This isn’t your grandmother’s living room and these are not your grandmother’s dried florals, warns Tippi Clark. Tippi is currently consulting on some upcoming creative projects at Merchant House, which is a community of New Orleans-based merchants featuring antiques, vintage furniture, art, and clothing. But along with consulting, she’s also launching a new venture in October within the Merchant House umbrella as an artist residency pop up. Called Waysides, it’ll focus on arrangements dried and designed in New Orleans using local Louisiana florals, botanicals, and foraged greens. They are floral designs that’ll last a lot longer than a live bouquet.

“Launching a new business during Covid-19 provides many challenges, including a lack of studio space with the appropriate temperature. Work from home takes on a new meaning as I’m on the brink of launching a new forever floral design business that involves drying local Louisiana flowers hung upside down in my breakfast room,” confesses Tippi. “My house is north-west facing and gets amazing light, which is perfect for the ambiance of my rattan and floral upholstered ‘Golden Girls’-esque living room.”

With a background in fashion ranging from technical design in handbags and accessories for Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade, to launching a denim line for Rebecca Minkoff in 2013, and more, Tippi’s design skills combine beautifully in her vintage-filled apartment.

My Style: My point of view when it comes to personal style could best be described as Laura Ashley meets Georgia O’Keefe.

Inspiration: All things nostalgia. I adore and am inspired by fashion and design from the ’80s and ’90s. I love looking at vintage magazines and catalogs. I ran across a copy of a 1988 J. Crew catalog recently and it was mind blowing how relevant it has become. Everything comes back around. I’ve recently been watching “Designing Women” reruns and really enjoyed catching all the little design nuances and humor that made it so special.

Favorite Element: I love coming home and pulling up to my front door to my dog Buster peering out of my front window around the curtain that overlooks a beautiful red rose bush. He’s quite the neighborhood entertainer.

Biggest Challenge: The design flow layout from room to room in a shotgun style layout is tough. My kitchen is located in the back of the house, so it was hard to decide which room to designate as the bedroom vs. breakfast room/office space. At the end of the day, the flow from the living room into my bedroom was the better option determined around the lighting in the morning and how the elements of color and texture flowed organically from one room to the next.

Proudest DIY: My personal dried floral arrangements. I’m working with local flower farmers and foraging all around New Orleans experimenting with the length of drying time and amount of sunlight in order to achieve a range of muted and subtle color combinations that are unexpected and romantic.

Biggest Indulgence: My Justina Blakeney rattan coffee table and matching end tables. I think they were worth every penny as they contain excellent storage space for my ever growing collection of books and magazines.

What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? I’ve being doing a lot of dishes lately, I guess we all are, ha! I love my cleaning brushes from Sunday Shop; they’ve made the chore a lot more glamourous!

What’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? Look to the past to tell the future of design. It all comes back around and it’s up to you to make it fresh and new again.

• Paint color in all rooms is the same Farrow & Ball: Skimming Stone

• Vintage (Pair of ) Floral Love Seats — Merchant House
• Wicker butterfly chair — Merchant House
• Justina Blakely Rattan Coffee Table and matching end tables — Anthropologie
• Vintage Floral Screen — Dream Fishing Tackle (Greenpoint, Brooklyn)
• Various collected Bird Artwork — Vintage (thrifted)
• Yellow geometric artwork — Mary Louise Killen @marylouisekillen

• Leather chairs — Object Biographies for Merchant House
• Cowboy Artwork — Stirling Provisions for Merchant House
• Lamps on the Mantel — Object Biographies for Merchant House
• Elk artwork — Finch Hatton for Merchant House

• Snake & Lips Artwork — ​The Novogratz

• Fiber Artwork — Connie Shea
• Nude Artwork — Mary Louise Killen @marylouisekillen
• Abstract Artwork — Mary Louise Killen @marylouisekillen
• Pair of Pink Velvet woven jacquard framed artwork — Heirloom Furnishings, New Orleans
• Vintage Corduroy Heart Shaped Chair — My grandmother’s
• Marion Canopy Bed — The Novogratz
• Marble Top Round Night Stands — Consign, Consign
• Vintage Brass Vanity with stool — Object Biographies for Merchant House

• Shower Curtain & Rug – Urban Outfitters Home

Thanks Tippi!

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