apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

really boring articles and the slideshows were even worse.

Dude, did you seriously say grokking? I didn't think I could love this site more than I already did. Dorks unite!

It's like Plum Sykes wrote a (bad) novel about interior decorators! Fascinating.

LOL. Good call, Fiona. I read the piece on the "edgy traditionalists" with the same morbid fascination that I read the New York Magazine "Power Girls" article on Lizzie Grubman and her gang of celebutante/socialite/publicists and event planners... There may be a bad Plum Sykes novel waiting to emerge from that set, but I'm secretly looking forward to the inevitable Fine Living, Bravo or Oxygen reality show.

Working title: "Daddy, I Want to be a Decorator!"

It's hardly newsworthy - or new, even - when the daughters of rich men decide to become decorators. Someone obviously has a very good PR firm, with contacts at the Times.

after reading that article on blonde rich-for-rich decorators though boy did i want to take a nap on pergay's couch.

God that snotty decorator article made me want to barf (clearly, I'm not a socialite).

Ha...I just thought: Maybe I should see if the Times wants to do an article on the new "trend" of "White trash" decorators...Maybe I should become a decorator and then things can be written about me like "From the truck in her front yard, to the spray cheese on the laminate counter, everything says "I'm white trash and I'm proud of it"...which her clients really appreciate. Christine has the upbringing that makes her uniquely understand the needs of the blue collar community and she has cultivated a clientele that extends from the diner down the street to the United Autoworkers strike line..."

Sorry, I had to, it's been a rough day at work (read: not being able to check out AT incessantly).

workers of apartment therapy unite, you have nothing to lose but your lunch!

i do like the idea of nice decorating advice, swarthy odalisque-lovers with peony fetishes enquire within.

Please tell me that decorator article is a hoax.

Five identical blondes (Photoshopping anyone?) and a husband named Ravenel Boykin Curry IV? Even if it's true, I shouldn't have to believe it.

And surely those are obscure and less successful Billy Baldwin projects we're being shown as their rooms.

The whole scenario reeks of "rejected pitch for dishy Showtime series, now under consideration at FOX."

that H and H link took me to the NYT. And I had to wikipedia "grok." I thought it was an age thing, but my 25 y.o. co-worker didn't know the word. turns out it's a nerd's word. but that's ok.

oops. I thought H and H was House and Home. Shouldn't it be H and G (House and Garden)?

TG for apt. therapy. As I was reading the article on the subway I could not *wait* to see what people on this site would say.

My fav. quote -- "Ms. Kemble's staff of five dazzling blondes ages 25 to 34 is a girl-world fantasy dreamed up by a young male investment banker and more exciting than the 9 a.m. elevator ride up to Vogue magazine."

My guess is that the article was originally written to be pitched to a women's mag like Vogue and they rejected it as too nauseating for their readership, but the NY Times, not having a reliable nausea meter took the article to add to their constant stream of such articles.

Ravenell Boykin Curry IV has got to be the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. It's even funnier than Celerie Kemble, which has also always seemed pretty funny to me.

I will assume that numbers I through III still walk among us - even so, what is it with the American rich numbering themselves as if they were European royalty?

never mind, now that I see what I've written, I think, "of course. It was ever so."

Still, can't help but think that a name like that perpetuates itself through the generations just by the strength of its own ridiculousness. It's self-justifying.

And are we surprised that the wealthy offspring of the wealthy are trumpeting the beauty of tradition? Don't bite the hand that feeds.

I don't suppose that the social problems they will be discussing against the exotic backdrop of the DR will actually include anything going on in that same DR, do you? Let's hope they at least buy their food locally, and that it isn't all flown in from elsewhere.

Ah, the rich. An endless source of entertainment.

Champange wishes and caviar dreams, my friends.

This link might be interesting to some here.
http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/comm/content/community/celeriewed0403.html

It appears she started out as a designer in her mother's firm. Oh, and count 'em - 12 bridesmaids!

make that "champagne." How terribly gauche.

Anne,
Classic! I needed that laugh after a particularly hard day. I can always count on AT. That Miami vice on steroids wedding announcement got more and more ridiculous as it went on:

In particular...

"Jackson Hughes Davis served as keeper of the dog."

Is this some ritual of the rich I don't understand?

"In honor of the nuptials, a clock on the tower, which previously had been set to the time of the bride's birth, was reset to the time of the wedding."
Blech

"The vows read by the bride and groom were taken from her great-grandmother's book of published poetry."
Should be modified to read "book of self-published poetry."

Ick. So funny...

"...one day, while spraying fire retardant on Noguchi paper shades for a Clinton fund-raiser, she realized that interior design was a perfectly swell career."

It must have been the fumes.

======

"Everyone works, maybe they've even got a kid or two, and who can deal with finding the fabric on top of everything?"

Oh, the sheer horror of finding fabric.

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"I wanted a place that a woman could be comfortable in. I didn't want the foosball table and the black leather couch."

Gee, no kidding Mr. 30-something gazillionaire with no taste.

======

"We ask: 'Are you a Banana Republic sofa or a bespoke sofa? Are you chick-lit, or European philosophy?' "

Ahhh, WHAT?

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"noodling on a line of what she calls home jewelry, objects like a silver cuff upon which to balance a decorative ball. "

Ahhh, WHAT?

Ay, ay, ay... Yet another example of conspicuous consumption and what passes for society here. Ay, ay, ay...

Plus, the first picture in this piece: the red lacquered walls, the Frenchified (??) furniture, etc., is just the sort of decor I've seen in Park Avenue apartments where money is more abundant than taste.

NYC is fabulous in some ways, but really... the way money is flashed around is quite awful.

I don't have any money now, but grew up around people with loads of it. Everyone drove old and/or used cars, had perfectly nice houses but not McMansions, and would have died had their daughters gone around with attitudes like the ones displayed by the blondes in the article. Rather, we were expected to study and work hard, do lots of charity work, and show restraint.

Manners have gone out the window...at least among many of the moneyed in this city. I would hope my own daughter (if I had one) would chose to do something besides look blonde and decorate in the Park Avenue style.

Christine, I keep having to reread your White Trash decorator post.

You aren't REAL white trash unless you can use the spray cheese to decorate a Christmas tree.

Last time I bought spray cheese I asked where "spray cheese" was located and the guy looked at me like I was insane. I said "You know, the spray cheese, the squirt cheese, the ribbon cheese, comes in a can. It goes in celery."

While more civilized people drown their sorrows in scotch, I hit the spray cheese every year or two.

Andree--too funny! We'd get along! my dad seriously has a truck in the front yard. No, 2, actually. No joke.

Ha ha...sorry I'm getting such jollies from this...but I was just thinking how funny it would be to ask for spray cheese at Whole Foods--and not the staff, but the people shopping there! :) hee hee...okay, back to work! Oh, and it's generally kept in the cracker aisle...hee hee...

Christine, did you ever check out the various orange colors I posted for you in Open Thread ...uh, I think 178? Have you decided on a color, and will it match squirt cheese? hehehe.

And where does everyone go on the weekends? Does everyone view the AT site from work on the weekdays?

The Times has become a joke, and this article proves it. Who cares about a blond woman who got a job at her mommy's firm? I went to the site, checked out her furniture line, and it's hideous. And don't even get me started on her name. I wonder what her siblings are called: Cucumber and Carrot?