Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2023 från Veranda

PRECIOUS RAYS OF LIGHT Studded with sapphires and diamonds, this mother-of-pearl sundial invites happiness to shine on. GLIMMERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN Red and black coral make meaningful bedfellows with vintage Italian, French, and Greek charms.…

FLOWER SHOW Celia Wood’s vibrant glazed plates were inspired by a drawing trip to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. FRENCH COUNTRY REVIVAL Illustrations by artist Alix Soubiran recall rustic, everyday tableware of 18th-century France.…

I once decided not to take any photographs at all on a trip through the south of France. I resolved instead to collect written “snapshots” in my journal—jotting down every intriguing thing that caught my eye. I frequently pulled over to the side of the road to take notes: “kids emerging from woods with berry baskets slung on their arms;” “field of lavender pulsing neon-bright in the sun.” I’m reminded of that experiment when I find myself returning to the same region. This time I wonder whether it is possible to collect olfactory “snapshots” in a similar way—the scent of orange blossoms spilling over the top of a walled garden; the briny zephyrs blowing in from the Mediterranean; the delicious aromas of roasted peppers, basil, and garlic emerging from a…

AT TIME WHEN SO MUCH of the world is pursuing the next big thing, it’s refreshing to encounter someone who’s happily committed to what she already knows and loves. Julia Amory’s tastes are radically unedgy. “I love brown furniture,” she says. “I love chintz and majolica.” She compares her approach to designing houses for herself and her family—husband Minot and their two children—to speaking in her native language. “This is the way Minot and I grew up,” she says, “and this is the way our children are growing up.” Crayon marks on the upholstery, shirred lampshades, antique quilts that disintegrate with use, a kidney-shaped vanity from the 1950s — “these things make me feel safe and cozy,” she says. Her decorating vernacular provides a constant in a life that is…

“we call it the tree house,” says the homeowner of a wooded lakeside retreat nestled into the landscape as if it grew up out of the earth. Tucked away on an undeveloped parcel overlooking a Connecticut lake, the cabin was designed as a refuge from the sultry climes of the family’s primary residence in the South. But the enviable location surrounded by water and trees came with a catch, as architect Tom Kligerman explains: “When I first got the survey, I thought it was a mistake; here we had all these acres and this big lake, and yet there was this small little diagram in the middle of the property.” He realized he had to fit the house into that tiny space because of local restrictions for building along the…

ARE YOU DESIGNING this home for yourself or for everyone else?” That’s the question New York–based interior designer Darren Henault asks each of his clients at the start of a new project. “Sometimes people want to design houses for showcasing something about themselves to others, whereas other times people want to design their houses for their own enjoyment, whether that involves gathering with friends and family or partaking in hobbies, unwinding, you name it. How they answer makes a difference in how I do my job.” Henault shared this during a panel discussion about the role of joy in design that I moderated at the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center’s spring market, and what he had to say prompted a gut check on how I am going about decorating my home—as…

BONACINA’S NEW PRESERVATIONIST “We continue to make everything as my great-grandfather did 134 years ago,” Elia Bonacina says of the design and production processes of his family’s Italian furniture workshop. The fourth-generation president and CEO of Bonacina grew up “a stone’s throw” from the studio in Brianza, north of Milan close to Lake Como and the Alps. He watched, as did his father and grandfather, the chemistry of basketry and furniture making as the artisans bent rattan with fire and wove it into curvaceous armchairs and sculptural sofas with their fingers. Throughout the 20th century, Bonacina became renowned for avant-garde furniture collaborations with design giants like Italian modernist architect Gio Ponti and interior designer Renzo Mongiardino, with many of their original designs still in production. Elia is shepherding the preservation…

OUTSIDE OF SAN MIGUEL de Allende, the city’s exuberant colors mellow into a more subdued palette. Inside the gates of Cris Briger’s Mexican country retreat, there’s no Froot Loopy jacaranda and bougainvillea, no bright ochre and magenta buildings, just the soothing shade of green trees. “It’s our own little oasis,” says Cris, who with her late husband, Paul, ran a furniture business and began working with San Miguel artisans in the early 1990s. Enchanted by this property at the end of a juniper-lined historic road, they began building their country casa, with its seven bedrooms and four-foot-thick walls, in 1998. The family has spent extended weekends and holidays here, always with a houseful of guests and dogs, for more than two decades. “This more than anyplace is home. We’ve already…

POSTCARD FROM PROVENCE Pages 22-23 Émile Tessier Pitcher, $561; chezpluie.com. Tray table, $4,400; engleanddeutch.com. Marie Daâge Madras salad and dinner plates, price upon request; suefisherking.com. Bone box, $129; foundbham.com. Pages 24-25 Belgian natural paint in VerandaBlue2023, $45 per liter; dominguefinishes.com. Louis XVI–style dining chairs, $3,200 for six; @maisondefrance. Marie Daâge Madras salad and dinner plates, price upon request; suefisherking.com. Davide Fuin Amber footed goblets ($180 each) and Frances Palmer Cirrus bud vase no. 9 ($230); marchsf.com. Marguerite fabric (front table), to the trade; nicolefabredesigns.com. Circa 1880s Swedish bench, $4,900; lolofrenchantiques.com. Tilari fabric (canopy), to the trade; malabarfabrics.com. Vintage bamboo lantern, $309; chezpluie.com. Sakura cushion ($287) and Vintage Check fabric ($172 per yard); inchyra.com. Indienne Ocre fabric (on pillow), €142 per meter; antoinettepoisson.com. Blue diamond pillow, $130; thesixbells.com. Kushi fabric (on…

Heavenly Metal Cartier’s famed Art Deco geometries and volumes return boldly in clou carrés and pico studs hinged by free-spinning beads—a tactile joy in rose and violet gold. Satin Touch As silken and agile as fine fabric, a tree bark–style white gold bracelet—Chopard’s midcentury signature—shares the shimmering spotlight with a mother-of-pearl dial and marquise-cut diamond crown. Big Band Theory A broad, guilloche-inspired gold bracelet’s hand-engraved streaks and color-graduated sapphires are showstopping echoes of Piaget’s 1960s aesthetic. Seductive Angles Emblematic since its debut in the 1930s, the Hermès pyramid stud commands center stage as this secret-watch cover in rose gold framed by diamonds. Arcs of Triumph Inspired by the maison’s 1941 Ludo Hexagone Macaron secret watch, Van Cleef & Arpels’ brilliant new expression is a masterpiece of pattern and curves in…

IN THE LATE 1930s, when Emily Hutchinson Meggett was a young girl growing up on South Carolina’s Edisto Island, she would often walk the three-quarters of a mile from her family’s house to her granduncle Henry Hutchinson’s property. There, she and her siblings and cousins would play hop-scotch or hide-and-seek. Sometimes they’d pull a vine off a tree and use it as a jump rope. The adults, including Henry’s wife, Rosa, would sit on the house’s big wraparound porch, laughing and talking. The kids weren’t allowed to partake in the adults’ conversation, recalled Meggett, who passed away in April. “Parents back then, they didn’t talk so much in the presence of children,” she said. “You couldn’t sit in their company. When company comes, you better be scarce.” From that porch,…

Spain’s Ikat Awakening When the Silk Road’s cross-continental trade route brought ikat textiles to the pivotal trading post of Majorca, local artisans began experimenting with their own resist-dyed patterns. Golden gerbera daisies, lavender widow flowers, and purple lilacs from the island’s Serra de Tramuntana mountains and coastline—like those in this wild bouquet—fed a new ikat parlance. The ceramic vase reimagines a woven basket used for collecting flowers, perhaps to carry back to the mill for fresh inspiration. Dutch Delftware’s Second Bloom The Netherlands’s tin-glazed delftware first appeared in the 1600s, emblazoning storybook snapshots of Dutch life onto earthenware tiles, from sailboats and windmills to pastoral landscapes. This formal, Flemish-influenced arrangement mixes a frequent star of these pictorials (daffodils) with Delft blue asters and coral gladiolus in a marbled ceramic urn…

SINCE MOVING TO PARIS 20 years ago, my adopted country has taught me a life-changing lesson: to look for, cultivate, and revel in joy. Not superficial happiness, mind you, but a deep, real sense of connection, the kind that comes with slowing down to absorb moments of beauty and fellowship every day. Perhaps that’s what makes picnics practically a rite of passage for the French. Growing up in Austin, Texas, my Nigerian-American family didn’t do a lot of picnicking. We had barbecues. I loved that outdoor “potluck” vibe, with big cuts of meat and even bigger groups of friends sitting around tables and playing flag football. Then I went to grad school and studied the life and culture at Versailles as part of a master’s program in decorative arts. Along…