Jennifer Balest

Oh How I Love to Shop!! Doesn't Everyone??

2009-06-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

I love shopping. I love the thrill of finding something new and fresh and taking it home to make it mine. Ask any shopaholic and they'll tell you the acquisition of something new is exciting. New shoes, new bag, new flatware, new glassware, new sheets, a darling new collar for Daisy...it's all the same, acquiring something new and fabulous, and hopefully needed.

There's a second part of the equation, one that is oh so subliminal, and it is just as important because it totally drives our purchases. It's definitely part of what makes shopping fun--I mean you can shop without buying, it is after all called window shopping-- it's the visual display and the potential thrill of new objects that really pulls us in. Merchandising is an art and it is important.

It's also a talent. Remember Jingle Balls? It was the episode of Will & Grace when Jack somehow got recruited by the snarky Barney’s manager played by Parker Posey to do the holiday display window. With his infinite immodesty Jack thought he could do the window himself and had to be rescued by his Interior Designer friend Grace. Naturally, Grace’s window was perfect, Jack got to take credit, and Will & Grace end up kissing at the end of the show.

As art does imitate life, there are real people out there who live for this kind of work—to inspire us to shop! My friend and colleague Brenda Houston is one of these designers and she specializes in visual merchandising. Brenda has worked around the world, is an award-winning designer, and her specialty is conveying brand identity.

Check out her work at Baby Guess. It’s so cute it makes me want to have a baby! I mean, I’ll take one of everything in that store!

Brenda’s range is broad, she also does the famously beautiful and high-end jewelry retailer Bailey Banks & Biddle. I love the symmetry she’s created with the architectural elements.

These are shots from her work Princess Cruise lines. These spaces just scream exotic locales and luxury!

And, look at the gorgeous taupe she’s chosen for David Yurman. The look is so clean and sleek!

And of course, she does Barneys too (watch out Jack!)!

Study her work, you’ll see the spaces stamped with her signature, but convey the personality of her clients. Learn more about Brenda and her talent at http://brendahouston.com/.

I might not think about it when I shop, but the whole experience is absolutely sensory overload, and for me, pure escapism!

Suzanne Kasler's New Soicher Marin Collection at Hickory Chair

2009-05-31T10:53:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are the images of the second Suzanne Kasler for Soicher Marin collection as seen in the Hickory Chair showroom in High Point, North Carolina. Her space was, as expected, gorgeous! But then that whole showroom is such an inspiration. I don’t know how Ron Fiore gets it all done!

You can see all of the Suzanne Kasler for Soicher Marin collection at http://soicher-marin.com/designer-collections/suzanne-kasler.

Suzanne’s first Soicher Marin collection featured a series of oversized horse bit prints that we made from two antique prints she had. We took the individual bits, blew them up, and they are striking.

For her spring 2009 launch, we did a few more of the oversized prints and a new composite print with bits and shoes! In the chic, lounge-like set up of this room, they are gorgeous with her Montview Mirror (http://www.hickorychair.com/product_detail.aspx?i=5222) for Hickory Chair. All together it’s very chic, very Hermes.

In the same room, she hung the Paris city map over the sofa and put some of the new antique maps we did right on the windows. I love how she uses art so unconventionally.

This little room is so cozy—I could live in here! It could be the most darling studio apartment ever. The tone-on-tone palette is so appealing and the room is just so lovely. These oversized garden plans are new for her collection. I love the strong graphic quality. I also love that she hung this one horizontally, and across the room she propped the other up vertically—more of that unconventional use of art!

Of course these darling little watercolors are also part of her line from the first collection she did with Soicher Marin.

To round out the studio living space is the sleeping area. If I could live in a place this gorgeous I would make the twin-sized bed work! The framed textiles are from Suzanne’s first collection.

The de’Gournay wall covering really is the art feature in this room, and it’s gorgeous!

Next time, I’ll show you some of Mariette’s collection at the Hickory Chair showroom. Check back soon!

Fantastic Film and Fabulous Art...oh so Indiscreet

2009-05-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I saw the tail end of a terribly romantic movie featuring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and a GORGEOUS set. It was pure glamour and I made it my business to find the movie, Indiscreet.

And when I did, I watched it over and over again, pausing to stare at the gorgeous apartment design and Bergman’s couture gowns. The story itself is charming. Anna Kalman, a famous actress (Bergman), tired of an endless stream of lackluster men (sound familiar?), meets the man of her dreams, Philip Adams (Grant), a charming, handsome, debonair, diplomat. Sadly, or so it would seem, he’s married. Throwing caution to the wind, the two engage in a scandalously, passionate affair which does nothing to tarnish their destiny as soul mates. In actuality Grant is NOT married, but only pretending to be so that he can avoid a commitment (I mean really). The story has lots more charm and wit, but what I want to talk about is the set design, which only enhances the folly of the film. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any movie stills, so I took some shots of my television screen.

The majority of the film takes place in Anna’s London apartment, one with a distinctive European flair and Parisian essence. Modest in its proportions, the architectural accents and art make the small space appear larger than life. Central to most scenes in the movie are two collections of black and white sketches, framed with vibrant, candy-colored mattes and simple moldings. The collections flank a beautiful limestone fireplace and an antique landscape painting—that juxtaposition imparts a real sense of confidence in Anna’s style. I sure wish I knew who the set designer was………

That’s not really how the movie ends, but you’ll need to watch it and see! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051773/

More love!

2009-04-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Danielle, I hope you're reading my blog (you are a blog watcher aren't you???), because we're putting the Melbourne Collection on your glass porch! Maybe we should do two ottomans with trays and two with cushions? Or we could get four of each and switch them out for entertaining? That Mariette--genious for keeping everything fresh. And, if we did an outdoor fabric, the boys could spill anything on them!!

More Love, Love, Love

2009-04-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, back to more of Mariette's new collection for Hickory Chair--the Porter Divan is so great! I love the clean lines and hardware detail on the end. Daisy likes it too....Is this amazing Montauk bed part of Hickory Chair's made-to-measure program?? Because my darling dog Daisy wants it for herself! This is total 1940s, Hollywood Glamour--no wonder Daisy loves it!

I may have to call in a favor to Ron Fiore. Daisy looks awfully cute in that dog bed...um, I mean, Mariette's gorgeous new upholstered bed!

Love, Love, Love

2009-04-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air and so is LOVE! I love market--everything is new, fresh, fabulous, and exciting--and full of possibility! I love Hickory Chair. I love Ron Fiore, Hickory Chair's creative director. I love their designer collections (Suzanne Kasler as you all know), but Mariette Himes Gomez' collection is another of my favorites. And Mariette has a line of art with Soicher Marin. I just got to see a few of Mariette's new pieces--I LOVE them! Check out the Carrie Chair! It is so sophisticated, completely befitting of my favorite Sex in the City character--Carrie Bradshaw!

I love the blend of upholstery and wood....it's very architectural...the view from the back is as interesting as the front! What a great blend of clean lines and graceful curves. Maybe I'll use this in my sister's new Santa Barbara house! I think we'll put them in the breakfast room with these new Soicher Marin additions:

Gotta get back to Soicher Marin--check back for more about my LOVE of all this fabulous design at market.

As Promised, More Of Soicher Marin's New Collection...

2009-04-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Morning is my favorite time of day, as long as it starts with a latte....

These graphic black and white prints are so glamorous:

These lovely pieces have an old-world charm.

Soicher Marin's New Additions

2009-04-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

Of the 400+ new pieces in the spring collection, these are just a few of my favorites. Graphic and color saturated--

I am a huge fan of black and white photography. Breakfast in bed anyone?

I do love market, but not as much as I love the beach! This reminds me of the fabulous 14 days I spent in Palm Springs. Total bliss!

Check back soon for some more previews of the new line! These are all available for purchase and you can always see more at http://www.soicher-marin.com/!

Soicher Marin at High Point

2009-04-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

We are ready to go to High Point, North Carolina for the furniture market that opens next week. With more than 400 new pieces debuting, as well as designer Suzanne Kasler's second collection, there's a lot of buzz! See you at market!

Cool, Calm, and Reflective

2009-04-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

This room is hot! It oozes glamour and sophistication, and I can't be sure if it's traditional or modern, but I like it! It's as if someone started with a layer of the chalkiest white, layered a grayish white over it, and continued layering shades of white and gray strategically, all the way to those stunning platinum curtains and the artwork.

The room does have these gorgeous gold metallics too--the mirror, the sconces, the chandelier, that darling cocktail table, and I love the layered look of those framed intaglios to the left of the mantle.

and there's more gold here too, accenting the room like jewelry, in that darling antique painting and the reliquaries, the golden tones of the gorgeous burled-wood chest, and that column with the sphere on the top.....and then with the chalky whites that lead to the grays.... This artwork is awesome--and has those same silver and gold tones....and there's designer Suzanne Kasler's signature chair--the Alexandra from Hickory Chair--with its quatrefoil shaped back....

and here again is another signature Suzanne Kasler piece, her Quatrefoil floor lamp from Visual Comfort...

By now you should have figured it out--this room is Suzanne Kasler's--it has all the hallmarks of her work--a white backdrop, transitional pieces, a collected mix....it was her design for the Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles Christmas Showhouse in 2008, and I loved it before I even knew it was hers! I just found out she has a book coming out this fall with Rizzoli. It's called Inspired Interiors, and like this room, I want it!

Soicher Marin Custom Artwork Featured in Traditional Home

2009-03-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about my job is working with clients to create custom artwork. It is so satisfying to start with a simple concept--a Montauk beach house or a Moroccan-themed room--and to translate it into fine art that is a true and inspired complement to the design.

At the suggestion of Keith Granet of Granet & Associates, super agent to the stars of interior design, Amanda Nisbet contacted Soicher Marin to work up a collection of artwork for Traditional Home magazine's Oceans 33 Showhouse Showdown. Amanda came to our LA studio and we had such a good time collaborating. Our team immediately had a sense of what she was all about just by taking one look at her—she has the most chic sense of style. She showed up in a couture leopard-print dress, fabulous Christian Louboutin heels, and her bright green eyes and gorgeous auburn hair were the most perfect accessories. She challenged our creative process and the results were just as chic and beautiful as she is.

Amanda had a vision of what her ocean-front condominium would be and it involved her bold use of color as a foil to the stunning panoramic ocean views of the property. Nisbet is the first person to tell you that she is no enemy of color, and I was so excited to work with her and her team. Her overall concept took its cue from the sand and sea, but really upped the ante with bold shades of watermelon, chartreuse and the richest Prussian blue. While most of the furniture and fixtures grounded the space in sandy, golden neutrals, details and artwork—our project—brought in the glistening and bold reflections the ocean provides. Read the article at http://www.traditionalhome.com/design_decorating/showhouses/oceans-showhouse_ss1.html.

Everyone loves a map, but what I love about Amanda’s style is that she has such a strong sensibility of what her look is. She took a typical map of Long Island, one that you might see framed as an antique print, and we silhouetted and recolored it to work with her design concept. You don’t have to study it very hard to see that it is indeed Long Island, but with its contrasting colors and mass the piece doubles as a contemporary painting, providing a strong graphic image for the room.

These mirror seaweed pieces have turned out to be so popular—a signature look for this show house. Tracy Hiner from our office pulled all of our antique seaweed prints from our archives, maybe about 200 of them, and we silk screened them onto antiqued mirror to create these gorgeous pieces that have the same aquatic, reflective quality as the ocean.

Amanda was using a saturated purples and greens for the bedroom—so that’s what we used on the seaweed.

The charming sculptural pieces in Lizzie’s bathroom are our interpretations of Asian metal work. We painted them bright white and mounted them on hot pink linen to set off the details.

In the “B. Happy” room, we used these amazing prints found at the Santa Monica flea market. Katrin from Voila Gallery (one of my favorites—it’s at 518 North La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles and you can also see their collection online at www.1stdibs.com) had these funny, caricature images that were from French Moroccan plays from the 30s and 40s. Tracy separated the images and enlarged them, framing them in bright white frames against vibrant orange mattes. The strong lines against the navy walls provide an architectural element, and those faces, well, they really are happy!

Working with Nisbet’s team was just that—happy! And I think they felt the same way. On collaborating with the Soicher Marin tea m Amanda said, “Working with Soicher-Marin is not work it is pure creative play. They can create and assemble anything your imagination can dream up. They have a vast knowledge of art and a boundless library of original work. They are equipped to meet any request in an expedient and professional manner. The process is perfection from inception to delivery.”
I hope we have a chance to work together again soon!

Naturally we were thrilled to see the project featured in the March 2009 issue of Traditional Home. It was also so exciting to see another of my favorite designers, Suzanne Kasler, featured on the cover http://www.traditionalhome.com/design_decorating/howwelive/young-at-heart_ss1.html. Suzanne has a line of art with Soicher Marin and we’ve just put the finishing touches on her Spring 2009 collection that we’ll be unveiling in High Point, North Carolina. Check back on my blog for a preview of her collection—it promises to inspire!

Suzanne Kasler's Art Collection for Soicher Marin

2009-03-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to see one of my favorite blogs--http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2009/03/art-in-design.html--feature the work of one of my favorite designers--Suzanne Kasler--on one of my favorite topics--art! I think part of Suzanne's appeal is that her work seems accessible and we can relate to it. I can see myself living in her spaces and I can see components of her work working in my home.

Ed Marin and I were so delighted to work with Suzanne to develop a line of art that reflects her unique sensibility that blends classic and modern, color and texture, old and new, and so much more. Her Soicher Marin collection debuted at the High Point spring 2008 market. We're working on her collection for this spring, so I thought I'd share some of her pieces of her existing collection. Of course, you can view the whole Suzanne Kasler for Soicher Marin collection at http://www.soicher-marin.com/.

Suzanne came to us with a pair of antique horse bit prints. Though she had never framed them herself, she loved the equestrian theme, the bold pattern and French blue in the prints. We interpreted the prints into a collection of 14 pieces that add a pedigree to any space. Suzanne used the collection as the inspiration for her Design on a Dime space featured in Real Simple magazine, shown above.

Being the Francophile she is, of course we had to include Suzanne's version of the antique map of Paris! It looks like something you could bring back from le marché aux puces de St-Ouen, the fabulous Paris Flea Market!

Suzanne collects miniature rooms and paintings, so naturally these gorgeous French interpretations are part of the collection.

Among my favorites are renderings of her work, which may be the only way I can have a Suzanne Kasler room in my house!
We collaborated to create these amazing shell-surrounded bits of coral. We mounted them on antique parchment and put them with either a blue or a rust matte.

Here you can see where Suzanne used the blue matte in her Hickory Chair showroom for the launch of her furniture collection (image courtesy of Hickory Chair). These framed batik prints were used in Suzanne's beach house on the Gulf of Mexico. Her beach house, called Casa Blanca, was completely white, allowing the art to take center stage.

As I've mentioned before, I am a sucker for a little bird. These darling song bird prints are so classically European!

Suzanne is just one of four design superstars who has designed a collection for us. Mariette Himes Gomez, Barclay Butera, and Jamie Drake have equally as stunning collections. Check out http://www.soicher-marin.com/ and watch for details about the rest of our spring collection launching next month in High Point, North Carolina.

To order any of these prints, please call Soicher Marin at 310 679 5000 or sales@soicher-marin.com.

Addicted to Color!

2009-02-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

I am simply in love with these whimsical, colorful prints I found on http://www.etsy.com/!

I couldn't help but to go to her website http://www.hadleyhutton.com/ and am totally enthralled. Self described as Addicted to Color, Hutton's use of color is so distinct and makes me think of candy wrappers....and I am a total sucker for a little bird. Her artwork has a vintage feel and I wish I could wallpaper my sunroom in it! Can you tell I have a little spring fever?