Product Description

Old-world Hollywood glamour embraces modern insouciance in the signature style of internationally acclaimed interior designer Kelly Wearstler. Never one to paint a wall simply white, in her creations Wearstler uses bold colors and patterns and mixes elaborate architectural hardware with furnishings culled from a range of eras. In Modern Glamour, she reveals her decorating secrets and dramatic approach to design.

From basic design principles to personal accents, this gorgeously photographed book explains how Wearstler shapes interiors and exteriors into ingeniously functional environments. A survey of many of her most stunning projects provides ideal examples of bringing what she calls "the elegance of the unexpected" to life in any setting. Whether it is juxtaposing typically masculine and feminine design notions to infuse a room with edge and energy, or using embellishments to put a thematic mark on a room. Wearstler's essentials on design will inspire professional designers and aspiring home decorators alike.

For those who wish to discover how decorative visions can become luxuriant realities, Modern Glamour offers clear and enjoyable guidance on the art of creating seductively stylish spaces.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54257 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Released on: 2004-03-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bold, complex, decadent, dizzying, rich, colorful: Wearstler’s residential and hotel designs are not for the faint of heart. The founder of the Los Angeles "architectural interior design" firm KWID worked as a Hollywood set designer before she decided to focus on real-life living spaces, and her vibrant, multi-layered interiors still look like backdrops for drama. In this design cum promotional book, Wearstler explains her aesthetic philosophy and lays out suggestions for those readers who would like to emulate her "unusual and kaleidoscopic" style, which graces such famous California hotels as the Viceroy, Estella and Maison 140. Certainly, the book’s large, full-bleed color photographs do justice to the variety of her creations. One two-page spread showcases a bathroom tiled in maroon, pink and white stripes and lit with a dainty glass and gold chandelier. Another shows a cool, all-white bedroom decorated with a silver bamboo chair and a black wood bedframe. Wearstler encourages readers to stop thinking about rooms in terms of furniture and accessories and to start imagining them as combinations of color, texture, shape and form. This, she writes, is the secret to creating a "graphic style … that lends itself to crispness and richness that make you say ‘Wow.’" While there’s no firm, step-by-step advice in the volume—a chapter on "Process" does little more than describe her office’s client meetings—the photographs and the author’s attitude will surely inspire amateurs who are looking for a design style that goes beyond Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Ikea.
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About the Author
Kelly Wearstler has used her playful, colorful sense of aesthetics to decorate a number of trendy interiors, including the Maison 140 and Avalon hotels in Beverly Hills and countless upscale California residences, such as those of Ben Stiller and Jeanne Tripplehorn. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Customer Reviews

Kelly, deliver us from beige!

If you bought all the "Trading Spaces" books, or worship at the altar of Christopher Lowell and Nate Berkus, then this is probably NOT the book for you. This is not a helpful hints, step-by-step book, or a book of designer secrets. It's the edgy boutique hotel of decorating books, not the Hilton.

It's a book of inspiration. Wearstler's interiors show the rewards of having patience and searching for the absolute perfect color, perfect item, perfect chair. She shows how to twist tradition with a blend of unusual pieces, unexpected finishes, and wild patterns and colors.

Every time I pick this up I find a quirky detail in one of the rooms. Whether it's a ceramic dog positioned to be peeking over the back of a sofa, or a large black tassel hanging from a brass door handle, or a lacquered wall. All stuff I'd usually cringe at, but here done with the author's wit, and it works.

You may not wish to have any of that in your home, but I bet you'll start finding the courage to display more than just a Crate and Barrel vase on the coffee table.

What a FUN book!
As a designer myself, this book was a great read. No, it is not an instructional book on how to decorate, but more of a personal portfolio of this designer's very stylish work. Ms. Wearstler is a very talented designer in that she has developed a very strong style that is recognizable among today's design work. As for the pictures of Ms. Wearstler herself, I very much enjoyed them, because her style of clothing absolutely reflected the glamour of the interiors she designs. I would say not to get this book if you know nothing about design, but read this book if you appreciate visual design that is unique and very bold. Congratulations Kelly Wearstler on showing us what personal style is all about!

Are Kelly and Jonathan The Same Person?
Is Kelly Wearstler Jonathan Adler in drag? Or vice versa? Both are wildly talented people, who just happen to use the same things in their work, same colors, etc. Jonathan is an artist, who adoringly references and copycats retro pottery, and makes it unqiuely his own. Kelly is a cool chick, good dresser, has tons of style and can make a pretty room out of old glam junk and ideas. I love them both, and their books are worth having. I wish Kelly had more personal rooms. Too many hotel rooms which are very stagey. In the book she says she didn't like doing set design, yet that's what she does - designs sets for cool people like her to inhabit. Hollywood Regency is the word bandied about to describe both Jonathan & Kelly, he sometimes getting the East coast moniker of Palm Beach Style too (and she the West coast of Palm Springs). I say if you shop on eBay you will see all this great junk (just search Hollywood Regency) that I call eBay Regency. Both books give you a few ideas of how to put it together. Jonathan is more playful, Kelly more serious, but both make wonderful, zany, colorful, retro inspired modern human rooms. I think they bring back the words INTERIOR DECORATOR, so refreshing after everyone and his mother is a DESIGNER (used to be everyone's mother was a station wagon driving decorator with a business on the side). I wonder if these two have ever met, and if so do they like one another, or are they really the same person?
By the way get his book too, if you don't already have it JONATHAN ADLER PRESCRIPTION FOR ANTI DEPRESSIVE LIVING - they have it here at Amazon.