Happy Weekend: Velvet & Floral Details

There's something about the cold weather that's consistently drawing me to warm, luxurious colours and textures; grey, mink and dusty pink in rich velvet with a little chiffon detailing.

How have your weeks been? I've been in a wistful blur from the incredible, romantic time that was last weekend where we celebrated the boys birthday with cozy nights, too much lovely food and an amazing end to the weekend at The Killers gig - and the following comedown! There's also been fireworks (in more than one respect on bonfire night..), make-ups, an evening at the races and more fireworks and most importantly - terrible things in the form of terminal illness that really put things into perspective...

Inspired Interior: Eco Chic

My somewhat unhealthy obsession with this glamorous Arkansas space, which interior designers Chris & Anne Laidler call home, is sort of justified with the fact the building materials & furtnire were all sourced locally or made domestically. Items that they didn't need were donated to Habitat for Humanity. The results? A home that is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) platinum-certified yet still looks stylish. Obsessed.

Fashion Inspiration: Print & Pattern

 

I may be a little late to this party, but I somehow (probably on Pinterest) managed to stumble across the seneca rising spring 2011 lookbook, and of course, fell in love with the motion of the shots, the soft colour palette and beautiful mix of prints & patterns.

At Home With: Sam Allen

Homes of interior designers are always bloody good, aren't they? Sam Allen has this incredible knack of combining bold colours & patterns and throwing them together that creates breathtakingly beautiful spaces. Okay, pink walls and ikat-print rugs mightn't inspire each of you to paint your hallway like this, but you must admire, even if it is just from afar.

At Home With: L'Wren Scott in Paris

L’Wren Scott opens the doors to the City of Light aerie she shares with Mick Jagger—a space she designed to her own exacting tastes.

Where does L’Wren nest? Somewhere high up and sequestered, with a view over treetops—when she’s in Paris, that is. This turn-of-the-century Left Bank apartment is just one of the homes the American fashion designer L’Wren Scott has put together for life with her rock-’n’-roll legend partner, Mick Jagger. And the serene, delicately airy atmosphere is about as far from glitzy rock-star louche as could be imagined.

Inspired Interior: An Austin Retreat

Another Thursday morning, another beautiful 'weekend' house to pour over. This stunning fifteen year old property is the holiday home to interior designer and proprietor of Shabby Slips, Renea Abbott. “This was just a sliver of land that nobody knew what to do with, the builder who developed it thought outside the box, looked at the land, and I think he was pretty genius to come up with this design Every room has a view, and the way he sited them makes you unaware of the neighbours around you, yet you see the lake.” He also notes, “From the water, the houses look very European — but without all the clichés.”

At Home With: Tory Burch's Southampton Home

New York based fashion designer Tory Burch has built up a multimillion dollar business in a relativley short space of time based mainly... on herself? Raised from a fashion background with a mother who favoured Parisian chic and a father who designed his own suits & hermes scarves Tory feels fashion and style are in her blood. She has transformed a Gatsby-era Southampton Manor into a convival enviromnemt for family living.

Following a flood, she was planning to drastically remodel her nearby home, a light-filled but architecturally undistinguished summer place on the water’s edge. But when a friend took her to see this majestic home, she immediatley fell in love with the similarity to the Anglophile houses on Philadelphia’s Main Line, where she had grown up among her parents collections of all things antique and intriguing.