Katie Ridder

Carpe Diem…de Gournay Fishes Wallpaper

Koi, the ornamental carp so long associated with Japan are heavily on my mind these days and you’ll see why in an upcoming post quite soon. In honor of their variety and beauty, I can’t help but highlight one of the most extraordinary wallpapers out there, Fishes by de Gournay. Everywhere you turn, de Gournay’s Chinoiserie wallpaper is being used to stunning effect (some great blog round-ups here and here as well as here on the de Gournay site), but lately the liquid movement of Fishes has really captured my attention.

Early projects like this powder room by Katie Ridder highlight how dramatic and daring it is in small spaces. In fact most of the examples I came across were powder rooms, as always the perfect place to cut loose with design.

A key to each of these bathroom photo shots is the reflection of the paper in the mirror.

This lighter colorway – Blue Pearl design colours on tarnished silver gilded paper – seems to be the most popular – although as it is custom painted it can be ordered in any color under the sun.

Stefan at Architect Design recently featured this powder room which used panels and a large mirror to envelop the viewer as if they were under water themselves.

Sarah Story‘s Gramercy Park study has also been featured everywhere and its small dimensions make it a perfect place for this wallpaper, much like the powder rooms above. There are a few versions of this space out on the web including this one with antique desk and klismos chair…

…and this very different version with white Parsons desk and modern Eames chair. I find it fascinating how light and photography affect our perception of this paper. It’s mutable, like any given day at the ocean.

Larger scale examples include this staircase hallway with its crystal ship chandelier.

Further down the stairs the fish seem to be racing upstream.

Because the design could be overwhelming this is a paper that is wonderful for using along a single wall as in this kitchen by Jeffrey Alan Marks & Ross Cassidy. I find its placement here quite witty.

And in this dining room, the silver leafing goes all around, but the fish are constrained to one wall.

I’m not sure if this is actually de Gournay paper in this design by Wendy Schwartz – it is only listed as being hand painted on red silk – which leads me to believe it may be. I did want to include it as the dramatic orangey-red colorway is quite a change from all the silvery greys. And doesn’t that fixture remind you of a mod version of a netted glass fishing float?

de Gournay have recently expanded their Japanese and Korean collection, adding ‘Abstract Pines’, ‘Kiso Mountain’, ‘Cranes’ and ‘Matsumisha Waves’. I’m looking forward to seeing them used.

Another option, if you can’t take the price tag nor the commitment to wallpaper, would be to buy an antique or vintage Japanese byobu (screen), perhaps something like this one. I’ve featured it before here, and the photo has never ever done it justice (the harsh fluorescents at the Heiwajima antique fair are very unfriendly), but it was truly beautiful.

More on some other special carp to come soon…

Image credits: 1. Katie Ridder via Everything LEB, 2-3, 7-8, 10 & 12 via de Gournay, 4. via Architect Design, 5. via Sara Story Design, 6. Sara Story in Elle Decor, November 2011, 9. Jeffrey Alan Marks via Elle Decor, 11. Wendy Schwartz via Rue Magazine, February 2012, 13. me.

Feb 18, 2013 By tokyojinja in Design Motif, Interior Design 12 Comments Tags: chinoiserie wallpaper, de Gournay, Fishes wallpaper, Jeffrey Alan Marks, Katie Ridder, koi, ornamental carp, powder rooms, Sara Story, wallpaper

Bower Power…A Failsafe Formula for Girls Room Decorating

Take a pretty wallpaper and/or fabric in your daughter’s favorite color, whether an Indian block print, a toile or a floral and cover as many surfaces as you can in said fabric, including walls, curtains, headboard, dust ruffle, chairs, pillows and in particular a canopy, if possible. Accent with pretty white linens, a little gingham or stripes for contrast, perhaps a solid color on an upholstered piece and a few complimetary accessories and voila! the perfect girls room.

Katie Ridder using a Muriel Brandolini fabric.

Harlequin’s Amelie

Lewis and Wood Muscat

Elizabeth Mayhew using Albert Hadley‘s Reddish Rose by Hinson.

Palmer Weiss using China Seas Banglore Paisley

Meg Braff using Cowtan & Tout‘s Floral Toile.

Windsor Smith using Peter Dunham‘s Samarkand.

Green and white toile with green and white gingham.

Does anyone else think toile is due for a comeback?

Image Credits: 1.via Katie Ridder, 2. via Harlequin, 3. via Lewis and Wood, 4-7. House Beautiful, photo credit: Annie Schlechter, 8. via Palmer Weiss, 9. House Beautiful May 2006 photo credit: Frances Janisch, 10. House Beautiful December 2012, photo credit: Victoria Pearson, 11. House Beautiful, date and credit unknown.

Feb 23, 2012 By tokyojinja in Color, Interior Design, Kids, Textiles 4 Comments Tags: Albert Hadley, China Seas, Cowtan & Tout, Elizabeth Mayhew, Harlequin Amelie, Katie Ridder, Lewis and Wood Muscat, Meg Braff, Muriel Brandolini, Palmer Weiss, Peter Dunham, Reddish Rose, Samarkand, Toile

The Altar Table Reimagined…From Worship to Workhorse

So after you had their portrait painted, where were you going to worship your Chinese ancestors? At your very own altar table of course! Now truthfully, many of the larger pieces come from shrines and temples, but individuals did own them, and they were considered the most important piece of furniture in the home. Portraits and scrolls were hung above them on the wall and offerings such as food or flowers would be placed upon them, as well as decorative objects. During the Cultural Revolution, traditional Chinese furniture became a liability – a connection to the old ways – and much of it was destroyed or carted off, only to be rediscovered and deemed desirable by, you guessed it, westerners!

While we no longer use them for ritual worship, they tend to be incredibly functional and attractive in modern-day homes. The tables could be made of hard or soft woods, sometimes lacquered on top and often having upturned flanged ends. Bamboo pieces like this one tend to come from the Shanxi region of China. Long and narrow, set up higher than a dining table, altar tables fit well in a variety of spaces, perhaps nowhere better than an entryway, where they can hold display pieces, corral shoes and serve as an all around command center for the home. I love the items on display and the high contrast in this photo. All the accessories are linked back to the color black painted above the white beadboard. The fine bamboo table and the floor runner provide just the right amount of warmth.

Perfect along a long narrow hallway, this bamboo piece has a lacquered top. The mullioned window panes seem to mimic the shapes in the bamboo.

I would normally consider painting an antique bamboo altar table to be heresy, but this one looks so fresh against that great Florence Broadhurst peacock feather wallpaper.

I love the mix of the very sharp and spare lines of this simple table with the curvy Thonet stools below. Altar tables are perfect for stashing extra seating in the entry…

…as seen here again. Their height also makes them perfect for holding lamps.

Moving on to the redoubtable Miles Redd, I cannot help but admire the extraordinary combination of color, style and period in this dining room with the bamboo altar table providing the visual anchor amidst all that paleness. It also makes a great buffet, able to hold dishes, cutlery and numerous serving platters along its 7 foot or so length.

Tablescaping is an art that achieves perfection on an altar table, as the height and breadth give it stature while the space below is perfect for tucking just about anything. The contrast here between the symmetrical arrangement on top and the asymmetric one below is genius.

From a practical perspective, they make great bars! Note the blue and white porcelain hibachi, or maybe a fish bowl based on the painted motif, being used as an ice cooler…

…and here again, a lacquer one being put to the same use.

One of the best places for an altar table is running along the back of a sofa as a console table, perfect for holding lamps, books and magazines in easy reach. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos illustrating that so you’ll have to use your imagination. I do have a few more unusual placements, like this example of a very wide one being used as a kitchen island…

…and this small narrow one being used in the bathroom as a dressing table.

Have you noticed a bias towards bamboo examples in this post? That is because bamboo altar tables from the Shanxi region of China are my favorites as evidenced by this late 18th century one in my home. One piece of advice I give often is to buy less, but buy better. This table was one of my main purchases when I lived in Hong Kong – I was very young so I scraped and saved to buy it. There has never been a moment since in which I did not love it and I know I will have it forever. When I came to Japan 7 years ago I assessed every house and apartment I saw for placement of the table as it is over 7 feet in length and didn’t fit in my NYC apartment. Now it has the pride of place and you see it immediately upon entering.

I hope you are enjoying these Chinese New Year week posts!

Image credits: 1.via Eclectic Revisited, 2. via decorpad, 3. Domino September 2006, photo credit: Corey Walter, 4. Elle Decor March 2006, photo credit: Pieter Estersohn, 5. House Beautiful September 2007, photo credit: Pieter Estersohn, 6. House Beautiful April 2011, photo credit: James Merrell, 7. House Beautiful September 2007, 8. House Beautiful November 2009, 9. Markham Roberts, credit unknown, 10. House Beautiful May 2010, photo credit: Thomas Loof, 11. Elle Decor June 2010, photo credit: Simon Upton, 12. me.

Jan 25, 2012 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Interior Design 10 Comments Tags: altar table, bamboo, Chinese antiques, Estee Stanley, Garrow Kedigan, Jeffrey Alan Marks, Katie Ridder, Markham Roberts, Mary Watkins Wood, Meg Braff, miles redd, Suzanne Tucker

Identify This…Brass Drum Stool

While we are chatting about my recent brass finds, let’s look back at another cute vintage brass item sourced from a Tokyo area shrine sale. Remember this guy found here last spring?

Well, he is now cleaned up a bit and safely ensconced here in my living room, having become an extremely useful addition to our household, a perfect spot to rest a book or cup of tea and serving as extra seating in a party pinch.

This is a slightly different style of “Identify This” post as I am honestly the one looking for help figuring out the origins of this small brass stool or table. I had not seen one before mine, but this summer at Calypso Home in NYC they had a larger and brand new side table sized one in the shop. No one there had any insight into the history of its style.

I have only ever seen one featured in a home design spread.

(Addendum: On a funny note, it was only after I received the Katie Ridder book I wrote about in my last post that I realized I had just shown another photo featuring not one, but two of these stools in one of her interiors! There is a shiny brass one adjacent to each the chairs in the photo.)

So without much to go on, I dived in to my usual research sources…Currently, there are a few available on 1stdibs right now, including this one from Belvair…

and this pair from lawson-fenning. Both are simply identified as 1960s vintage brass drum stools or tables and are priced at $325-365 each.

Adam Bram Straus just had one for sale in his Tastemaker Tag Sale on OKL too. It and the one directly above on the left look the most like mine, although mine is in better condition than either of them and none have the repeated concentric circles on the seat/tabletop.

Less expensive new ones, which honestly have inferiors lines, seem readily available, like this one from Cyan Design for $247.

They even come in other finishes, such as aged bronze or this fancy polished nickel from Arteriors, the most expensive of the bunch at $458 for the small size and over $1000 for the side table size.

But I haven’t been able to find any additional information, or even proof that these are 1960s designs. One source suggested they are Italian, another art deco, but I don’t see any evidence of either, other than the usual problem in which someone wrote it on the internet once, so now everyone quotes it like it is true. For my eye, they have a real campaign furniture look, but as they don’t actually fold up or disassemble easily, that is not it either.

So I open it to you my readers – any theories or clues on origin, time period or even additional photos of these in use? I’d love any ideas, speculative or fact-based….And most of all, I wonder how it ended up in Japan?

Nov 25, 2011 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Identify This, Interior Design, Metals, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 8 Comments Tags: aged brass, brass drum stool, brass drum table, flea market, Katie Ridder, shrine sale

Katie Ridder, Eat Your Heart Out (Over My Latest Shrine Sale Find)

OK, so maybe that title is a little extreme, but I am so excited by my recent find and actually, I think she would be too! For those of you not familiar with her name, Katie Ridder is one of my favorite designers working today, with a most accomplished and interesting approach to interiors, a refined and coordinated eclecticism. Ridder has a brand new book out called Rooms, which I am dying for, of course! Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to get my hands on a copy yet (heavy holiday hint here).

Katie loves color and has a particular penchant for my favorite – lavender. In addition to the iconic book cover image with its amazing Kiki Smith etching, you can find the hue sprinkled liberally throughout her designs…

…and gently too.

She is also quite skilled at mixing it with blue and white porcelain, another favorite trick of mine.

She is a big fan of Muriel Brandolini prints, and also has her own line of charming patterns, including Peony…

…and the Japanese inspired Wave.

For me, Katie’s first great lavender room is from the days before digital images (1993!), but I am lucky enough to have saved it in my tear sheets, although it took me a good half day to find it. Featuring a lavender Asian toile from Manuel Canovas called Mandarin and quite a bit of whimsical ingenuity (love that valence) mixed with modern details, the small showhouse guest room, completed on a tight budget, was a clear stylistic precursor of what was to come. She worked with her husband, architect Peter Pennoyer, and I believe it was meant to invoke the Brighton Pavilion. Sorry the scan just can’t do the colors justice!

(Quick Addendum: I found a close-up of the toile in an old House & Garden tear sheet on Chinoiserie toiles. When I was writing this post originally, I couldn’t find a sample anywhere.)

More recently, to counter the vibrantly colored, robust and complex public living spaces she designs, Katie most often creates cool and tranquil sleeping areas. I come back to this simple guest room all the time, drawn in by the crisp hotel-like linens, Murano glass lamps and the mid-century Japanese brass globe lantern which, for me, is the key element that makes the space.

And so on to my find…Last weekend, I stumbled across not one, but two similar lanterns, in absolutely perfect condition. They also have a scrolling karakusa (arabesque vine) pattern, but no large flowers like Katie’s. And this photo, taken on the spot, somehow makes them look small, which they are not. No current plans for them, but I grabbed them as soon as I saw them and took them home! So let me gloat a little, and hope that the book finds its way to me this holiday season…

Image credits: 1-2, 6-7, 10-11. via Katie Ridder, 3-4 Elle Decor March 2008, photo credit: William Waldron, 5 & 13. Elle Decor March 2006, photo credit: Pieter Estersohn, 8. Elle Decor June 2009, photo credit: William Waldron, 9. Country Living November 2010, photo credit: Lucas Allen, 12. House Beautiful March 1993, photo credit: Antoine Bootz, 14. me. <a href=”http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3209837/tokyo-jinja?claim=bhbgv3skc8m”>Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Nov 20, 2011 By tokyojinja in Books, Movies & TV, Color, Interior Design, Lighting, Metals 16 Comments Tags: interior design, japanese antiques, Katie Ridder, lavender, shrine sale

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