i can while away the hours

madeleine castaing

bon soir everybody, i hope you had a good week and tgif!

i’ve got the apartment to myself for the next month and plan to make the most of it.

it’s weird when you get off track (my bf was here all week) and don’t remember where you quite left off. for that i always turn to the camera card and see where i was last. i forgot about my trip to palm beach the other day.

i’m working with a dealer who’s got fabulous stuff but no tech, so we’re working with my online shop and his great goodies!  this is the back room where  some pieces need work. he wants to put new mirror on this, says his clients don’t like that ‘old stuff’. i could have cried!

he knows where all the great estate sales and auctions are. i hope no one shines up this patina.

i’m a sucker for black lucite

and slipper chairs but ouch! the 80s upholstery on this 30s frame is so golden girls but i die for the lines!

another vintage mirrored vanity.  he wants to change this old mirror too but i say no!

he’s pretty frilly himself. this is behind his desk (above)

and he has a thing for pink chairs. me too.

as you can see this is a fairly girly region of our fair country. sometimes it can even feel a little sunset boulevard and i start to wonder if maybe it’s a bit much. but i do love fun, dramatic furniture.  i think about the ladies who used these pieces in the teens, (the flappers) twenties, (the vamps) thirties (glamor girls)!

total non sequitur: the shot below has been on my desktop since last week. it’s madeleine castaing from a new book about her that a friend mentioned. i know i should know her but know tragically little. turns out she loved  playful furniture and decor too and is someone i’d love to study.

(NOTE: i just realized this is not madeline! it’s Syrie-Maugham who i know even less about)! oh well it started a roll!

this is the new book out on her: World-Madeleine-Castaing

what a legend

.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/christopher-flach-filmmaker-and-photographer-is-featured-in-the-new-york-times-style-magazine-70641.php

Antique shop of Madeleine Castaing in Paris (7th arr.) at the corner of rue Bonaparte et Jacob

Juin 1960. © Roger-Viollet.  Photo by Francis Hammond for The New York Times

now a laudree

enfilade18thc.wordpress.com/category/marketplace-goods-services

apparently everything she touched was magic, her home, her store, interiors, even the shutters. this blue was her favorite.

topsyturvystyle.com/2009/04/magic-of-madeleine-castaing.html

i’ll have to dig into her legacy. she’s completely inspiring me!

littleaugury.blogspot.com/2010/08/emily-in-madeleines-world.html

incredible how everything is so refined

and exquisite

thestylesaloniste.com/2009/06/eternally-chic-french-antiquaire-and.html

Evans Eerdmans, author of Regency Redux, describes the Castaing look as a “unique blend of Neoclassicism, Proustian Romanticism, and pure wit.”

my girlfriends lynn and janet had a brush with greatness when the found a set of 6 of ms. castaing’s chairs at vignettes! but that’s another night. for now bonne nuit et bon weekend!

Don’t be intimidated by audacity.  Be audacious — but with taste… Don’t get taken in by fashion.  A secret: love your house; love makes miracles. – Madeleine Castaing