In a world of exulted cult of the appearances, people tend to live in vanity, exaggerations and in the desire of impress others at all costs. Often people aim to overdo and to over say, not only in fashion, but in every expression of life.
Elegance is not showy. Elegance is style, awareness and moderation. Elegance is a balanced mix of good taste and precise choices. It translates in the right search for substance and attention to details. Elegance is sober and sobriety is elegant. Both are pleasing and comfortable, functional and beautiful. Sobriety should not be a sacrifice. I would describe it as the ability to choose only what is needed, especially when it comes to fashion as interpretation of self, other than home fashion.
Some people think elegance is a gift and others think it is an innate talent. It could be somewhat true. There are people who know how to express and communicate with their look better than others. On the other hand, nobody is condemned to be vulgar, bulky and annoying, or just trust his/her own instinct. Elegance, sobriety and simplicity are all things we can learn and cultivate and once we learn them, they can simplify our lives.
Einstein said: “To be simple, is to be brilliant” e someone else said: “Simplicity is the key of elegance”. Totally agree, in fact I am the queen of simplicity.
Style and elegance are not easy to define. Style refers to forms, appearances and character. Everyone has a style that can be beautiful or not pleasing at all, according to what our eyes project.
Let us talk about home style, just to take an example. Baroque style is an elegant style, but ancient and not practical for the times we live in. If we mix Baroque style in the simplicity of contemporary furnishing, it can result in a dynamic décor and it will describe a person with a variegated and polyhedral character. But not everybody can make combinations of this sort, well thought out that look good too.
Elegance never goes out of style, that is, if we don’t follow trends to the letter. Another example can be the European fascination with the color black as a screaming trend in kitchen design. How would you like to eat a tasty mussels (black shells) in a pasta specialty served on black plates, with a black drinking glass set, surrounded by black kitchen cabinetries? Come on!
I understand that trends must exist, otherwise all kinds of industries will cease to live. Personally, I like to leave trends to those in need of looking the same as everybody else to get their approval. Those are the people who run in pack and if you meet them in the street, you can’t recognize one from the other.
As a designer, my goal is to accentuate the personality of the people living in the house I am contracted to design, making sure their spaces serve their needs and have some kind of originality too.
My spaces are not made with cookie cutters. My spaces are timeless, they cannot be recognized as made in 2008 or 1998 and yet I am a person very much projected in the future, but I don’t feel I must follow trends dictated by any industry. I take only the best part of the trends, the rest I invent it myself and that is “my trend”.
How can you, in a few simple words, explain this concept? Any home can be simply elegant and stylish, I am here just for that. My help is simply available to style your home in a livable elegance.