Collecting
John Rosselli is one of my favorites. LOVE LOVE his style and way he encourages people to develop their own. Check out this article that was in Elle Decor (www.elledecor.com to see full article). Maybe it will give you some ideas, or encourage you to push the envelop a bit.
John Rosselli on Collecting
The home furnishing and antique collector imparts his wisdom
Written by Ingrid Abramovitch • Styled by Quy Nguyen • Photographed by Bjorn Wallander
Babe Paley was a regular customer, and interior designer Bunny Williams was so smitten with his good taste that she married him. Almost 60 years after John Rosselli opened his first shop in Manhattan, he presides over a thriving home furnishings empire that includes stores and showrooms filled with antiques, accessories, fabric, reproduction furniture, and lighting. In his charmingly diverse world, 18th-century chests mix with rusted barn siding, and inexpensive hurricane lamps mingle with Chinese porcelain. “Nothing makes me happier,” Rosselli says, “than finding some great, unusual, and amusing thing.”
Mix and Match
• I’m known for a truly eclectic mixture of furniture and objects. I buy what I like. It all comes together.
• I like furniture to have a little extra kick to it—a Portuguese influence on an English chair, or Irish furniture, which is a little bit flamboyant and cavalier. A wonderful midcentury coffee table, a fantastic mirror, or a pair of klismos chairs can be incorporated into any setting.
• Bring accessories from any part of the house and put them on the dining room table. Line up four or five blue-and-white vases and fill them with daisies. Go to Chinatown and buy Asian soup bowls, each one a different pattern, and place them on top of white china. Combine your grandmother’s china with contemporary plates. Mix and match.
Five Decorating Essentials
• A pair of side chairs. Put them on either side of a console or chest of drawers. Don’t go for the obvious—a pair of spindly Victorian chairs beside an antique chest. Instead, try a couple of cane-backed contemporary ones. It’s a wonderful look.
• A good mirror, unusual and oversize. Don’t be afraid of scale—take it right up to the ceiling. It elevates a room.
• Sconces. Go to Crate & Barrel—they have wonderful bronze ones.
• A rug. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Try Indian dhurries or plain sisal. A small Oriental on top of sisal is a great look.
• Candlesticks. Mix five or six kinds—glass, brass, silver—on a table. They don’t have to be in pairs.
Artful Arranging
• I like massing objects. I’m known for blue-and-white porcelain. A group of boxes—small, large—looks great on a table. At our house in Punta Cana, we collect white porcelain objects—ducks, chickens, fruit. Buy things individually, and before you know it you’ve got a collection.
• It’s been years since I’ve recovered a sofa. That’s because I have dogs. I simply wrap chairs and sofa cushions in fabric or in Indian cotton bedspreads. Or buy a sheet that’s the same color as the sofa, wrap it around the cushions, and throw it in the wash when it gets dirty.
• When you travel, bring something back. Turkey is like a treasure chest. I just got back from Lebanon, where I bought blown-glass bottles.
• Treat a garden like a room. Use objects—an urn, a seat, a small table where you can sit and have a drink. I love hurricane lamps. And today they make the most beautiful plastic dinnerware.
• Layer a cocktail table with objects: a box, candlesticks, a small sculpture. You want to give people something to pick up and fondle.