Style with Shoulder Pads

I recently had the dubious pleasure of watching a Bette Midler film from the late 80's called Ruthless People. While Bette as always was magnetic, this must surely be seen as one of the worst films ever made. Luckily the film had an unintentional redeeming feature in the form of the mesmerising sets - Hot Mess all over!

I wish I knew what this particular late 80's/early 90's style was called. If I remember correctly other fine examples can be seen in Saved by the Bell and The First Wives Club. This is a style meant to signify wealth, if not colour-blindness. The picture below shows a real art deco influence which has been bastardised into a pastel leaning tower of Pisa vanity unit of nightmarish proportions.

Well, like it or not Hot Mess is making a come back as the pictures below show! Kelly Wearstler, that LA denizen of colourful cool has created some really intense interiors that take heavy influence from this period. Well maybe it is time for a bit more risk taking in our interiors which have become rather, shall we say safe? recently. Fashion has covered its self with studs and spikes and maybe its time our homes got a bit of edge too - Grrrr!

Diamonds are Forever

My posts seem to have a Regal theme at the moment; with the Royal yacht and now these fantastic paintings by Rasmus Nilausen. The connection being that one of his paintings is of the star of Africa which is the stone in the Sceptre of the Crown jewels. A tenuous link admittedly but there you go.

Capturing the shimmering, faceted, almost fluid beauty of a diamond is not mean feat but Rasmus has acheived just that. I think these are fantastic and could see them working beautifully in a contemporary interior - against a backdrop of beautiful smoky seagrass wallpaper is what I have in my head.

www.rasmusnilausen.dk

Rule Britannia

I was so surprised to see these sketches of the interiors created by Sir Hugh Casson for the Royal yacht Britannia; their fluid and un detailed style are incredibly artful, but I had imagined that a submission of this kind would be very formal indeed. Clearly I was wrong, the paintings reflect the relaxed atmosphere that was desired on the yacht and they do reflect what was created on board very closely. It's a shame there is little room for such beautiful presentations these days! - maybe I should work for the Royal family.