P. GAYE TAPP’S HOW THEY DECORATED: INSPIRATON FROM GREAT WOMEN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

I am thrilled to share fellow interior designer and blogger P. Gaye Tapp’s tremendous Rizzoli tome, How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century. It was so entirely captivating, I simply could not put it down. I read the entire book in one sitting!

Elsa Schiaparelli Paris Apartment – Goodman

Like her blog Little Augury, Tapp’s book is a celebration of many of the most epic style makers and icons of the 20th century, with a focus on interior design and decoration. The maverick women included within these glorious pages were not content to slavishly follow the trends of the day, preferring instead to realize their own unique, all-inclusive visions. It is always inspiring to take a look back to another time, when people created beautiful and considered settings in which to enjoy the good life (replete with equally fabulous clothes, and spectacular collections of course!).

Babe Paley, WIlliam P. Steel, Sister Parish Design

I love the quotation from Gloria Vanderbilt that Tapp shares: “Decorating is autobiography.” It brings to mind the many times my mentor Albert Hadley would refer to decoration as a scrapbook. Truly Tapp’s women were highly developed aesthetes,and their homes were and expression of their lives and elevated connoisseurship.

From How they Decorate…

I’m certain you’ll enjoy this super chic collection of women – Evangeline Bruce, Mona von Bismark, Pauline de Rothschild, Babe Pale, Bunny Mellon to name a few. How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century is certain to delight and inform – and perhaps encourage one’s own design aspirations.

A must read – put it on your reading list!