On beauty

[constance]

Most people who've known me will know that one of my great guilty pleasures in life is the Pottery Barn aesthetic. The stuff's nice enough, and when I go to PB stores, I always enjoy poking around, but in the end, it's the catalogs that really send me. The whole of the catalog is infinitely more than the sum of its parts: the tidy, color-coordinated rooms carefully strewn with thematic knickknacks, the "quirky" mass-produced odds and ends, everything mix-and-match, everything pretty and put together. When I look at the catalogs, I have to admit, it's not the sofa or the behooked magnetic board I want--I want to take the whole room, including the floors and windows, and transplant it. I gather, from a little informal research over the years, that this is all anyone wants from Pottery Barn.





It's a shot from the Holiday catalog, and isn't it all so nice and clean-looking? Mmmm, it looks like a peppermint candy you can sleep in. Here's the thing, though. The person who decided that the sensible aesthetic thing to do for this shot would be to turn all the books on the shelves spine-in? GENIUS, man. Forget Barcelona chairs and everything Raymond Loewy designed. Forget streamlined stereo equipment. Forget, even, inflatable furniture. I think we're looking at the wave of the future, here, when it comes to beautiful, comfortable, practical design. I'm going straight home to fix all my books, right now, and I hope you do the same.

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

The Pottery Barn catalog always has the BEST color aesthetic and this current love affair between dark reds and yellows is to die for. I think it works so well because they use so much dark wood.

I hadn't even noticed the books were spine in - and of course they look FANTASTIC. : ) Completely useless but useless in beautiful cream tones. hahahahahaaaa.

Pottery Barn also seems to sell a lifestyle of casual gourmet dining with bright, engaging friends and much sitting around after, sipping good coffee in beautiful, comfortable living rooms. And really, life SHOULD be like that, shouldn't it? Combine the Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma catalogs and you have my dream life. Hey, I'm working toward it! : )

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean about the PB Friends! Those summer parties are especially seductive for me, everyone wearing white and going barefoot on an immaculate lawn and the enormous umbrellas and the lake views and clearly no one is sloppy-drunk and the weather is exactly right and there is impeccably tasteful music playing in the background.

Yeah, my life is not too much like that. But a girl can dream!

And hahahahah you're right--the books are very pretty, aren't they?