Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Catalog Comment: RH - Tragically hip but big at least...


I was pleasantly surprised and a bit startled by the new Restoration Hardware catalog and their newest "Spring" collection. Mostly because the Versailled chairs featured on the front (above) are lusciously over-the-top - jaunty from one angle, hunky from another - I fell in love when I saw them and blogged about it at Vegas Market last February. I hope RH had the guts to buy (v.s. copy for cheap in Asia) them from Noir Furniture & their lovely designer whom that I met at that show - a sexy French guy with a great eye for bold, ostentatious-yet-masculine pieces, whose name now escapes me - chalk it up to mommy brain.
As a rule, I hate catalogs - they make it seem way too easy & a bit contrived but I like the direction RH is going - they have been the predictably bland straddler between Ethan Allen and Pottery Barn - lots of oversized furniture, not much personality. Everything in the catalog seemed to say, "Upper East Side Impersonal." This new catalog is much more quasi-personal, much more curatorial. The lighting and other accessories are gigantic and bold - the pieces are statement making. The large 108"salvaged-wood trestle table is gorgeous, even if you need a barn for a dining room to fit it in your house. Maybe because I'm in the oversized-person catagory at 6'1", I just like big things - big babies, big furniture, big is better with almost everything. Pricing for RH is high but not higher given this twist in direction.

Spaces created solely from this catalog would be a bit precious and honestly, it would be much more fun to create a room and thus search for REAL architecturally-salvaged items, but I give an A for effort in terms of showing decorated rooms that are louder and bolder than any others in the stack of catalogs that visit my doorstep weekly.

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