Chic Inspirations: Moving to Hong Kong Part 4

When I first met with our contractor Andy, I had a scrapbook of images of how I wanted the apartment to look like. They were carefully edited images that all evoke the three words I had in mind for the apartment: classic, modern and glamorous. I know classic and modern don’t always go in the same sentence but you’ll see what I mean when you view the photos below.

Versace designed apartment at The Plaza

On our initial meeting, I really stressed that I want mouldings on the walls, especially in the living, dining and guest rooms. I wanted an apartment that had the same feel of a pre-war apartment on the Upper East Side. I have been obsessed with mouldings since the launch of the The Plaza apartments in New York decorated by Versace. While I am not a fan of the Medusa motif, I found the use of white mouldings against black walls very chic. And I wanted to replicate that.

The bedroom at The Plaza apartments

On our Christmas trip to Italy, we stayed at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel in Florence and our room had beautiful mouldings in two shades of green. When we went to Rome after Florence, we stayed at a suite at the Westin which was painted in pale gray and accented by white mouldings. These two places made me want mouldings all the more.

Our room at the Four Seasons in Florence

Our suite at the Westin in Rome

Right now, we are still under discussions as to whether we would install mouldings or not. The biggest pro is that it will make the apartment look extremely chic. But there are a lot more cons: it will be an extra expense; it’s a rental so we would have to reinstate everything back to its original state; reinstating the apartment would also cost a lot of money. Andy said it wouldn’t that be difficult to reinstate to original conditions because installing mouldings is a lot like hanging a framed artwork on the wall, but with only just the frame and no picture in the middle. And besides, we’ve already drilled holes for all our artworks.

Dior's mouldings are also very chic

So the question now is, should we or shouldn’t we?

Chic Inspirations - Women of Summer Part 2. Aerin Lauder - Elle Decor July 2009

On the heels of our Women of Summer post with American icons CZ Guest, Babe Paley and Marina Rust comes the July 2009 issue of Elle Decor with American society's current style icon Aerin Lauder. We have always been a fan of Aerin Lauder's taste and we've joked that we could probably give her a tour of her own homes as we've devoured photographs of them in the book Bright Young Things and in magazines like Vogue Living, Harper's Bazaar and House & Garden. Aerin's festive House & Garden December 2007 cover was the final issue of the magazine.

The July Elle Decor cover story features both Aerin's  East Hampton and Manhattan homes, 12-pages of stunning photographs and a sidebar where Aerin talks about her taste, where she likes to shop and decorating tips. One of her quotes resonates with us:

"I love floating around Paris. I'm always looking for chandeliers there. I have an obsession with them. But I've always said that even if you have no furnishings at all, if you have a chandelier, you can create a special atmosphere."

We love chandeliers with the same passion as well.

We also love Aerin's collection of artworks especially those Elsworth Kelly, Alexander Calder, Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana.

But what we love the most is the pool house!

Forgive the quality, the images were taken from an iPhone.

Chic Inspirations - Women of Summer

Now that summer's here, we'd like to revisit images that evoke that All-American summer spirit: fresh, sunny and carefree. No other photographer captured this than Slim Aarons, photographer of high society. The photo above of CZ Guest and her son is probably one of the best examples of a true American summer. The overall feel of it: the blue of the pool and ocean water, the light and CZ Guest's all-white ensemble all add up to a fantastic image. 

The photo of Babe Paley below is also a source of inspiration. It helps that Aarons focused his lens on America's style icons whose homes were as chic as their wardrobes.

The photo of Marina Rust with her daughter below, though not photographed by Aarons, captures the same relax mood. It could very well be advertisement for Ralph Lauren or J. Crew. Rust, like Guest and Paley, is also a society woman who style is admired and emulated by many.

Chic Inspirations - Alexey Brodovitch and Fabien Baron

The earlier post which mentioned something about a vintage Bazaar cover had us thinking of the glory days of Harper's Bazaar. If you look at the history of the magazine, it was very successful only during the reign of Carmel Snow (1933-57) and Liz Tilberis (1992-1999).

It helped that both editors in chief had strong, creative and brilliant art directors on their side. Snow had the trailblazing Alexey Brodovitch whose layouts energized the fashion magazines at that time. And Tilberis had the minimalist Fabien Baron.

Alexey Brodovitch

Fabien Baron

Both Brodovitch and Baron believed that type and photographs are equal in their power. A single letter magnified to the size of a page is just as provocative and inspiring as a photo of a model wearing the latest fashions. Both also believed in the power of dead space - be it black or white. This is something that is missing in a lot of magazines now. The common practice now in magazines is that every space on a page is littered with text and images; there is no breathing space.

Alexey Brodovitch

Fabien Baron

If you look at the images and layouts, including the covers, produced by Brodovitch and Baron, there is a lasting elegance to them, a quality that is missing in American Bazaar right now. American Bazaar it seems is confused in its direction: month after month, the covers, the fashion editorials and the stories are weak. Their only saving grace are the photoshoots they do with the designers. They pale in comparison to the UK and Australian editions.