Ambiance Part I - Tony Duquette

Every great tale needs the perfect setting and so does every great life. In French ambiance can mean, surroundings in its simplest translation. But ambiance is one of those words in French that means many things from the tangible to the intangible such as the fineness of a table napkin to a feeling in the air - to the obvious (the best champagne) and the more subtle (mood lighting).

Ambiance even comes with it's own unique problem - the lack of ambiance. If someone says, ça manque d'ambiance ici that means going elsewhere until the ambiance is just perfect. If Goldilocks had been French she would have risen from the first two beds because they lacked ambiance. 

The easiest way to create ambiance is through decor. Its what makes walking into a beautifully decorated room feel like entering into a sanctuary. Sometimes if you're really lucky you get to walk into another world. I imagine that is how it must have felt to walk into a room decorated by Tony Duquette.

Duquette started in stage and set design and was discovered by tastemaker Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, who is often credited as the inventor of interior design as a profession. As well as being a Lady of high society in New York, London, et Paris – she was also an actress, authoress, and of course an interior decorator.

Elsie in her later years.

Elsie brought the salons and ballrooms of her wealthy clientele out of the dreary Victorian age by dragging it back to a more 18^th century French aesthetic, but her hatred of Victorian décor had its roots in her obviously cruel mother who often told Elsie she was ugly, but “just what ugly was she (Elsie’s mother) did not know”.

One day Elsie returned home from school to see her parents had redecorated the drawing room.

“She ran [in]... and looked at the walls, which had been papered in a William Morris design of gray palm-leaves and splotches of bright red and green on a background of dull tan. Something terrible that cut like a knife came up inside her. She threw herself on the floor, kicking with stiffened legs, as she beat her hands on the carpet.... she cried out, over and over: "It's so ugly! It's so ugly.”

Thusly Elsie developed a lifelong hatred of Victorian furniture and perhaps it might explain why she wrote her autobiography, from which the above story was taken, in the third person.

A room decorated by William Morris.

A room decorated by Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl.

Elsie helped Tony get his first gigs decorating for her friends and he had an amazing career – and life. Tony not only did film sets for Vincent Minelli, designed jewelry - he was also the first American artist to be honoured with a one man showing at le Louvre.

What I love about Duquette’s work is he dumpster dived and was fearless. He was the original Do-It-Yourselfer and he was no snob. He happily put 18^th century tapestries next to some crazy wood thing he’d spray painted gold. His greatest accomplishment though was his house, Dawnridge.

There a great blog with more pictures of Duquette's rooms here.

Now even for me a house that was wall to wall in the spirit of Tony Duquette would be a little too much, but juste. My main complaint would be that I wouldn't know how to fit some of my favourite types of design elements into the oppulence of such a room.

I'd love to find a way to mix my grandmother's antiques, my love for jazzing things à la Duquette, and my love for order, the Bauhaus movement, and industrial furniture because when I look at photos of Dawnridge, I can't see a Barcelona chair and matching ottoman feeling at home in such a room.

And I'm not such a fan of such exacting symmetry as you can see in the second photo above. Looking down the room it becomes obvious starting with the two plant stands to the two chairs and even to the two matching purple pillows.

But like I said ambiance can be obvious and most importantly when I look at pictures of Tony's house I cannot imagine for one second that it wouldn't be a perfect setting for a fabulous life. Maybe not mine specifically, but it was the fabulous setting for Tony's own life.

Stay tuned for Part II where I show you the inside of one of my dream houses. It's not going to be what you expect...