Product Description

Gaufraged leather, a hand-painted porcelain tassel, silk-embroidered cushions on a Louis XIV chair, parquet de Versailles flooring, handcarved book cases. It is the details that transform spaces into eclectic and inspiring environments for living. In an elegant and innovative volume, Charlotte Moss invites us on a lavish tour of every component of a home. From breakfast rooms to powder rooms, sconces to centerpieces, Moss shares her ideas on living graciously, entertaining with exuberance, and expressing refined glamour. Room by room, accent by accent, A Flair for Living is an inspirational design book like none other, presented in an oversized luxury format with original photography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33679 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 170 pages

Customer Reviews

Gorgeous rooms, but extremely grand and over the top
I've been a great fan of Charlotte Moss interior design (beginning with my exposure to her Lexington Avenue shop in the 1980's/1990's) and books from her very first, Passion for Detail, published in 1991. Her last, Flair for Living, is a beautiful, over-sized coffee table book with spectacular photos of rooms she designed for her newest home (New York City townhouse) and others she designed for clients.

While I recommend this book based on the gorgeous photos of absolutely stunning rooms, I am a little disappointed because I feel her style has over time become extremely grand and essentially beyond anything anyone who is not exceptionally wealthy could possibly hope to achieve. (As she, herself, states throughout this and earlier books, she is married to a very high-profile investment banker -- he is named in all of her books and, if you're curious, do a Google search!).

There is quite a lot a name-dropping in Flair for Living and more than a little ego. Unlike her earlier books (for example, Passion for Detail, Creating a Room, Winter House), Flair for Living, cannot really be seen as a "how to" book, unless one's resources are quite unlimited. The text is full of references to her purchases of fabulous furniture, one-of-a-kind collector's items, accessories and art once owned by, for example, Jackie Kennedy, Doris Duke, the Duchess of Windsor, famous decorators Nancy Lancaster, Elsie DeWolfe, Madeline Castaing -- even Marie Antoinette! Her life-style -- the "Flair for Living" that is the title of this book -- does not come cheap: she writes in the impeccably landscaped garden of her New York City townhouse, she has a "drawing room" full of Louis XVI furniture, she entertains in a dining room with floors that are "antique parquet de Versailles, salvaged from a chateau in France", she has a "breakfast room" with a domed ceiling painted with morning glories, she sleeps in a luxuriously curtained "lit a la Polonaise", she bathes by the candle-light emanating from gilt-bronze candlesticks, in a specially commissioned free-standing polished nickel tub, bath towels stacked nearby on an antique gilt-wood chair, and so on. Nothing is beyond her resources and the book is full of references to custom-designed items ("Sometimes I can't find the kind of mirror I want, so I'll have it made".) But her taste is impeccable; her eye (for example, "custom-made embroidery on the pale green silk faille covering an eighteen-century French fauteuil") is a sharp as her as her pockets are deep.

Do you detect a note of envy on my part? Of course, you do and I freely admit it -- my fantasy is to have a home designed by Charlotte Moss, but a fantasy it will be until I'm a sole Powerball lottery winner (a mere million or two would be inadequate!). Bottom line: buy this book as you might buy a coffee table book on Versailles -- with photos to dazzle and delight the eye, to sigh or salivate over, but not for real inspiration in decorating your own home -- unless your financial position allows it (in which case, you may as well go ahead and hire her to do it for you!).

Where is the inspiration?
A Flair for Living is indeed an exquisite book! However, it lacked the magic and visceral emotions of her earlier works. This is a product of grandiose interiors, name dropping provenances of her collection and a "flair" for conspicious consumption.
I have all of her books, but none moved me like A Passion for Detail. In this book she sprinkled her decorative thoughts with memories from her Southern family, and encouraged her reader to be resourceful with collecting ideas as she with "clippings and files she kept under her bed and desk and in "leased" space in her husband's library," and to be creative and "Maybe you'll turn grandma's vase into a lamp or display your collection of clay circus animals..."
At an earlier time of her life she was a passionate, breathless, new cache in her field and empowered the reader with such passion.

Real Antiques, Faux Flair
Moss is really good at the visuals (and textures) of interiors, and she has what's clearly a reverence for the history of home and garden design. Both help create the richness of image and inspiration that are this book's primary appeal. Less attractively, she does seem out of touch, not only with ordinary folks but also with ordinary emotions. You'll get some gorgeous visuals for the steep cover price here, but be warned that there's nothing "lived in" about this "flair for living."

I don't think it is her wealth in and of itself that is the problem. Many home and garden writers (not to mention personalities in other fields) are wealthy and yet come across on the page as very emotionally present. (Plus, from the evidence within it Moss was already very well off when she created A Passion for Detail, her warmest and most generous book.) For me, the dollars and cents don't really matter.

What does matter is warmth, which this book never really offers. Moss uses the cataloging of antiques, objects, purchases, historic influences, travel, famous inspirations, etc., etc. etc. as a way to wall herself off--it's a lavish fortress of sorts, as is the home itself. It's hard to tell who or what she would be without all this. In the end, the weird part about this book is that even when I loved a particular room or grouping or object, it didn't make me aspire to the lifestyle illustrated ...the formality and elaboration and old fashioned feeling of it all weren't attractive even when the objects themselves were.