Jonathan Adler, That Cheeky Monkey
When I decorate a room, I ask myself, "WWJD?" The man who mentally helps me in a pinch is Jonathan Adler, the lovable goofball design genius from New Jersey whose louche rooms (above) make me want to be a gypsy queen.
You know what he would do? He'd shine up a space with metallic finishes, toss in chunks of tropicana orange, and stick a face in a strategic spot for a bit of fun.
His shop manifesto includes statements like, minimalism is a bummer; lamps make you look younger and thinner; in decorating, the wife is always right unless the husband is gay; if your heirs won't fight over it, we won't make it, etc. His first published book was titled, "My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living."
His puppy is named Foxy Lady. He digs needlepoint and macrame. A-frame houses. Sunken living rooms. Obsessed with his 60s-70s childhood? Yup.
In 2009, he was asked to design a real life Malibu Barbie Dream House in celebration of the doll's 50th birthday. He accepted the commission, stating that it was to alleviate his childhood guilt over that time he decapitated his sister's Barbie doll.
If a house could smile, his house would laugh. His rooms are a physical embodiment of exuberance. He chides people for decorating for their neighbors and not for themselves. He doesn't just spout it -- he lives it. He routinely employs gigantic garden gnomes as seating, for goodness sake.
This new collection in the shop is for you Jonathan Adler lovers. It's a mod set of 1960s pottery and glassware designed by Georges Briard, a midcentury designer as prolific as Jonathan Adler and whom Jonathan Adler very much admired. I mean look at that orange! The placid smiling sun! The gold and white porcelain that's so Palm Beach! Drinking out of these glasses will deliver your liquid courage with an extra shot of bombdiggity. (Click on photo to see the listing in the shop.)
Photography of Adler home by Joshua McHugh via Architectural Digest. Glassware photographed by Renn Kuhnen.
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