I ♥ Your Country Style: Amanda Harlech

We've all seen and admired Amanda Harlech in her Chanel. As Karl Lagerfeld's muse, we see her at every Chanel event wearing the most enviable dress with her hair just messy enough to be cool but still look chic. For the most part, this is her Paris life where she spends her professional time. But what really intrigues me is her England life, her private world that she has graciously shared with us through Vogue, Vogue Living, etc over the years. Further research offered up a more candid side of Amanda's highly personal life and style. It's obvious that at her core, she is truly very English - loving horses and whippets and AGAs and blankets draped over a sofa. Her look is traditional with a slash of the bold and extreme. If only we all looked so good in plaid!

Trial and Error: Home Edition

I find home decorating to be total torture. The end result is often satisfying, but I am stupefied by the process. Everything I have learned about dressing myself has come through trial and error, but when it comes to dressing your home, mistakes are prohibitively expensive. The biggest mistake I made happened when we first moved to our apartment on the lower east side in 2001. I approached my whole house as I would an outfit, based almost entirely on where my color/print/trend tastes were at at that time. Although it took nearly two years to come together, I was pleased with the end result. For a few months. But as my fashion point of view moved on, my hot pink wall to wall rug and loud African prints began to shout all the wrong things at me. Finally, in the past year, I began to take steps towards trying again. My goal was to be way more classic, with a touch of earthiness. I toned the girliness way down, and added warmth to the more masculine colors with lots of texture - morrocan rugs, embroidered pillowcases, and fur pillows. I only got my bedroom done before deciding to live in England for a year, and abandoning the project all together, for now. Here's a peek at the result:

                                                                                        

A month to go.....

My time in New York is dwindling down, as we are a month away from our year-long sabbatical in England. This week I am heading out to our beach house in Long Island to get it ready for our renters. One of the things I will miss most this coming year is the summer on the North Fork. There is no better mental separation from the work week than arriving at our house late on Friday night and walking down to the beach to hear the waves and see the moon shining on the water. Our house was built in 1949 by the Sardi family - yes, as in Sardi's restaurant. It is classic mid-century modern (with a few less charming 70's additions), but it is not fancy - just about every surface perpetually needs a new coat of paint, the bathrooms could easily benefit from renovation and we haven't gotten around to rebuilding the ugly brick staircase in the front yard. But in fact, it's the imperfections that make the house so easy to enjoy - kids can run through the house in sandy feet and plop down on the couch in wet bathing suits, and it forces me to not to put on my "creative director"cap and try to make everything look exactly as I would want it to. I hope I remember that when I am setting up home in England.