C (2:20)

Frederick.

A (2:22)

Oh, Frederic too. Oh, you've got some good ones. Your work is so wonderful and we have been. We were talking the other day. Because your fabrics are something visually, that people know before they even know you as a designer. It's one of those that we grew up with them around us and didn't know until you seeked out who. And it's one of those beautiful things when you finally connected, oh, this wonderful person and where they, you know, where they can. Came from is all part of this beautiful vision. So we definitely want to start with your history, because I always love how that builds the human and the story of your life. So please start with where you started.

C (3:00)

Well, I have to tell you one thing relating back to what you're saying about how people know you for prayer. Somebody was telling me years ago how to establish, like, if you want to be branded in a department store or something, it's very difficult to walk into Bloomingdale's and notice a white sheet and put it to Calvin Klein or to Donna Karan, you know, whoever else. But if you walk into a. If you walk into a department store and you see fig leaf, there are people who will connect that fig leaf, because it's been in my line for 25 years. Or who'll. One of my pages or something said, oh, that looks like Peter Dunham. It's very difficult to do with a plane, but print does. But textile prints does very much identify you in the public eye. So you were right about that.

A (3:47)

What an honor. Right that you are a pattern all at the same time. Okay, now you can get. No, that was beautiful. I'm so glad you said that. But, yes, let's hear about where you grew up.

C (4:00)

So, briefly, it's a slightly complicated upbringing, mixed story. But my parents. My father was half French, half American. He grew up in France. My grandfather was a World War I doughboy who was from a small farm outside Cleveland and actually spoke French for some crazy reason and went to France. He was the quartermaster of his regiment posted in Burgundy, and he went into Dijon to do the shopping, and he, of course, fell in love with a French woman. I think at the time, they were very careful to keep the American troops out of. Out of any contact with French women or any women, so they wouldn't get into trouble. My grandfather did find. Anyway, took the first boat back after being decommissioned and went back and they eloped. And it was funny that I was at a therapist office who said, wait, whoa, whoa, wait. What is this story you're telling me? What do you mean? I said, my grandfather went, and he was like, but you don't understand the romance of it. We're talking about 1919. This was a probably a 23 year old farm boy from a farm. I am from a farm in the Midwest. You cannot conceive what it means now, let alone then of turning around and being this romantic gesture and just eloping with your French girlfriend, you know, and going to set yourself up in business in Paris with her and then end up in the States during World War II. So my father was very much a Frenchman until he went. They left France at the beginning of World War II and he went to UVA. He had a scholarship to Harvard as well. But he was very studious, my father. But they gave him a full freight scholarship which he needed because they were displaced people at the time. They'd left everything behind. And he fought the war, got drafted, fought the war, then went to Columbia. The first GI Bill class after World War II, made a lot of his American friends and contacts, whose kids I'm friends with now and everything else. And he went back to France. He fell in love and met my mother, who's a beautiful English rose. I think she was 19 or 20 years old. On the plane going from, I'm going to say it was Heathrow, but I don't even know if it was called Heathrow then to Paris. He saw her in the crowd and went to sit next to her and kind of mentored her year off in France. And she had ended up going to work with a friend of his for her year off and to learn French. So at the end of the year she said, well, my visa's up, I've got to go back to England. Said, no, no, no, no, you can't go back. Let's get married. So that's how it all happened. And I was brought up in Paris and the outskirts of Paris between the age of nought and eight. And then I went to boarding school in England when I was eight, which was felt very brutal to my father, who was clearly not from the boarding school types living in France and America. But my mother said, I think to paraphrase her is this child is intolerable. I would have probably diagnosed with serious adhd. And he's gotta go for the outdoors and not be cooped up in an apartment in Paris. So I was sent off to school in England. So I have a grounding in very strong grounding in France. I have a very strong grounding in England that started from the age of eight. I don't think I even spoke English. When I was sent to boarding school, my father was horrified. Des came to check up on me three Weeks later. And then I had this like nauseating plummy English accent that was completely taken on by the three weeks later. And I was there through 10 years of boarding school. Then I went to university at Oxford, then I went to American University in Paris. And then age 23, I went to New York because I'd always wanted to New York. I missed the part that we went to New York the first time when I was 15, kind of the Easter holiday. And I remember so distinctly coming spewing out of the midtown tunnel and there were those kind of funnels of steam coming out on the road. I think it's still there. Actually. I saw it the other day, still steaming. And all the buildings with these awnings. We don't have all those awnings in Europe. And Dorman with these great uniforms and just this activity and yellow taxicabs. I was like, okay, I'm home. So that was when I was 15. And then I wanted to come back to Esther. So during my gap year, because we have to take a gap year when you go to Oxford, I went to decide I'd go to New York. And I was supposed to stay a couple of months. And I think I stayed seven. Wow. Rented a teeny weeny little apartment on Perry street in the Village and worked at Bergdorf Goodman. I was selling Penhaligon perfumes that sounded like a good fit. And I started making friends in New York, weirdly enough, why not? And then went back to Europe to do my university. And the minute I could come back, excuse me. After it was done, I wanted to go back to New York. It's where I felt most at home. I think it's the greatest place for integration of gypsies who don't even have to explain themselves and what their history is because everyone is sort of so weird background. Although there's a lot of it. So that's why I felt most at home. I still find it is the place I hope nobody gets that knows how to join. But I still find it has the most intelligent, most creative, most dynamic, most forward thinking creative and business and medical and all the different fields of anywhere in the world. I have to say. I mean, I know they're brilliant people all over the world, but the way it's all jammed together in New York is breathtaking. So luckily, years later, after done, we've opened a year ago a showroom. So I lived. Sorry. I lived in New York for 15 years. I'd been very discouraged from by very well known designers in Europe. Don't go into Decorating, it's just a really hard way to make a living. It's very, very challenging. And to give them their due. There were all three of them who told me this were very creative people, very right side of the brain people. And I think designers need a lot of left side of the brain as well. You need to have the power to empathize with the client, to add up to 10, to know what a percentage is, what a markup is, what a contract is, what laws are like to operate a business. And I think very creative people find it quite challenging. And I think people who have a very strong creative vision find it difficult when one or both of a couple, let's say, say no, they want to go in a different direction. No, that's too much or too little, you know, and it can feel very unvalidating to a creative person with somebody who's just like, gotta run my business and pay my 401k. And the health insurance for the team can be a little bit more tough nosed about these setbacks. So instead my father said, why don't you go into real estate? You love buildings and you speak a lot of languages and it seems like a good thing to do in New York. I was like, real estate? What does that mean? There are no realtors, or there were no realtors at the time in France because nobody moved. So you could starve if you're a realtor working in France. Nobody moved. There was no rentals, and people sell their apartments extremely infrequently. So now things have shaken up and changed and now they're Netflix shows about hot French real estate agent families. But it wasn't the case then. So I moved to New York and I started doing a little research. I didn't move. I went during an Easter vacation trying to figure out where I could land. And I landed an internship through a friend at a company called Douglas Elliman, which is still around, which is now national. But at the time there were 80 brokers and I was probably the youngest by three decades, I would say, at least. And everyone had very established New York society groups, but they were mostly women and they were fierce and I learned a lot from them. It was great. But I always liked the kind of dealing with the buyers and I like finding solutions to their housing needs. I like how can I sell you on this amazing messed up apartment on Gramercy Park? By twisting the layout around a bit. That's kind of what got me very excited. So I did that for 15 years and then I moved to LA. And I started flipping houses, which I'd done in New York a little bit, and I moved for love to la. You need to move somewhere like LA from New York for love, because I don't think you could justify it in any rational way whatsoever otherwise, unless you're somebody in entertainment or who likes to surf or whatever. But none of which I was going to be. So I started flipping houses and a friend of mine who was in the press said, oh, I'd love to do a before and after story of this thing you did. And I was like, okay. And then people said, would you help me with my kitchen or would you help me? And I started doing like $25,000 budget things. The thing that took my breath away when I realized one of my first $25,000 living room, dining room combinations don't love was this emotion that I felt for the first time in my life. And I said, oh, my God, this is what they call creative satisfaction. I'd never felt it before. I thought, oh, I did a good job, or I had some nice commission money or whatever. But it was not in the field of what I was doing from my nine to five. And for the first time I was like, oh. I kept on going back to this little project. It's still there. It looks identical 30 years later.

A (14:52)

I mean, that's impressive right there.

C (14:56)

So that's how it started. And then somebody called Marion McAvoy, who's an absolutely legendary editor, editor in chief, she founded El Decor in America. She then moved to House Beautiful. She's absolutely one of the most. Oh, she was a W before Paris bureau chief, and then she worked in New York a W and said, sat me down, we have to have lunch. I said, okay, well, I want you to do this show house. I said, marian, but I heard these show houses so expensive to do. I didn't even have an assistant. I mean, I have no money. And she said, no, no, no, no, no, you're going to have to do it. We'll pull it by hook or by crook. We'll make it work. But I want you to be in this show house. She had already published at El Decor, my walk up apartment in the Village. So she kind of was already a friend from way before then, but then just had a feeling of color and pattern, which was not as common then and was wanting me in it. So here I was. And I remember that another decorator who was friendly, called Jed Johnson, who was really very successful interior designer in New York, told me that at Kips Bay he had Done the kitchen. I said, why on earth do you do the kitchen? It doesn't sound like your kitchen design at all. He said, that's the room they assigned me. And he said, and you know what? It got a lot of notice. I got a lot of work from it, unexpected to me. But people look at the kitchen and they hire you because you did the kitchen, because it's the first thing they want to renovate. So I remembered that years later, and I said, I'll take the kitchen. And. But I asked before, like, everything is sponsored, right? Like, the whole kitchen cabinet. She said, yes, yes, yes. So I said, perfect. So I put a little lot of time into it, a lot. But I didn't have to shell out for it, which was great. So I designed the kitchen, and it was in collaboration. It had to be in collaboration with a celebrity. It was called the Celebrity Something Show House. How's Beautiful? And said, well, we'll assign you one. And I said, well, I remember that I'd interviewed for one of my famous $25,000 budgets with a young actress who was just starting called Jennifer Garner, and who I, you know, none of us knew. She hadn't been cast in Alias yet. She'd been in Felicity a couple of times. I mean, that I know now, but I didn't know then, but she was very charming. And then suddenly, afterwards, after we'd met, she'd said, oh, my husband Scott just doesn't want us to spend the money on this house in Lake Arrowhead, but let's keep in the background. So I called up, said, will you be my celebrity with my shot? And she was one of the only celebrities who actually, she and Scott showed up for the opening and the press. So my kitchen got a lot more attention. And here I was, this absolutely nobody between Barbara Barry in her little tea room and Waldo in the living room and Suzanne Reinstein in the dining room. And I barely knew any of these people. And here I was stuck in the middle and like, who's Peter Dunham? And suddenly, you know, it started. And then Jennifer came and said, I just got cast. I got my part, and we are going to do a house together with a proper budget. So three weeks later, I started doing her house. So she became my first real six figure client. Yeah, six figure client, which was a big jump from $25,000 up to then. And that's how I really started. And then I hired an assistant who actually knew how to do a job because I had a lot of visual experience, had a lot of construction experience. I Had a lot of architectural experience, I had a lot of thought, I knew everything experience for what that's worth. But I didn't know how to put a job together. I didn't know how to use. You know, had what. How to calculate sales tax and do proposals and yardage and things. So with my first one, Liz, it was an amazing. She had worked on yachts. I mean seriously big yachts. So she knew how to expedite jobs. And then second show house comes, I thought, okay, well to a year and a half later, the house beautiful. And they invited me back, which was really nice. So I said, okay, so well, what do you want to do? I said, I'd like to do a bedroom. And I'd already started doing little fabrics. The first one I ever did was for Jennifer for her little study. I did this toile that I found an antique toile in the London and I reproduced it and she loved it. And then. So that was the first. And then I did for somebody else. I did another block print in India. So I kind of started already playing the textiles from my piles of hoarded textiles. And she. So after about the fourth person who walked through my upholstered bedroom with my wallpapered bathroom, the whole thing. Where can I get your textiles? Who are these textiles? Where do they come? Said, well, I do them for clients and you know, I'm a bit dopey about the whole thing and whatever. And after about the fifth person, I woke up and I was like, okay, I've got to actually put a collection. This is a next step. First step was getting assistant the show house and get a first client. This is like we're going to do a textile thing. So before there was a six month lead time, before the magazine coverage of the show house came out, and I quickly found somebody who was great, Lisa Miller, who's a great textile designer consultant. We put a collection together and I took my little wheelie around New York. At the time the March issue came out or April issue came out and the first person I got an interview with to show my textile to was Albert Hadley, when he was Albert Hadley Limited on his own or whatever it was on East 64th Street. I had a friend of mine who worked there who got me an appointment. He looked at the textiles, put one aside, which was my fig leaf design, said I think we could use this one. And then he was my first order, which is amazing for any, I mean, you know, novice. That's iconic novice designer. It was like not only was he there and he was charming and lovely and couldn't have been better. But he then called, said, who, who are you going to be selling these to? He said, well, I don't really know yet, I'm just working out. And he called John Roselli, who was sort of a legendary multi line showman. New York, that's still going on. So John, I'm sending you this kid around who has textiles, I think you'll like them. So I tottered off to the D and D building and John like took, you know, liked the stuff and, and that was it really. And then I started building up all the others. So I was Ross, John Rosselli. Then I could get into everything else in every other market, which was great. So it's a lot of, I have to admit to a tremendous amount of serendipity in my life. And I was in fact going back one step. I sat next to Bunny Williams the other night at an event dinner in New York and we were talking about those days of Parish Hadley and she said, well, you know, the thing about Sister was one thing, but the, the real sort of force of the teams was Albert, because Albert had taught at Parsons and worked at Macmillan. So he was really somebody who really spent a lot of time with his teams and younger people educating them, educating them about historical styles, about architecture, about details, about all the things that Albert or any designer who has points of view should push onto a younger generation. And she couldn't go on about it enough that, you know, the fact that he was able was kind of the reason why all these companies now at the top of their game in New York, David Kleinberg, Brian McCarthy, there was Jed Johnson, there's obviously Bunny Williams, there's several others who were all because of the tutelage of Albert Hadley. So he was a very significant person in the field. Still today, very much like three generations down, they're still benefiting from that tutelage.

A (23:26)

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C (23:57)

So that's kind of how the text has started. And my first assistant Liz would be rolling out the fabric at the end of the business day. Like we'd get a three yard Order from somewhere and she'd roll it up by hand and we'd cut it and we'd roll it back up and run it to FedEx. And some how it worked out and things started rolling and then more people needed to come and handle it. And we were 800 square FT, kind of guest house, barn in the back of my house. And suddenly we were like eight people. And I was like, the noise and the distraction and the FedEx things and the delivery, you guys have got to go somewhere else. I can't get anything done. So they found a little. So show, not show. This little second floor office in the compound on Almonte Hiddle street in West Hollywood that already had Nathan Turner in, it had Catherine Ireland, it had Joe Lucas's studio, it had Claremont Textiles, but like all just attached in the same thing. I said, no, no, let's redo it. Let's get rid of the cars, put a tree, put some gravel, some gates, let's call it Almont Yard. And Almont Yard became a destination. I talked Joe Lucas into opening his store underneath me. And you know, so it became really like you would hit LA and you'd want to go see some new stuff. You'd go to Almont Yard, which worked really well. And then I furnished this little, which had now become, I guess a showroom instead of an office with stuff that I hoarded, collected or was kept on making over and over for clients, but zhuzhed up the space basically. And so that became Hollywood at Home, where there was, I bought in several other friends, textile collections, Lisa Fine, Carolina Irving, John Robshaw, Judd Johnson. I mean there was a bunch. It was like a little collective. So that was Hollywood at Home, my next baby. And people kept on buying the stuff. I was like, no, no, no, this is. These lamps are here just for a vibe. No, no, they wanted to buy the lamps for a price, accessories and furniture. So I was like, okay, well I'll sell anything, basically. So that's how we got into the furniture business. And then we had to move and we moved to La Cienega for bigger space so we could have more furniture and more, more, more, more, more. And here we are. And I'm like, have my show on La Cienega just now. Been about 15 years. I lose track of numbers, but I think about 15 years on LA Cienega. So that is my A to Z in a long, long, long answer. I'm sorry.

A (26:46)

That was absolutely beautiful and wildly worth it. So now you have Hollywood at home, like you said in la. And Then you have your, your home and garden store at 200 Lex in New York. So you really have. Of your two love cities. You have great placement on both, which is so lovely.

C (27:08)

And it was very hard to leave Roselli in New York, I have to say, after all those years. And it was very scary to do it. But I couldn't sell the furniture, which was now growing business. A big teak collection, a lot of wicker collection, custom made furniture, upholstery accessories, bed covers, all the things I always needed. It was impossible to sell it without the textiles because as you say, you walk down the hallway and you can see, oh my God, that looks like Peter Dunham. And you know, so that's why one day I had to call up Jonathan Roselli and say, I'm really sorry, but we have to. We're not leaving you for anyone else. I would never do that. But we have to sell it as a package. So that's how it happened. So if he's listening, just thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all those years of support. But it was time to, like, swim on my own for a while.

A (28:07)

Well, that was just a beautiful, serendipitous way of talking about how it all. It all really came to be and, and beautiful to speak to. I think it speaks to even your patterns and how you developed those and sort of your love for color. So will you talk us through the actual inspiration of your textiles, seeing as they kind of were your. Kind of your launch into everyone's home?

C (28:35)

I'm gonna backtrack one and edit me to death, please. But my best friend at high school was someone called Ashley Hicks, and his father was this famous interior designer who was my first glimpse at a designer. And in fact, over on my shoulder here, I think I have the row of every single publication of David Hicks right there on that shelf there. And he like. I was just like, entranced by the books, you know, how people might be entranced by comics or something else. As a teenager, I don't know what video games today, I was entranced by the David Hicks books. They were graphically beautiful and they show these incredible places From Athens to 5th Avenue to Florida to all these places. And, and this mixture of pattern geometrics and color and color contrast and the mixture of antique and. And modern was just like, wow, you know, it's just so crisp. It was so together. It was so unique. No one else was doing it to that level of perfection. I think he, again, a whole spew of generations came from him. But so to me, that my background, my eye was very attuned to the sense of geometric patterns rather than florals, rather than, you know, other things. It's just finding and looking constantly for the rhythm that you get from geometric patterns. That's where my eye goes to kind of like somebody's eye. Ear for music might go for women's voices or, you know, low men's voice. And mine goes to this sort of rhythm. And his was very much crisp and designed and much. Mine is much more tribal. I like that sense of. Of. Of. Of patterns that you get from ethnic textiles, from tribal pieces from India, from the Islamic world, but not necessarily only from Africa, from. Can be Native American. I'm. My eyes always roving to find the great pattern. I mean, I go to the Met to go see something completely unrelated, like the Man Ray show, but then I'll leave and see something in a gallery that. Oh, look, that little detail. Or maybe I've done fabrics, you know, based on the border of a Doris Duke tunic, you know, that I obsessed over. And then I suddenly, finally make into a textile. So it comes from everywhere, but it's all always, in a way, quite disciplined. I don't do anything very abstracted or, you know, ombre or anything. It's usually a pattern that has a. So that's kind of where the inspiration comes from. And very much what I'm looking for in my project. So, like, now I'm working on. I went to this incredible place up up the Hudson river, the design library that has, like, literally hundreds of thousands of designs that you can rent. And fashion companies go, yeah, we've been.

A (31:50)

Yeah, it's huge.

C (31:53)

It's one of the most incredible places. And I just pray it'll go on forever. Just like the, you know, a commercial VNA Victoria and Albert Museum. You can go. So I took out these things that were really. That really spoke to me, but I didn't quite know how. That's the thing. You don't always know how. And then I was doing a presentation the other day. I was like, you know, that would look really good, that we would have done some creative work on the computer, you know, laying out the design and scaling it before we send it out to be struck off, right? And I was like, this is actually. Would look really cool. There's nothing else like it. And it would look really cool. With that antique carpet I bought, it's different. Like this grass cloth I wanted to make. And I was looking at another grass cloth, so I thought, very pretty. That's exactly What I want. Then I thought, huh, wait a minute. There's this other stuff that could give the whole room just an extra twist of bohemia. Just, like, make this very fancy Fifth Avenue living room just, like. Just a bit more special depth to it. So that's kind of how a lot of textiles come about. Like, I'm on the field, and I'm like, oh, that's kind of what I need, or I find it.

B (33:12)

Yeah. Your textiles do feel found, and they feel a bit historical, but they do have a twist to them that makes them a little bit more modern, whether it's the color combination, definitely the scale, which is something that I do want to talk a little bit more about. Like, because you go big with your. With your scale, I feel like, oh, really?

C (33:36)

Okay.

B (33:37)

I feel like, well, there. There are no ditzies, right? There's nothing. There's nothing too tiny. I feel like in a lot of.

C (33:47)

Your prints, the woman who ran John Mercedes used to say, no, you need small things. They're called. We call them dollar prints. They make a lot of dollars. Enough with the novelty design. She would say, I need some dollar print. It's true. I try and vary it where I have some that maybe you don't notice as much as sort of smaller ones that fit it. Because, like, I need big scale and small scale. I need rough and smooth. I need shiny and matte. I need soft. I need hard. You know, they're all these different tools that as a designer or as a textile designer need and very much. But my interior design business is based on this layering of, you know, textures. I remember one project not that long ago where we did this presentation. We thought we were so pleased with ourselves. We were, like, spot on. We got the client. She said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wicker and I look kind of slightly horrified. We all looked at each other. I'm kind of known for Wicca and rush and caning and what very handmade feel to them crafted. And I looked a bit nervous at my team. And then we like, oh, no sisal. Okay. So we went through sisal and wicker and Rush, and I thought, well, I have no tools left. You know, I literally. No grass cloth on the wall, no thing. I was like, well, what am I gonna do now? You know? So. But that. Those are kind of part of the tools, like that sense of touch and hand and something that looks very handmade. But it's true. I hadn't thought about some of my patterns being big, but they are, like, some of My well known patterns are quite big because sometimes you need a big pattern, you need to cover a whole wall or you need something that fills the hole of a back of a chair. And then you need things that are maybe just a stripe, you know, kind of the mashed potato to go with the gumbo or the rice to go with the gumbo. Can't all be gumbo with a plate of gumbo, you know. When you were living in la, did you ever go to that restaurant? It wasn't called meat, it was called flesh or something. And everything was, everything was really heavy with a heavy sauce. And I was like, can't we just have like some steamed spinach to offset the richness of the meat?

A (36:17)

You know, so it sounds.

B (36:20)

You've got to go to the vegan place next door.

C (36:23)

Exactly. Bring it with you.

B (36:26)

Oh no. But I love that, I love that like going through a room and thinking about the opposites, thinking about, about whether it's big and little or shiny and matte or natural and man made. Because your, your rooms really feel so layered and so refined while feeling very cool and very vibey. And I think vibe is another thing that I'd love to talk to you about because that seems to be something that you talk about in the book a lot like finding the vibe of a home.

C (37:04)

Yeah, it's really interesting. That's been one of the chapters that is interested or I got the most responsive response from in the book. It's funny, people ignored togetherness or charm, the things that you know or, or refuge other things in the chat. But people love the vibe thing. It's very important when I speak to vibe in a house. And you have to understand, as you know from living in la, there aren't, there aren't that many houses that come with a vibe. Now Vibe to me is something I grew up in very historic places in France, went to very historic houses. My mother only picked my boarding schools purely by their looks. I remember arriving at Stowe, the most beautiful school in England and my mother gasping and I just knew that was a school that she was going to choose. It wasn't going to be Marlborough or Rugby or Harrow or whatever else it was, you know, Stowe. So I come from these where there's a huge amount of vibe in the stow. I mean if, if you're walking up to a very old house, even a house that doesn't seem particularly old, but a 19th century house on Staten island comes with a built in vibe, comes in with generations of people who have lived and Died in that house. It's come with vegetation that's grown up around it, been ripped out, replaced. It's been added onto sometimes. Well, sometimes quirkily so. For me, coming to LA, where so many houses were maybe 50 years old, barely a hundred, because they get pulled down so aggressively. They're built like movie sets. And coming to a lot of new houses, my most important thing in a house is creating a vibe. Now it's gotta correlate to the people who live in it. You can't create like this super hipster vibe for a really frumpy couple. And you can't put a really hipstery couple in a really frumpy house. So, you know, you've got to suit it to them. But whatever it is, those people, it's got to be welcoming. It's got. For me, it's got to, like, exude as much personality as possible. Because at the end of the day, I don't really care what it looks like. I really care how it feels. I really want a house to feel lived in. I guess that's where I make up with layering. I mean, look behind you on the wall. It's layered. There's like a vibe. They're booked. You've got beautiful branches behind you, you know, and, you know, it's. It's already got personality. But a lot of spec houses built all over California. I mean, I would say probably two thirds of the houses we walk into are either spec ish or worse spec houses or their new builds ground up, which we're increasingly doing. And that's why people call me. They want me at the beginning to create that sense of home rather than a sense of showplace. Showplaces is for the D and D building. You know, it's not for me or it's for a big showroom in a commercial center. That's the purpose of it. But it isn't for me in a house. I want the house to look like the clients. If they're wacky people, then make it wacky. And if they're rather conservative, make it conservative, but make it very appealing. Like, you know, this older serious couple or younger serious couple, whatever. Chill them out a bit, Give them a vibe, music, lighting, textures, contrast. And, you know, I was talking before about the. What I believe this serendipity that's happened in my life, I still do it in my design work. You know, we try and we try and do no less than 30% serendipity in a project and 70% planned and made and Decided. People really hate the process because people like to know ahead of time everything in their place. And I'm like, we don't need to decide right now. We have six months before this house is finished. We can. I'm going to be looking at hundreds of auctions between now and then. Go to Round Top and Brimfield and French, you know, flea markets that I call, like the modern version, collector version of the killing the Hunger Games, where everyone is ready to kill each other for. For a little Capron coffee table, you know. But there's this sense of like, it's gotta be at least 30% found. I will never go below 20, that's for sure. You've got to have art, You've gotta have some books, you've got to have some carpets that have seen some life or some, you know, in a modern house. I'm not gonna. I'm generally not gonna put a Georgian piece of furniture in or really old antique carpets, but I want maybe tribal masks in there. Maybe I want, you know, art that was. Even if it's made now, art that feels. It has. Has life, somebody made it. It's. You can't find it anywhere else. That's my. Where vibe comes from, if that makes sense.

B (42:43)

Oh, it totally makes sense. Yeah.

C (42:45)

Right. I mean, one of the chapters I didn't do, which I would have loved to have done, but there were. You could only do 300 pages even for me, was one on flattering the people. Like, if somebody has fantastic, beautiful, you know, red hair, like decorate around them. You know, if they have magical blue, green, gold eyes, use that all over the room. I mean, that is, as I call it, your headboard color. Like, you know, if you have incredible blue eyes, I'm going to try and make your entire bedroom as close to being covered in silk, velvet, the color of your eyes. Because that is going to become hitherto, and which is, to me, is the goal, you know, everyone wants to be attractive and have a healthy sex life at the end of the day in my houses, if they can. And. But if they have very dark features or very dark eyes, then I'll start picking up black accents around the room. So you continually reconnect the person to their. Their strongest feature. So as I put in one project, said, I think one interview, I said, well, what's a finishing touch? And I said, art, of course. If somebody's got a Picasso in the fireplace, are you really going to notice that the homeowner has a dreadful toupee on? No, you're going to look at the Picasso on the wall and think, wow, he's, you know, he's someone. So I think that's the. If I do another book, I'll talk about making more of the people, not just of the house themselves.

A (44:30)

That's beautiful. I love that. Well, I think that connection to home and that's something we're all looking for. Like, that is truly what you can't. You can look at images all day that aren't your work and be inspired, but at some point you have to look inside and truthfully who you are and to your point, what makes you feel beautiful and comfortable and safe.

C (44:56)

But, but don't you think that's quite hard to do? I mean, I don't always know about myself and God knows I've been to plenty of therapy in my life, but, you know, I don't always know like, oh, that's really what I am, or what I seem to other people or what, you know, I'm confused about myself a lot of the time. And I think people have a very hard time envisaging what they're going to do to a house to make it seem like them, particularly in six months. One, two, three. You know, I mean, Sister Parrish went buying those frigging quilts for like nine decades for her house in Maine to create, you know, her vibe there. Her iconic thing.

A (45:36)

That's the other part too is I think generationally that whole. It isn't done in one day and leaving space for that serendipity is not. It's something that people need to learn how to do, truly to give things.

C (45:51)

Time, you know, and I think habits have changed. I was listening to this really good podcast because I'm a big podcast listener too, and he was talking about the, the antique trade. And thing is, ultimately people are just not interested anymore in going out to collect and shop in time. Their life has been replaced by a lot of other things. If you have kids now, there's this huge pressure. I mean, my parents did not take me to soccer games at the weekend or ballet or whatever parents have to do all the time as a full time parent is constantly be chauffeuring their kids around to these events so they can get into the next school or the next level and the next thing. So there's less and less time. Right? So people spend more and more time online and it's really hard to collect beautiful objects. I mean, how many houses do you go to where you think, wow, this person's really gone around, found really pretty things, all these flea Markets or auctions or antique shows. I went to the San Francisco antique show the other day. They're struggling because people don't go to those kind of things. Whereas they'll go to the opening night, which was like super bash, which everyone was wearing couture and whatever. But did they come the other days when they wanted people to buy? I would say much less than 10 years ago. It's. People are. People are preoccupying, doing other things, looking, looking online at Instagram or TikTok or whatever people do with their time. But it's different. So, you know, for me it was like a really fun pastime. Even when I was 15, coming back from boarding school, I discovered the auction houses in Paris and that was incredible. You know, my Disneyland is an incredible salvage company that has beautiful architectural salvage that makes me dream. And I was like, my God, take a picture of that. I can use that there. Or where can I use that? Usually I see an object and come back to it two years later because I found a place to import it.

A (48:03)

Amazing.

C (48:04)

So everyone has their own interest, but I think interests and tastes have changed. People don't necessarily want to go out and on a Saturday morning like they might have, or some of us design freaks do, and go to like yard sales and find like great needlepoint cushions. You know, they don't. So I think that that's where creating that collected vibe for young generations gone away. And why House why? The look of design narratives have been pared down where there's a lot of neutrals and, you know, we're now coming out of it with more color and more texture and more richness, I think. But we've had a good 30 year run of kind of, of, you know, beige texture and off white and things like that. Because people either don't really want to say very much about themselves to the outside world or speaking to like who you are is become more complicated because people don't live where they grew up very rarely. I mean, you know, they do, but a lot of people I know in places like California came from other places. So already they're not somebody who grew up in Pasadena and went to Pasadena High School. And they have a Southern California, Pasadena, clear identity. They're transplant like I am. So I'm. It translates into me wanting to create a vibe and an identity everywhere I go. And for other people it means like doing none of the above. Just, you know, putting, putting forward a blank canvas.

A (49:49)

Yeah, I think a lot of people are afraid. They're afraid they will make mistakes and they will be costly.

C (49:59)

Yes, I agree with you. I agree. But I think if you paint your whole house white, to me it's a vacuum that needs filling. What's scary is that they feel like going out there and buying photographs or photography, framing and putting it on the wall and doing like a salon hang like behind list there is. That's not scary.

A (50:25)

Yeah.

C (50:26)

I mean, you know that you could make it with your kids art too, like just. But I, I guess they don't want to. Yeah. I definitely find in la, where people were more, much more reticent to buy art put on their walls is because they don't want to make a statement that looks stupid.

A (50:45)

Yeah. I think a lot of people are afraid to look stupid. They're afraid to show.

B (50:50)

But buy art, I mean, that's easy. Like it.

C (50:54)

Art's quite complicated. Really? Yes. Because I feel the opposite. Well, it's easy if you're an artist. Like, you know, my life partner is an artist, so constantly has a very strong eye for other artists. Work, connect. So very often I'll listen and look at things that he's pointing out and say, oh yeah, we should like look at those pieces, they're great. And consider buying one or whatever. But. So if you're an artist, it's easy. If you're somebody who grew up going to museums and having an interest and even if it's just a little bit and you, you don't do it for a while. I find so many people come back to it, they like culture and be part of the culture. So artists very kindly created lithographs. Right. So you could buy Picasso for the equivalent of a thousand dollars. You know, you can still go collect a lot of art. You can go and get Ellsworth Kelly beautiful lithographs that translate really well for 5,000, 4, 5,000 bucks. Whereas the original artworks are $500,000. You know, but they allowed us to have access to art, proper grown up art that you could put in your walls, that is. But people find it very complicated because they might not go to museums because they're busy at school. You know, I had a client in the other day who admitted he had never been to the Getty Museum, who lived within half a mile of the Getty Museum. I said, you've never even taken your kids on the tramway. I mean, how could you not even take the kids on the tramway? Well, they went with school or whatever. I was like, you've never been there?

B (52:37)

Oh, if you're already that on that side of the 405. Just get yourself to the game.

C (52:42)

Right?

A (52:44)

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C (53:14)

So I'm just saying that you've got, you know, people are coming from lots of different places, so you have to meet them where they are and maybe they're interested in rock and roll. So like, let's buy rock and roll photography. That is your vibe. There's fantastic photography, you know, so that's the way we as a designer had to try and pull it out of the client to give them a little bit more of a, of a. To give them a version of what they should be because. And hopefully they're very comfortable and happy with it. But it takes some work. And you're right, people don't naturally come to it with, oh, like I'm, we're gonna go out there and fill it with young emerging California artists. It requires work. I spend every other weekend probably going to art galleries, talking to dealers, sometimes buying. I mean, it sound like I'm a mega collector. It's not. But you know, I mean, part of what amuses me about living in California is, is the art world in LA is very vibrant, you know, and it's a great offset to like these miles and miles of square miles of strip malls. Here is there is a vibrant art community and for my partner, there's a vibrant music community that you can go to like these small venues and hear amazing. And then, wow, two years later they're filling the Staples Center. So there's that. So we go. Mine is visual, his is, you know, audible. Whatever you say. And so, you know, for me, the idea of going to galleries is a great way to connect with artists, to talk to them, go do studio visits, go see what they're doing, to talk to art people, converse, what are the ideas? So that's what I get joy out of. But it is a joy. Joy. It's not an effort for me. Yeah, but you know, as a result, I have some idea of art and some background in it and things that after the end of the day I just buy what I like. I'm not trying to beat the market I'm not trying to be cool. I'm not trying to whatever. I just. For a few thousand dollars, I'd buy something I really like. And so hence, I have now in my 60s, a very layered look. Avad. And so. But that says a lot when you walk into our house. There's something very comfortable to people. Like, there's quite a lot of stuff, and it's interesting, and they don't know quite where to go to first. It manipulates the experience. So I guess that's what we do as vibe creators is we are manipulating the experience.

B (55:56)

Yeah.

C (55:58)

Is slowing it up, speeding it up, making it jazzy where you need it to be exciting. Like a dining room, you want people to, like. Like, converse and be excited. But the living room, you might want soothing and calm. And then a library, you want it to be heavy and moody. You know, that's going back to vibe. That was a long vibe.

A (56:20)

Well, could we quickly touch on your charm section of how people can bring in charm?

C (56:28)

Well, it's. They're very similar to each other. Vibe and charm. I think that a vibe in a house can be very charming, or it can be very impressive, or it can be very loud or whatever. But charm is a different thing altogether that where you're really creating a very emotional connection. It's almost like one to one, and the other one is it's there for everyone. Like, a vibe of a house is there for everyone, the people who live there and the people who come. Charm is really like, wow. I walked into that house, and it really struck me. That was so charming. You know, this. The. And how do you do it? It's like, for me, a lot of the time is textures and patterns and creating moments of like, oh, wow, look at that beautiful window. Or look at that tree. Oh, my God, look at that oak. You know, just picking up on the really beautiful moments of charm. I mean, charm is a dog lying in a basket. Charm is people in their happy places. This light hitting a thing, it's. When you walk into a house, like, oh, you know, this. This is sweet. This is. You know, it's just like, charm can be very high, low. You can have a cottage that's really charming. Listen, when you have a cottage in the Cotswolds, you don't need to row the charm river very hard.

B (58:02)

No, that's pretty built in.

C (58:04)

But when you're doing a spec house in, you know, in Newport beach, you need to row. It's like going through those rapids, but the wrong way up. You need to row heavily to create charm. And what do you do? You create moments, like you said, layering of stuff of warmth as best you can. And that's. To me, it's very important. The charm is a very important factor. Just putting people at their ease and. And. And letting them into your heart. It's just. It's like somebody's very soft eyes, you know, very friendly smile or something. You know, that's the. That to me, is the charm when you walk in. I'm not making a very good pitch for it, I had to say, but it's hugely important for me for people to have a feeling of emotion, of love, of, like, connection to this thing. And that's your excuse me, charm.

A (59:00)

Well, you have a whole section in your book of charm, so they can check that out too when they see your book. So it's totally good. The other part I did. I know we have made you talk for a whole hour, but I just wanted to note also this wonderful toolkit section you have in your book, which is just such a gift as part of the book to really go through. I mean, you really talk and give so much for anybody who really is trying to, again, find the vibe, find the charm, figure out how to add that into their homes. And you. You go through the furniture plan and pattern wrapping and I mean, even the power of a mirror. Can you even, like, sum that up in two minutes? Because that was like. I mean, it's all so wonderful.

C (59:46)

I mean, I'm truly loving the questions. Mirror isn't just something that you look at yourself in. Mirror, to me, is almost like a. It's like a way to sculpt light and to add to the vibe or the charm or whatever. If you're adding to the charm, you're using messed up mirror to, you know, create a. If you're using. For example, in New York, I often do this or with some point of view where that I mirror the. Around the windows. You don't notice it. You literally, most of the time don't notice the back. But I have for very little money added, or I think it's very little money. Everyone complains about the price of everything, but, you know, you can put mirror either side of the. On the flat walls if you have deep windows and put a little trim so you don't see the edge of the mirror, hence a little bit more money, and then it expands your windows. So for me, like, this sense of airiness is so important in a room. So mirror is. I'm sculpting airiness, not necessarily light. In the view. But this sense of openness, people don't notice it. And then they're like, I can't believe we didn't do this before. You know, they're like, what do you mean doing the window? So trust me, I didn't invent it. I mean, you know, I look at people like Chessy Rayna and Mika Ertegun, two like massive icons of interior design. Not me. You mentioned I was an icon at the beginning. I was like all blushy. But like people like them who are like, they used a lot of tricks like this. So it's kind of, that's what the toolkit's about. Like creating areas that break off from one big central area. Sometimes you need a big central area in the living room to like have a big gathering in. And that's how you entertain. That's how all your members of the family sit together and in one big group and maybe watch the game, whatever it is. But other times you need little locations for more intimate moments. Little, you know, working. My biggest goal in my toolkit is try and get people to use every room. So if I can get people to get my goddess, I guess from real estate, I want to get at least 120% out of every run. So if it means I need to put a peloton in your living room, I'm going to put a peloton in your living room. I might want to powder coat it a color or you know, if you really want to play the piano. But like this big black piano, like let's lacquer the piano, let's stain an antique piano a color that prettier than just black or brown. But that's what the toolkit is for. Kind of the solutions to I guess modern living and using the space that you're given. Because again, going back to the spec houses that most people I guess buy in to at some point, even if they've been pre owned or I have to walk up to is like I need a very strong toolkit. If you walk into a lovely Rosario Candela apartment on park avenue in the 70s, you don't need much of a toolkit. Rosario Candela really fixed the space for you. There is a great sofa wall, there's a great chaise wall, there's a great little desk area. It's already built in. But in these rooms with all openings and all huge windows and there's no wall separation, nothing to put anything on or to put a sofa against, you need a toolkit. And it starts with fixing the architecture too. That's a big chapter in my book. I think that when one can, even if one does it in a very temporary way, like by putting up a. Using a big rug as a tapestry on a wall and blocking up a window or a door, particularly when it's not giving you a great view through that. I'm a big one on that one. You know, you can very inexpensively, you know, I had a project where there were just a fireplace with two windows that just had really buzzkill windows views. So instead of going to the length of like drywalling and da da, da, and I just knew it was good, I basically put some kind of white fabric behind and put bookcases in front of both of them. You don't notice that it blocked up windows. Or I'll use a four poster bed with a hanging and shove it in front of a window that I don't like, you know, so fixing the architecture doesn't mean you need to call up and have a long term relationship with a contractor who you end up hating. You can do some of that yourself where you manipulate the space. So that's kind of the toolkit. The toolkit, I think, is very important for me because those are all the personal tricks and traits. So going back to mirror, you can create all these different effects with mirror that isn't really looking at a glitzy mirrored room or mirrored wall per se. You know, you can incorporate it into the architecture.

A (65:09)

That's beautiful. Okay, I had one more question, but Liz, I feel like I've asked.

B (65:13)

No, go for it.

A (65:14)

I'm the green sofa. Why has the green sofa followed you your whole life? You even meant, you even highlight it by like you say it in the book. And I was like, the green sofa, where did it start and why does it follow you?

C (65:29)

You know, it's really weird, but I tried chatgpt the other day with one of my young associates and they said, like, make a Peter Dunham living room. And I said, and it analyzed it, said, yeah, try green sofa. I said, green sofa. Anyway, because obviously it shows up. Okay. Green to me is a neutral, like we live. So I'm looking out of my two windows here. I've got a giant orange tree with vivid green leaves. And over there I have hedges and trees. It's green, green, green. We live surround. So two human eyes. Green and blue are neutrals, in fact, much more so than beige. Now, beige is a neutral. If you live in the desert, it's all over the place. And I think it looks beautiful. And There are thousands of shades of beige. I have a whole editor's letter that Margaret Russell did after a conversation with, yet again, Albert Hadley, where he said to her, it's not beige, darling. It's sandstone. It's ivory. It's. You know, he went through all the different descriptions you could describe off white with. And he was right. There's all these subtleties that it alludes to, but green to me is ubiquitous. So as a color that you can use almost anyways, that. And I'm always desperately trying to connect the view to the indoors. That's one of my big goals always, is try and make like whatever we do is never going to come anywhere near what Mother Nature does. Mother Nature is a way better designer, way better colorist, way better everything than human beings are. Right. That's my belief. So if I'm going to connect to the outdoors, where I have a lot of green views, often I like to put a green sofa. It kind of. It's very welcoming. It connects you to the outside. People look good in a green sofa. Everyone's outfits on a green sofa look good. I was noticing the other day, I was in the south and people had a lot of pattern dresses. And I was like, you kind of gotta be a little careful about how much pattern you put on things if people are gonna wear a lot of pattern clothes, you know. So I was thinking about that. So the green sofa's big for me.

B (67:46)

Thank you.

C (67:47)

I mean, all the things I said about green, I believe about blue because I think you look at the sky and a blue sky is a very happy experience to me. That's happy. Green is happy. Brown twigs on the trees when the leaves have fallen in winter is not necessarily happy. I don't look at the landscape. Taking the lie in February or whatever, freeway with a lot of trees and looking at a whole bunch of brown twigs. That's not a happy thing for me. Green leaves are. Blue sky is, you know, the sea. Those are the associations I have with color. So green sofa it is. I recommend a green sofa. Goes many places. You can buy. You know, if you're gonna try and not make expensive mistakes, you can spend a lot of money on your sofa, which sofas have become quite expensive these days, and do it in green. And I think you can take it to a lot of different houses.

A (68:44)

Love that. Just saying, just saying. Just this famous person, you know, just telling us who does this for a living. You're all welcome for that tidbit.

C (68:55)

I do it for a living. I don't know how famous? Oh, you're so famous. I said, because you follow me on Instagram going around my book tour. Trust me, no one is walking up to me at an airport and say, oh, I saw your book, or whatever. No, I'm okay.

A (69:10)

And a lot of people listening would. I was gonna say you've come to a podcast that's a whole bunch of people who would love to meet you and talk to you.

C (69:18)

And it's a lot of people, too, so I'm happy to do it. Anytime you want to do a virtual book signing or a real book signing somewhere, I'm there for you.

A (69:27)

Wonderful. Well, will you. Liz, do you have any more questions? Okay.

B (69:32)

No. This has just been absolutely a treat.

A (69:35)

Yeah, you have to please come back. We will give you a little break, but please come. We would love to talk more because you just have such a wealth of knowledge and a beautiful way of looking at the world. And will you tell everyone where they can find you and follow you and see your work and buy your book?

C (69:56)

So Peter Dunn Design Hollywood at home. Peter Dunn Home and Garden. Peter Dunn Textiles are pretty much. And they all kind of are inter. Interconnected on Instagram. I think that's the biggest sight. Buying the book. Lot of places. Bookstore. There you are. It's actually, I have to say I was really thrilled it sold through its first printing, which already, which for a design book is kind of. Not all design books go through, but the first has gone. They're reprinting it in time for Christmas. It'll be out in the middle, end of November. They rushed another edition, second edition. So if you can get your edition now, it will be a. A first edition, which is always good for the design book collectors. But it was a joy. I cannot take credit for the book.

A (70:48)

Okay.

C (70:49)

I can only take credit for the content of the book. Van Dome, who was our publisher, and Stephen Drucker, who is another legend in the world of shelter magazines, was very much, you know, for me doing a book and forced me to do a book when I didn't want to do a book and I didn't believe I had the content to do a book. And they have a book designer, Celia Fuller, who they assigned to me, who somehow got the graphics of my design and was really excited about and the pictures and put them together over and over again. And every time she would show us a chapter, I was like, oh, my God, it actually looks really good. I mean, I literally had no idea of how it was going to turn out and then how she was going to package it and it's very hard to do a book, as I was told by them, that is not a book. That's a portfolio book or book just of kitchens or to do coastal and mountain and desert and city or whatever themes you want to do that way. It's really a book that's kind of quite jumbly and it's very hard to do. But it pulled through because the publisher was ready to do very expensive things like the COVID with the textile and the embossed. And you can show people the edging of the pages, which is another one of my design patterns, collages on the edges, you know, so that. All these things that they came up with, which was added money. But the amazing. The book publisher was willing to do it because that's how they want to. They want to push the envelope for their book. So I serendipitously lucked out to have an editor who really wanted me to do it, a book. A book designer who was fantastic, who related. And, you know, we just went out there and shot the projects, and we had a lot of, you know, a lot of guidance from Steven Drucker. He was like a masterclass in seeing somebody who really knew what they're doing and how to edit a book to keep it interesting.

B (72:57)

Yeah.

C (72:57)

And how to sit down.

B (73:00)

This book is so fantastic because I really feel it, it encapsulates your viewpoints on design. Yeah. It's less of a how to and really just more about your views on design. And it's just so wonderful. Yeah.

C (73:13)

Well, thank you so much. I'll come back anytime.

B (73:16)

Oh, because Caroline is so sad that she's not here.

A (73:21)

Yes. Oh, yeah, we have a third one.

C (73:23)

Well, we can do this all over again. We can do this all over again.

A (73:28)

Oh, well, thank you so much for your time today. We love talking, talking to you.

C (73:33)

Thank you. Have a wonderful weekend.

A (73:37)

And that's our show.

B (73:38)

You can find all of the show.

A (73:39)

Notes on our blog howtodecorate.com podcast to send in a decorating dilemma. Email your questions to podcastallarddesigns.net so we can help you with your space. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media. Ballardesigns.

B (73:52)

Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear your feedback.

A (73:58)

Until next time, happy decorating.