Designer

…………..It’s all about the story and the memories!……………In the living room I have a beautiful Chinoiserie Red Lacquer Bureau Secretary Desk…..Real antique secretaries, depending on age, size, condition, and how elaborate they are….can easily cost in the hundreds of thousands….a little too rich for my blood! I worked with two incredible decorator friends of mine, who also headed the Anne Klein Studio, Burt Wayne and John Docktor. The were old friends of Anne Klein, and had decorated her incredible penthouse apt on East 57th Street. She hired them to run her Licensee studio…..They were helping me to get into antique dealers so I could purchase things for my home. I told them how much I loved these Chinese secretaries, and I showed John one that was on the cover of AD magazine. John suggested I have one made. He said let’s take the picture with us to a company I have worked with…..I was hesitant because if I wasn’t going to have an antique, which I really wanted, then I didn’t want a reproduction……call me a snob….John assured me he had worked with these people on many projects, and they made wonderful reproductions….so off we went. I don’t recall the name of the company……too many years ago! It was on the third or fourth floor in a NYC building in the 20s if memory serves…..We entered a very small showroom. and I have to say I was impressed by the few things I saw It was a little jewel box, but nothing was on the scale of the secretary. The owner, a very chic Chinese woman, greeted us. John knew her well and had worked with her on other of his client’s projects. She didn’t have much to show us, because all of her work was custom made for clients. We showed her the picture of the secretary, and she said she could make it though she never made one before!!!!! She took us into her back rooms to show us her newest projects. She was in the process of making Chinese mural wall paper panels for a decorator who’s client lived on Park Avenue….The panels were magnificent. The things she showed us calmed my nerves, and we went ahead with the secretary. John made all of the necessary architectural drawings. Every single detail was drawn out and measured…every cubby, every draw, every curve and finial….every piece of molding….the modulation of the three bombe pull out draws below the desk had to be meticulously designed….even the small sliding panels that held the candle sticks had to be accurate. I have to say I had a new found respect for John and his abilities!….When the final drawings were done they were all gone over with the owner of the company and the artisan she chose to head this project…..We decided to be accurate to the original there should be two shades of Chinese red…..The inside of the cubbies was a deeper red, and some of the trims were in the deeper cinnabar red. The two shades of red were chosen through trial and error. Even the gold paint to be used, and the thickness about how it was to be applied was discussed. On antique pieces there are areas where the gold paint is thicker, and more dimensional, while other areas of depictions the paint is flat. EVERY SCENE and TRIM design was discussed, even the different brush strokes to be used was discussed, and samples were made before painting on the actual piece….There was no going back, and nothing was left to chance! John and I would check every stage  of the progress to approve, and see if we need to add more design work. Almost every surface had a painted design!! It was painstaking work, and took five months to complete. Correct hardware needed to be made out of brass, and then antiqued. When all of the painting was complete the piece needed to be varnished….but not with a shiny varnish which would have ruined the look. The varnish had to be tinted and a dull finish to make it look antique….This was very tricky, and after all of this work it had to be right….More trial and error samples were made until we ALL agreed on one…..When it was finished it was a WORK OF ART!…..All hand made, and hand painted….even the hardware was hand made just like the antique pieces. The lady didn’t want anyone to see this piece, because she frankly said she never wanted to make another!!!! It was a great deal of work, and took much more then she thought it would……It’s been in my living room for over 35 years! When people see it they ooh and aah, and think it’s the real thing….It has given me lots of joy, and wonderful memories over the years…..This was a labor of love working  with John and Burt. My dear friends are gone now, but never to be forgotten…Two wonderful very creative men………………..Happy Holidays

Hello everyone…..I will be having a LIVE FACEBOOK HOLIDAY JEWELRY SHOW today at 4:00PM EST. There are lots of SALE prices, EZAY PAYS, and FREE SHIPPING & HANDLING on many items. If you want to get your jewelry before Christmas your orders MUST BE PLACED before or on December 12th, which is this Monday. You can order now if you like or wait for my presentation, but items are getting limited with some have only 4 or 5 pieces left in a color. If you have been looking at something now is the time. Treat yourself or someone you love to a wonderful Holiday present…………….HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

…………………………..Collecting art is very personal, but when you find something you love…..your heart starts to pound. Jac and I had the same taste, and usually what she loved I loved and visa versa. The small still life paintings of Chinese vases were painted by a woman named E. Moore. There are actually four of them in the living room, but only two are pictured here. We felt they went perfectly with our Delft vase collection, and we were happy to buy her collection…..Since we bought the paintings the artist, Ms Moore, has unfortunately passed away. The large painting over the couch was done by a friend of mine, Steve Kuzman. He has a small house in Nova Scotia where he spends the summers painting…..The name of the painting is “Wind in the Pines”…you can actually hear it!…..The minute we saw it it was love at first sight…The large painting above the fire place was painted by an artist named Reboli. The house in the painting is in the Hamptons on Long Island, and he lived out there for the summers. It had that old world Hamptons charm…..He also unfortunately has passed away. I had this painting in my old house in Darien. When we moved from Darien to the Long Island Sound luckily the painting worked perfectly in the living room above the fireplace!…….Some things are just meant to be!

…………………..In the Fall of 1992, the year I left Anne Klein, and before I started designing for Bergdorf Goodman, Jac and I both had a lot of free time on my hands……We  needed a project. and we found these bare GRAPE VINE forms that we decided to decorate for Christmas. Some were large cones, some were wreaths of different sizes, and we even found a grape vine Angel……We set up my studio as a crafts room and Jac and I sat across from each other with our GLUE GUNS in hand! Jac already was making all kinds of wreaths out of Eucalyptus, red Bay Berries, Tallow berries, dried Pomegranate, Lotus and Poppy pods and Pine cones. Some I sprayed with metallic gold paint or painted the tips of the cones with white paint to look like snow. We added fake fruits, and all kinds of faux birds that we bought at a wholesale nursery. We added small ribbon bows on some of the trees too….We also found bare Topiaries that we decorated to coordinate with the trees. The photos are of my Living room……Where my father lived on Long Island, there were many pine trees that produced beautiful cones. I gave him the job of collecting them. Out he went with paper bags in hand…. He went a little overboard and I still have paper bags filled with pine cones!!! I think he cleaned the forest up…LOL….They look wonderful in silver bowls and a huge brass kettle I have….For the Holidays I have groups of pine cones all around the house…We also bought many Delft Ginger jars and vases to decorate our living room walls. On a trip to Amsterdam Jac and I found this terrific antique store across the canal from the Anne Frank house museum. The owner of the shop was wonderful. He had both antiques and reproductions. Once he realized I was a serious buyer and only wanted antique pieces he started pulling pieces out from the back of the shop. We bought quite a few pieces from him plus the porcelain Christmas balls in the silver bowl in the picture. I told him we were off on a side trip to Delft, and he told us exactly which stores to go to for the good pieces. He gave us the names of the owners and told us what to look for so we would know we were getting antiques and not reproductions. For a few years we corresponded, and he would send me photos of things he had acquired. It would be so much easier today with modern technology!

…………………Over the years Jac and I bought Christmas ornaments where ever we traveled no matter what the season…….One of our favorite things to collect were SANTA. Many of our Santa ornaments were designed and manufactured by Patricia Breen. Even the snow man is holding a little Santa. The Patricia Breen ornaments have become very collectable and the prices have skyrocketed. They always get a special place on the tree.