.
Pictured above, clockwise from left, Mita Corsini Bland’s watercolors of: A lovely blue-and-white bedroom by Mario Buatta; a former artist’s studio in Southampton, NY from the chapter, “Dressing the Window;” the entrance to a circular sitting room in Manhattan.
For copies of Sister Parish Design: On Decorating, shop Hollyhock on TAIGAN now.
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