Every home should have: Something Black

The late Albert Hadley.

Let's hear it for the color Black!  Albert Hadley loved it and Ralph Laurent home uses it abundantly.  Many designers say black is the king-color of style.  Think of Coco Chanel!  I favor the color black because it is perhaps the most versatile of all colors, it can be plaid-up to make a room sober and elegant or it could be plaid-down to make a room rustically chic.

The late Albert Hadley was a master at making a room eternal by adding touches of black here and there. 

In this room the neutral of beige and brown gets excited with the touches of black. 

I adore the contrast of the ornate ceiling and Serge Mouille three-arm ceiling lamp.

Can you imagine this dining room with a mahogany or white table?  I don't!

The famous Madeline Weinrib's Buche rug with its dynamic offset stripes makes this room up to date.

 Love the touch of a black Buddha head in this area.  It makes the space look chic and not shabby.

Just a beautiful black throw and art with some black in it would do for the owner who doesn't want to change things radically.
images via Elle Decor Spain, Nuevo Estilo, Elle Decor US

Designer I'll always look up to: Albert Hadley 1920-2012

The sad news of the death of Albert Hadley is vastly known by now.  The Dean of American Decorators is one of those few outliers in Interior Design who have created spaces that will be timeless forever.  As he said himself  “Decorating is not about making stage sets, it's not about making pretty pictures for the magazines; it's really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.” And he certainly did, and in multiple of occasions, by creating homes that were as beautiful as they were interesting and unique.  

I had the enormous pleasure of meeting him in two separate occasions and one of the things about him that most made me admire him was his humbleness and kind demeanor.  Two qualities that are difficult to find in a media where large egos and self aggrandizement is abound. His legacy will always be a source of inspiration and a model for me.  As well as to many others I'm sure.

“But names really are not the point, it’s what you can achieve for the simplest person. Glamour is part of it, but glamour is not the essence. Design is about discipline and reality, not about fantasy beyond reality.” Albert Hadley

  R.I.P., Mr. Hadley

They've got their 10,000 hours or more

If you have read Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers: The Story of Success then you're familiar with his theory about how all successful men and women besides having wonderful and enduring qualities have a continuous common factor among them which is an incredible amount of hours at practicing and getting perfect at what they love and what they are passionate about.  Gladwell claims that in order to be an "Outlier" one should complete 10,000 hours doing what one wants to excel in.  The book is way deeper and more explanatory and it goes into greater details about his theory and how everything makes totally sense, so if you haven't read it, I strongly suggest that you do.
I can't help connecting everything I read to design, so the first outlier in design that came to my mind was Albert Hadley and with him some members of what I call "The magic circle."  No I don't mean Palates, you!, I mean all the successful designers who once worked for Albert Hadley and seem to have enduring success.  I'm not going to go into detail as how I calculated the hours because it could be tedious but only the period from 1962 to 1999 during the time of Parish-Hadley partnership He seems to have had under his belt more than 72,224 hours; business hours only.  That is not counting the times when a designer keeps working mentally and takes every detail of the work home.  Isn't that amazing!? 

Bunny Williams who worked for Alber Hadley for 22 years.  During that time she had only 42,944 hours.  Amazing!

Miles Redd, even though he didn't work directly for Mr. Hadley but he got some of the magic circle through Bunny.  Miles opened his firm in 1998 and before that he worked for Bunny Williams for 5 years and before that for John Rosselli.  That is approximately a total of 23 years.  You do the math...

David Easton  worked for Parish-Hadley from 1967 to 1972 to then found David Eston Interiors.  He's been working ever since.  Yes, that many hours!  Uhm... I wonder if blogging counts.  ah.. I don't think so.  :(