The daytrading homebuying environment has had a negative impact on home design. With homeowners moving every four to six years, home design has become all about pleasing the next homebuyer, instead of the homeowners themselves.

The result is home design so neutral that it's become dull, boring, and uninspired. American interior design is suffering from a drain of color and dearth of fun. What home design needs, in short, is inspiration from the bold, exuberant, color-fearless world of legendary designer Dorothy Draper.

Decades before the world had ever heard of Martha Stewart, Mrs. Draper was an entrepreneur in a man's world, the leading businesswoman in interior design and entertaining in the home as the head of a world-scale business specializing in commercial design. The embellished glamour and overstuffed comfort Ms. Draper brought to homes, hotels, and jet airliners over the course of her inimitable career are being celebrated in a retrospective at the The Museum of the City of New York called "The High Style of Dorothy Draper." (If you're in New York, take in the exhibition before it closes September 10, 2006.) That coincides nicely with a new coffee-table book by her former protege and current owner of Dorothy Draper & Company, Inc., Carleton Varney. Many of the never-before-seen items for viewing at the museum are on loan from Mr. Varney and his company.

"What Coco Chanel was to fashion, Dorothy Draper was to decorating," says Varney, a world-renowned designer and ASID hall-of-famer known as the "King of Color." His book, "In The Pink: Dorothy Draper, America's Most Fabulous Decorator," Pointed Leaf Press, affectionately chronicles the design and living philosophies of Mrs. Draper with never-before-seen photographs and renderings.

"She didn't believe in following someone else's rules; if it looked right to her, it was right," Varney told Realty Times.

Mrs. Draper was known for breaking decorating rules, such as furniture having to match or that colors must blend. She enjoyed surprising and delighting clients with dramatic Roman striped wallpaper as the backdrop for furnishings with oversized floral patterns. Walls were to have color and the more contrast, the better. Modern mixed with classic -- big black and white checkerboard floors might anchor Versailles-sized mirrors, Baroque plasterwork, and intensely painted walls.

Varney recently regaled an audience at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas with delightful tales about Ms. Draper, her humor, her sayings and her philosophy about the importance of color. The experience was made all the more memorable as the hotel, about to undergo restoration, still bears the influences of Mrs. Draper’s mid-century vision.

In his presentation, Mr. Varnery treated the audience to a priceless clip of Edward. R. Murrow interviewing Mrs. Draper in her home in 1957, where the six-foot-tall decorating diva delighted the unflappable news icon with her self-confidence, ease, and frankness. She graciously showed viewers her home, done in exuberant colors they could only imagine on their black and white television screens -- deep eggplant walls popped with a "dead-white" enameled fireplace in the living room, and bright orange curtains in a teal and blue sitting area. To her, furniture wasn't sacred; she cheerfully showed Mr. Murrow a priceless hand-painted wardrobe she had sliced through the doors, the better to use the piece as a display cabinet/wet bar. She also painted a mahogany four-poster bed white to keep it from darkening her cozy bedroom. You could almost see Murrow cringing as she blithely threw out these iconoclastic ideas.

And that's exactly what people loved about her. She gave permission to be bold.

Her style is the exact opposite of minimalism, although she shared the same disdain for clutter as today's modernists. According to New York Magazine, March 27th, there are six ways to get "Draperized:"

1. Intense color: no weak pastels for Mrs. Draper, color is used boldly and liberally

2. Live plants: they're part of the environment

3. Dense, textured carpet: used to anchor and not compete with other more dramatic elements

4. A few, bold accessories: accessories should have clout, not create clutter

5. A roaring fire: fireplaces are homey, central and great focal points for any room

6. Exuberant prints: colorful, oversized florals were often embellished with fringe

To get the Draper effect, the magazines recommends large mirrors, chessboard tile floors, statement wall paper, romantic furniture, and color contrast.

Published: September 4, 2006

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