Liza Giles {designer}
I'd like to devote the next few days to featuring images that inspire me, ones that I think best fit my design aesthetic, whatever that is - I still don't know. I was trying to describe it to my friend yesterday and she said I sound like Lily Allen in the beginning of this video as I attempted to sum up my style. I think she's right. But perhaps another pal of mine recently nailed it with Crack House Chic. Not! More on that below. So let's first look at the abode of Liza Giles who works as a senior stylist for Designers Guild London. It's very much the style I fell in love with 12 years ago in London and one that I've stuck close by ever since.
Looking with lust at her very hot flat, shown here in the Swedish Elle Interior (my copy above, thanks to Tess), I've enjoyed examining all the details, thinking of ways I could be more imaginative as a designer myself. I recently shared some of my favorite images and books with a native New Englander and she didn't share my enthusiasm as she referred to spaces like Liza's (shown here) as, "Crack House Chic". I was both amused and offended. Is that how some perceive such spaces? Like a run down crack den with a touch of glam? How sad!
When I see industrial bits combined with feminine details like embroidered lampshades or handmade quilts in bold prints, I coo in delight. An old wood coffee table with a few pale stains from coffee cups topped with a gorgeous Asian teapot filled with peonies, I'm all over it. White slipcovered sofas sprinkled with velvet worn pillows in fuchsia and teal, sounds like a place to spend the afternoon. But a crack den? This comment left me a bit frustrated, but also enlightened because I mistakenly assumed that most people envy such spaces and even if they wouldn't live in them, they still appreciated such design. But many of my real life American friends don't get why this style is attractive to me. Perhaps that's why most magazines here shun this look for the most part and precisely why so many of us "alternative crack den types" love British, Australian, Dutch, and Scandinavian glossies because sin dens filled with heroine addicts lounging in their less than Ethan Allenified digs attract us.
I see these rooms as creative, inspiring, playful, romantic and filled with a sense of history and personal style. I don't imagine doing lines on the marble table. I don't envision myself passed out for days fully dressed in the lovely clawfoot bathtub. Liza Giles' pad was not only featured here in Swedish mag Elle Interior, but also in UK glossy Elle Decoration. But surprise! not yet featured in US Elle Decor. Interesting, huh? Does the average American look at these spaces as undesirable and run down? I mean, in a land where symmetry and establishing focal points are still all the rage, along with chocolate and robin's egg blue, I guess I can see why.
What I love about this look: Classic combined with trendy finds and flea market scores. Bright white walls with amazing color dotted around the space, single walls decked out with a bold paper, all the prints and texture everywhere, lavish materials (silk, velvet, trims), and the whole bohemian beauty that feels so uncomplicated, casual, artsy, and most of all inviting.
Some can call it Crack House Chic if they want, but I call it wonderful, beautiful, and elegant. I'll take it and live happily ever after in complete ecstasy - not the drug, the feeling. :)
(images: elle decoration, uk edition october 2007 (no 182) and elle interiors, swedish edition november 2007 (No 7), all photography by James Merrell, via: this is glamorous and a beautiful living.)