Biographies of interior designers

The legendary interior designers you need to know about. Part 1 of Wednesday, September 19, the style of the legend of interior design, people without which there would be no my profession, there would be no art, those who opened the door to a new, unknown world, who are they? Their work can inspire decades later, to know their names, in my opinion, the duty of everyone who is interested in interior design.

Elsi de Wolf Elsi de Wolf is called the “mother of interior design”, but for this beautiful, purposeful and courageous woman, such a name is too stiff and dull. Elsey was born in the middle of the year before last, in America, in the family of a doctor. The story of her life is read as an exciting adventure novel. Elsi received education in Scotland, was represented by London society and personally to the Queen of Victoria, then returned to her native New York and ...

became an actress. At the same time, well -known. And then scandalous, when she entered the Boston marriage with the literary agent Elizabeth Marberi. For her Bessie, Elsi took up the interior design, remaking the stuffy Victorian house for an Irving player in accordance with her taste. And the taste of Elsi developed often in beautiful France, adopting French chic and the ability to live beautifully.

Membership in the first closed women's club led Elsie to get acquainted with representatives of such names as Morgan, Wanderbilt, glue. They became her clients. De Wolf managed to transform dark, dusty interiors, remove elaborate furniture and heavy drama and let in air and light into them. What do we use from her finds still? For example, the Trellis ornament was precisely Elsi brought from the grilles of French gardens to the interior of the house.

And also the use of clamped cotton for upholstery of furniture, walls and sewing curtains, the return of the style of Shinoisry. Elsi wrote the first book about the interior design “House in Good Taste”, where she gave advice to ordinary housewives about how to equip a house with reasonable financial investments. It is especially valuable for me that Elsi de Wolf was the first to come up with interior design as a profession.

It is difficult not to admire this woman: at sixty, she married a British attache in Paris, Sir Charles Mendla. The marriage was fictitious, but the title of lady was real. Until old age, and she died at 90 years old, Elsi was engaged in yoga and at the age of 70 she could make a stand on her head and walk a wheel. When de Wolf turned 75, the Parisian lawmakers of the mod called her the most stylish woman in the world.

Amazing, isn't it? The history of life is impossible to retell briefly, I really advise you to read about her. But I, finally, will still give another fact from the biography of Elsey de Wolf - “never complain, do not make excuses for anyone” - that was her motto. Jean-Michel Frank why don't they shoot films about the life of great interior designers in Hollywood? These would be magnificent bayopics.

Judge for yourself. Here is another legendary name in interior design-Jean-Michel Frank. He was born in the year in Paris in the family of a wealthy banker, the childhood of the future legend of the interior design was quite cloudless, he successfully graduated from the lyceum and even entered the law school, but then the First World War crossed out his peace of peace.

Jean-Michel lost two brothers, his father committed suicide, and his mother went crazy and spent the rest of her days in a closed Swiss clinic. Left alone, Frank went to wander around the world. In Venice, he met a refined world of art, joined the mug of Diaghilev and Stravinsky. He returned back to Paris. Stylish, sophisticated, with excellent taste, Madame Erroariz was one of the guides of modernist minimalist aesthetics.

Say "slashes"? Yes, she practically invented him. I really like such a statement of magnificent Eugene - "The house that does not change is dead." But back to Jean-Michel. By the time he met Madame, he was already a famous furniture designer - in the year, the fashion house of Erme ordered him a whole collection of furniture and did not lose. Many items from this collection became cult and experienced several restarts, the last time they were replicated in the year.

Inspired by Eugene’s views on life and art, Jean-Michel declared himself her student, but soon he himself became a teacher. In the year, Frank headed at the Paris School of Arts and Design. It was within the walls of this educational institution that the famous Parsons Parsons table was born. They say that Jean-Michelle challenged the students, offering to come up with such a table design so that he could maintain stylistic integrity, regardless of how his countertop is designed-varnished, sheathed with a gold sheet, parchment, mica or burlap.

And he managed with brilliance himself with the task. Parsons tables still look harmonious in the interior, they are made of wood, metal, plastic, installed in living rooms, dining rooms, and carried in a patio. Since the year, Frank has been working as an interior designer, among his customers the richest families of the Old and New Worlds.Frank is friends with the Great Elsa Schiaparelli and is inspired by her vision of color.

He creates a “golden” living room for Mary and Nelson Rockefeller, listening to her advice. Before the Second World War, Jean-Michelle Frank leaves France to Argentina, where he works with his friend in a number of projects, including on the Born family in Buenos-Aires.

The interior of this house is still the way his great designer conceived. In the year, Frank comes to Ni York. In a fit of severe depression, he is thrown out of the Manhattan high -rise window. What did Jean-Michel Frank give to modern interior designers? You can’t list everything. He was a very versatile person, knew how to change the style, listening to the client.

The creation of his hands was both strict minimalistic interiors, elegant and impassive, and the rooms whose design was inspired by the decoration of the Tutankhamun tomb. But for me, the main thing in the work of Jean-Michel Frank is the concept of “everyday life”. It was he who was the first to ask the question - “If everything in the house is perfect, where you will dance under the gramophone?