NEW YORK, N.Y. - Does your outfit blend into the woodwork?
We're not talking in a boring, bland way, but in a complementary one. Perhaps your wardrobe is a reflection of your broader taste, and there's no place better to see that than in the way you decorate your home.
If you're true to your style from your clothing closet to the linen closet — and then the kitchen cabinets — you're probably not the type to bounce from trend to trend, style experts say. Instead, you probably have a strong point of view that evolves and is enhanced over time.
Designer Nanette Lepore has gone so far to make a rug out of a favourite print that she used in a fashion collection, and the pigmented colours she likes to wear are the ones on her walls, too. "I want to create an environment you want to come home to," she says.
The home gives a picture window into your personal style because you live with it a lot longer and that tends to show off what you truly value, says jewelry designer Cathy Waterman. It's not glitz and glamour for her, for example; she likes craftsmanship with a dash of drama. Super-fancy sparkly jewels are hardly a party of her everyday routine, Waterman says, but finely made flatware is.
A glimpse into tastemakers' closet connections:
—Terron Schaefer, Saks Fifth Avenue chief creative officer
Terron Schaefer says anyone who knows him would expect the streamlined decor — and very neat closet — in his apartment.
There are many black-and-white photographs in black or stainless steel frames, and, even though he is a collector of interesting objects such as Indonesian eating utensils and aerospace propellers, there is little clutter.
He admires beautiful shapes, and he wants to give them the chance to be noticed, so he doesn't have too many of anything nor does he switch things out too often, explains Schaefer, who also serves as a buyer on NBC's "Fashion Star."
"All my hangers are lined the same way, and all my shoes have shoe trees. ... I essentially wear a uniform of suits and shirts, and there so similar that I can get dressed in the dark with confidence," he says. The other day, he wore a cashmere jacket that was 20-years-old. It was emblematic of his classic style, he says.
But there's often the touch that gives Schaefer a conversation piece: For his outfit, it could be a bright pocket square or cool tie. In his dining area, it's the unfussy table — with bicycle wheels as legs.
—Nanette Lepore, fashion designer
There is nothing precious about Lepore's home, she says. "I want the same thing from my house as I want for my collection. I like to make live-in clothes. I want to think of my clothes as go-to clothes, not special-occasion-only clothes."
"I feel like my personal style is very eclectic and I like to decorate that way. I like a lush, romantic room that feels warm and homey and very personal," says Lepore, who is launching a home collection this fall.
She's a fan of prints and rich colours, and they're an important part of her decor just like her runway. Of course, she can't swap out her furniture as often as she might a dress — but, she says, she holds on to dresses for a long time, too. The key are the accessories, whether it's shoes and a handbag, or a throw pillow and new sheets. "I think people most people want to layer when they get dressed or when they decorate."
The catwalk trick she brings home with her? Good lighting.
—Cathy Waterman, jewelry designer
While she's known for pieces that shine, her personal wardrobe and her decorating sensibility are driven by craftsmanship and art. She has a lifestyle that puts her more often in the garden, kitchen or studio than the red carpet, Waterman explains.
Her tastes are very eclectic, artsy and dramatic, and when she likes something, she really likes it: Take fairy tales, she says. Her closet is home to velvet cloaks and capes, and the flatware collection she recently created for Barneys New York features two patterns — the feminine Guinevere and more masculine Lancelot.
She also loves her silver snakeskin boots and "luscious" green velvet dress by Alexander McQueen almost as much as she loves funky pottery pieces and black-and-white photos.
"I like things that have a handmade quality to them. It's probably why I do what I do," Waterman says. "I like to feel like something's intimate, with history and drama. You see that in my clothes and in my home."
—Kelly Wearstler, decorator turned designer
"Whenever I work with clients that are uncertain about where or how to start in terms of home decor, I ask them to go into their closet and to describe to me what they find. What colour, style, and textures they find. We build from there. I can use this feedback as a foundation," says Wearstler.
Her own world is filled with mixed messages, and she likes it that way. In clothes, that means raw denim paired with beautiful, shiny jewelry. At home, it's "rough texture and raw art accented with the gleam of polished metals."
The tell-tale pieces in her home are her chairs. They are "functional sculptures and serve as jewelry to a room," she says.
She'll also take abstract fabric prints and turn them into wall art, or she'll reupholster furniture with denim. A carpet can be a sweater design, and a favourite home object can inspire the closure on a clutch handbag, Wearstler she says. "It's super exciting to see all this cross-pollination."
—Dorothy Roberts, chairwoman of The Echo Design Group
Into her 80s, Roberts is quite sure of her style: "classic."
"I make decisions about things very quickly. I don't return things often. I know what works."
But her business is fashion, so boring would be bad, Roberts says. "I am about a lot of neutrals. I will add colours through a new scarf every day, or a wrap or another accessory. In my home, it's all neutrals, beiges and tones of brown, grey and off-white, and then I have colours in the pillows on the couches."
Sometimes the prints of the scarves her company is best known for have been turned into wall hangings, and, she describes, she keeps a colorful paperweight collection that had been her father's in prominent view.
Otherwise, though, there's nothing "too much" — about her living room or her outfits. She doesn't change either drastically very often.
"I am not a fussy dresser, and I am not a fussy decorator. I don't want to have to put in so much effort — that's just me, always trying to simplify."
