Notes on Purple
“I love it when I become interested in something that I have always hated - a color or a shape - and become willing to work with it. I tend to work against my own taste.”
Miuccia Prada
For a long time, I thought I hated purple. Maybe it’s because I dislike my birthstone - amethyst- which I’ve always thought was kind of a purpley durply drag. They sell hunks of it at stores where they also sell rain sticks and astronaut ice cream.
I listened to a podcast interviewing Alexa Hampton, who is a kind of royal in the interior design industry - her late father Mark Hampton decorated the White House when Bush Sr. was in residence. She was telling the story of her bedroom re-redecoration. After a long remodel that included merging apartments, and new decoration - she came to the end only to find that she didn’t like it. Oof.
It takes a lot of courage to admit something isn’t working, especially in the interior design practice because it’s really expensive if you get it wrong. Hampton was able to overhaul it because she was her own client. The results are nothing short of miraculous.
It is hands-down, one of my favorite bedrooms, and color palettes, I’ve ever seen in print. She actually changed very little which I think makes it even more incredible - the magic happened all because of color - purple. Turns out I don’t dislike purple. I just didn’t know how to use it.
Hampton layers it in thick and heavy; a shady aubergine, a piquant plum, their tonal adjacents, orange and pink. It’s a particularly fresh mix when you consider all the room’s neoclassical furnishings, detailing and artwork. I love it and it completely changed my mind.
Incidentally, she had the FIRST version of her bedroom PUBLISHED, in Architectural Digest no less! On the left; you can see how take one is…weak. I submit this as evidence for my argument to never employ this “pop of color” strategy. It is an HGTV buzz-phrase that pretends to be useful. Adding a small bit of color to a shitty design will only make it a shitty design with a small bit of color. You have to consider the whole damn thing and commit because when you do - you get a sumptuous, serene, noble bedroom - a sea of expertly deployed purples.
