Karim Rashid!

Karim Rashid, born in Cairo, half Egyptian and half English, grew up in Toronto and is one of the most creative and diverse designers today,  dynamically touching every aspect of design from  furniture to accessories, sunglasses,  toys, in fact he has over 3000 designs in production, over 300 awards and is working in over 40 countries but still manages to  have fun in the meantime. 

From his website: “In his spare time Karim's pluralism flirts with art, fashion, and music and is determined to creatively touch every aspect of our physical and virtual landscape”.
If you did not visit his website yet…please do it now, if not only for the fun of interacting playing your own music on it. What did I say above? FUN!

Vibrant colors and extravagant shapes are a trademark of this brilliant designer who I had the pleasure of meeting  in Vancouver during IDSWest 2010 (Interior Design Show) to exchange a few words in Italian (he spent lots of time in Milan and Naples, studying design with Ettore Sottsass and others) and the energy he gave the audience was unbelievable, it was a very intense talk and we were scrambling to keep up with notes while he continued moving on the stage, standing, sitting, walking…very entertaining and inspiring. You can read my post on this event, and his philosophy of design, clicking on “Karim Rashid at IDSWest, Vancouver”.

Karim in his kitchen, no fear of PINK! Of this color he says: “It's positive, it's the new black. So many men have issues with anything they consider feminine. I'm trying to break down those gender differences. I want every product I design to soften the world”.
Of course he has a few houses around the world, some simple as the prefab home (cost of about US 5,000 and three days for assembling it) outside new York and others more expensive and elaborated.

Let’s take a peek to some of his interiors:

A Loft with his own iconic pieces.

Yellow, pink, blue all mixed together harmoniously.

Talk about Neon colors!…I have to say I love colors but this interior will make me agitated!

Another house, another vibrant mix of colors in the living room: the picture on the wall was taken by Karim while his wife was kissing the shower door!

A bedroom in hot pink, white and purple, the painting on the wall was made by his wife.

Vibrant orange for this bedroom, full of energy.

A bathroom with funky tiles, pink sinks and red towels

Fresh mint green for another bathroom

He also loves RED! We can see it here not just on the carpet but on many of his clothing. Sometimes when I meet a new client for a project I love to see her/his closet, I can judge their preferences in terms of colors by the hues of their clothes, love of neutrals, love of blues, or lots of pastel colors... a major hint on their preferences.

A modular shelving created by Rashid, here with a collection of fun

and functional objects designed by him.

Finally…relaxing at home with  his wife, probably a rare moment in the

life of this energetic and vibrant couple.

***

And now who first answered correctly my question on the previous post:

Can you guess whose house is this?

Congratulations to Princess Fingers Glued Together blog and to the others who took the time to write (you can see their comments on that post).

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".


Brillante Interiors now offers also online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

What House Beautiful is reading this week…

House Beautiful says: What We're Reading This Week

From bold pencils to a recipe for spring, here's our weekly roundup of the Shelter blogosphere.

The links we clicked on:

• Scouts Honor Co. features bold red-and-blue pencils from the Czech Republic.
• Brillante Interiors does a house tour of a colorful home in Italy.
• CasaSugar rounds up 20 eco-friendly furniture finds for spring.
• Design Sponge shares a recipe for sweet potato, green bean, and smoked paprika salad.
• Inhabitat explores easy gardening projects to try this weekend.

Photo: AB

   ***

Brillante Interiors is so happy to be named and so happy to be in such a great company…
Thanks House Beautiful, one of my favorite magazines (the only fault is that sometimes I see the magazine in stores much before it lands in my mailbox but it happens with all my subscriptions…everyone listening?)

     ***

And don't forget to play the game: Can you guess whose house is this?

      ***

©2011 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".

Brillante Interiors now offers also online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

Milan musings

Good Monday everyone…

Not much time to blog so I will propose you to read the interesting post

Milan musings 

from the Blog Informed, written by Paul Sjaarda, part of the team at Inform Interiors, the iconic furnishings and lightings source in Vancouver.

He is presently in Milan for I Saloni, the annual major furniture fair where I could not go this year, so it is great to be at least virtually in Milan through Paul’s adventures.

I am going to sip the cappuccino with him in the morning, then take the crowded Metro to the Fairground, when returning to the city centre I will jump on a bike of the fantastic service BikeMi to go to an event at a showroom…

 

like this one last year at Nilufar Gallery with Barnaba Fornasetti, son of Piero

I will have a chat with Patricia Urquiola at another event…then stop for  a pre-dinner drink at Bar Basso (see my previous post on this famous Milanese cocktail place where I started appreciate Alexander, Manhattan, Negroni and of course the huge Mangia e Bevi)

and finally, after a nice dinner in Brera area I will go to one (or two?) Design party…

So easy and I am not tired yet, it is only virtual, remember?

Tomorrow is another day and I may rent a Fiat 500 to go to Zona Tortona.

I truly miss the action and the excitement of this crazy-fabulous-fun-exhausting week!

And don't forget to play the game: Can you guess whose house is this?

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".


Brillante Interiors now offers also online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

Can you guess whose house is this?

“Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically,

aesthetically, experientially, sensorially, and emotionally”. 

In the spare time this multifaceted designer flirts with art, fashion, and music and is determined to creatively touch every aspect of our physical and virtual landscape.

Can you guess?…

Please comment only on this post, not on other social media, otherwise it is difficult to track all comments.  I will not publish the comments until the end of next week, so keep writing. The first person with the right answer will have an "honorable mention" and of course a link to the Web site or blog.

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".


Brillante Interiors now offers also online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

900 square feet of colors

Today we’ll visit an open space apartment in Northern Italy, with eclectic interior design, based on vivid colors mixed with neutral pieces of furniture. Colored walls and textiles play with each other, vintage pieces give life and history to the space.

The living room has an evergreen decorated balcony and a vintage armchair with Designers Guild fabric is the focal point of the room. I love the three panels, instead of most common two, of the off- white linen draperies.

The kitchen at the end of the living room opens to a terrace through a large French door decorated with three panels of colored fabric.Wood floor all over the apartment creates continuity. I love the colored pendant lights over the dining table and the Elica fan above the stove.

In the living room a sofa by Designers Guild, whose textiles were also used to upholster the 1950‘s chairs. As you can see the owner loves to mix new pieces with old ones, as the dining chairs, found at flea markets and painted the same color. The coffee table was found in a factory.

A stunning purple wall creates a division between the hallway and the study, but permitting light to flow from one space to the other.  On the study side a large niche in the new wall became a bookcase,  a Tolomeo floor lamp by Artemide gives light to the old desk. I love the three colors drapery and notice how they gently touch the floor. The bedroom has more privacy, due to the two doors painted in a fresh shade of green.

A very shallow niche in the corridor serves as shoe storage.

Even in the bathroom a touch of whimsical, with old wooden boxes

and vivid colors fabric used as open shelves.

No fear of colors here! A fresh and young apartment where old and new live in harmony and where colors create a joyous atmosphere.

Photography by Claudio Sabatino

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".

Brillante Interiors now offers also  online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

The Joy of Spring




Spring brings renovation and colored eggs are widely used as symbol of a new life, but sometimes an egg can also be a stunning work of art as in these images of Easter chocolate eggs from one of the best patisserie in Milan, Sant Ambroeus, founded in 1936 and expanded a few years ago also to Manhattan. The decorations are always exquisite and chefs create new design every year, poppies, wisteria, roses, and explosion of colors and motifs.

Turquoise is always fresh and appealing, it can be also very festive and telling us Spring is here,

 I love these pale blue, turquoise, yellow hues.

Could pink be missing from the list of Spring color? Here is a gigantic Easter egg I would love to have on Sunday on my breakfast table (to share, of course!).

Vibrant orange and pastel wrappings, everything looks so inviting.

Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter, Happy Spring.

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".

Brillante Interiors now offers also  online consultations so please send an email and we can start the process. It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!

Busted!…how to use sculptures at home

From Belgian Pearls blog

From Velvet & Linen blog: Giannetti's Studio

Sculpture has been an art since prehistoric times, in fact all ancient cultures  produced an enormous number of masterworks, Egypt and Mesopotamia, pre-Columbian Americas, ancient Asia and of course ancient Greece and Rome. Today we can admire centuries and centuries of art but we also have access to modern and contemporary sculpture.

Since I'm always looking for unique accessories when decorating a room, I often use sculptures, large or small depending on the project, expensive or flea market finds depending on the budget or the style we want to achieve in that particular home. I am also always attracted of how designers  use  sculptures, in particular busts, in their projects. In fact the use of sculptures in marble, stone, precious metals, wood and any kind of material  can add a focal point to a room, it can just create a vignette or it can set the whole interior decoration’s mood.

Let’s examine some examples together:

Doug Wright designed a stunning living room with seagrass carpet, white linen slipcovers, antique tapestry and he also placed a classic marble head on the coffee table. 

Try to imagine the room without that sculpture…don’t you think it will miss something?

A dramatic light hits the Roman bust in the library of a classic interior in Rome.

Caldwell-Flake uses a weathered simple bust as juxtaposition to the rich warm veneer,

 the marble top and the lavish metallic wallpaper.

Art collector Claudia Gianferrari’s  house in Milan, full of books, art and sculptures,

in one image we can see four already.

Designer Paolo Moschino’s dining room in London features

a classic bust on a pedestal, overlooking the elegant, formal dining table.

A whimsical bathroom featured in Elle Decor,

with a stern bust in an otherwise vibrant space.

Jacques Grange’s eclectic apartment in Paris, classic, traditional, contemporary, edgy.

The Roman sculpture on the column gives verticality as does the graphic ceiling light.

Some of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ superb collection of Greek and Roman sculptures,

 in a very elegant and traditional Manhattan penthouse.

A beautiful bronze boy’s head, as seen on my previous post A house of books (HERE).

An oil paint leaning on the antique chest, an old wood container with patina

and an ornate silver bowl compliment the sculpture.

 Gianni Versace villa, Lake Como, from my previous post The end of an era of excess (HERE).

Not a minimalist…he loved collecting antiques, everything is “real” here.

Arturo Martini’s superb sculpture on an antique “angoliera” of rich veneer.

 See more on my previous post The art's lady (HERE).

Kelly Wearstler classic: here she used a Greek bust, an antique chair and bright mosaic tiles.

Kelly Wearstler contemporary: here we have a sculpture totally different from the one above,

with a unique table and geometric paneling.

Shapes, straight lines, curves, they all work well together.

Barry Dixon design, what not to love…proportions, scale,

monochromatic palette with just a hint of fresh, pale green.

And now a few of my own images:

A green beryl head I bought in Brazil, I was told that in a million years it would become emerald!

I’ll wait… and in the meantime it sits on my fireplace mantle
on top of books and in front of an oil painting!

A client’s apartment in Venice with a signed and dated 1769 bust

sitting below a delicate 18th century oil painting.

While visiting Rubelli textiles in Venice I took a picture of this fireplace with a bust of a Doge. I was told that the Rubelli family tried to find the name of this important person, but without success, after much research they could not figure out who this Doge was… from my previous post Rubelli in Venice (HERE).

A client’s classic apartment in Milan with a terracotta bust of a young girl

and a 19th century delicate portrait.

A client’s sleek apartment in Milan with a classic sculpture above the hidden China cabinet,

white books, essential lines (and poor photography…).

And finally…a lovely bust seen at The Cross Decor & Design in Vancouver.

So…busted or not?

Do you have a bust in your home? How did you display it?

Let’s talk!

©2012 Brillante Interiors writes about new trends, timeless decor, iconic pieces, design ideas, or at times just musing about "a certain Italian way of doing things".

If you need help to enjoy your home more, please send me an email.  It will be an investment in happiness at home, a well designed house is always a good part of a great life and a beautiful room will make you happy every time you walk in!


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