It's funny what and who influences you and leaves a life long impression. It was sometime in the 1980s when I was a girl flitting about town. A lovely friend named Carl George rang me up (yes we actually
talked on telephones then) and asked if I wanted to take a jaunt to Brooklyn Heights to visit a friend of his. I always called Carl the man with two first names. He was a highly creative type without any visible means of looking so posh.
 |
| My love for the antique settee is a direct result of seeing this one in the apartment of Jacques Dehornois - ditto for striped flat weave rugs, and columns used as interior decoration |
We arrived at the apartment of Jacques, a slim man with a sweet smile. He made me feel at ease. It was a large apartment decorated like nothing I had ever seen. After introductions, Carl and Jacques started looking at some drawings on a big table, and my eyes were left alone to wander a most incredible room. In fact it was the most beautiful and incredible apartment I had ever seen, and even after so many years of seeing so many incredible spaces, this one is still in a class by itself.
 |
| Carl George told me Jacques was a stylist and a decorator - This is a case study in great styling - I spy a Cy Twombley on the edge of the shot - genius |
About an hour later, Carl and I subwayed back to Manhattan. I asked about Jacques, and Carl said he was a great friend, a major talent, and a great stylist and decorator. Mind you, this was before I started styling, and something about that word caught my fancy. Like all great ones Jacques was very humble in his demeanor. You would never know he was working with Anna Wintour an up and coming editor and writer on homes and decorating, and fashion at New York Magazine. She wasn't Anna Wintour yet.
 |
| This daybed, and the striped sheets, especially the one hung on the wall made quite an impression on me - I have used fabric like this so many times like this thanks to seeing it in the apartment of Jacques Dehornois - and the gallery wall has inspired countless gallery walls of my own |
I never forgot the mix of antique and modern and vintage things in Jacques apartment. He was so ahead of his time as a decorator. I had never seen an architectural fragment, a column just stuck in the middle of things just for the beauty of it. So many things I saw that day are things I still love and use in my work today.
 |
| A perfectly styled and decorated room by Jacques Dehornois - thank you for mentoring me, even if you didn't know you were doing so |
The man with two first names moved to Los Angeles, and works as successful arbiter of style.
Jacques passed away five years ago.
Anna Wintour became a fashion icon. She said that Jacques Dehornois was the best decorator she ever met. I agree.
These photos have been around for awhile, published in House and Garden with photos by Francois Halard.
Get the look...
 |
| Jacques stacked books on two white antique chairs, but if you can't find something as fabulous I would use a pair of these vintage acrylic chairs |
