Jonathan Adler Goes To The Dogs

Cute dogs and cute shoes.


This is the concept for these portraits.


Kind of a cool idea. No worry about age, or being pretty or not - that is, no worry for the humans ha ha.

It helps if you have good legs and cute shoes. The dogs don't have have a thing to worry about.

For Immediate Release from the Jonathan Adler store in New York:

"We’re thrilled to introduce Charity de Meer’s “Pet Project” portrait photography.

The style: Art interpreted through the filter of Charity de Meer’s brilliant lenses. Your favorite shoes and your favorite pet photographed from the waist down.

The one-of-a-kindness: It doesn’t get more personal than a portrait of your faithful companion and you.

The availability: Featured photographs are available for purchase at Jonathan Adler New York City and Miami retail locations: http://www.jonathanadler.com/ for store information. For inquiries about commissioned portraits, please contact 877-287-1910. "

VV Here: I hate to be snarky, but I think you could do this type of cute photo yourself. Get a cute pair of shoes, grab the pooch, and get a friend to snap the photo.

Congratulations Mr. and Mr. Adler-Doonan!

From The New York Times:

Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler

Published: September 19, 2008

Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler were married Thursday evening at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco. Howard Steiermann, a minister of the Universal Ministries, officiated at a ceremony that included Jewish traditions.

Mr. Doonan (left), 55, is the creative director of Barneys New York. He is also a columnist for The New York Observer and the author of four books, including “Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You” (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Next month, the BBC will broadcast a comedy series based on his memoir. He graduated from Manchester University.

Mr. Doonan is the son of the late Betty Doonan, who lived in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and the late Terry Doonan, who lived in Hove, England. His parents both worked for the BBC; his mother was a clerk in the news department and his father monitored foreign broadcasts.

Mr. Adler, 42, is a potter, an interior decorator and an owner of home furnishing and design stores bearing his name. He is also the head judge on “Top Design,” a reality series on the Bravo network. He graduated from Brown.

Mr. Adler is a son of Cynthia Adler of New York and the late Harry R. Adler. His mother was a lawyer at his father’s law practice in Bridgeton, N.J.

Mr. Doonan and Mr. Adler met in November 1994 on a blind date arranged by a mutual friend.

“The bloke who set us up just had some intuition that we would hit it off,” Mr. Doonan said. And they did, for the most part. “He’s very good-looking, charming and funny,” he said. But ...

“He badgered me with lots of direct questions,” Mr. Doonan said. “In England people wouldn’t ask a lot of direct questions.”

So he chose not to answer many of them.

“He was kind of monosyllabic and a little remote on the first date,” Mr. Adler said. “But there was a little spark.”

Enough for a second date, watching the Mike Leigh film “Abigail’s Party” (“as a litmus test of his humor,” Mr. Doonan said). That sealed the deal.

“We have a ridiculous amount in common,” Mr. Doonan said. “We both hate smug people. We both rant at the same things.” And, he added, “We both drink a lot of tea.”

What Would Mrs. Goldstein Do?

Jonathan Adler gives credit where credit is due. He has the philosophy: Worship Your Muses.
One of his earliest, was his neighbor Mrs. Goldstein. I give you this excerpt about Mrs. Goldstein that I think you'll enjoy.


By Vicki Hyman/The Star-Ledger HERE

Elaine Goldstein, whose design style influenced home decor guru Jonathan Adler, is devoted to architectural modern decor. Still evident in her Margate condo is her penchant for clean lines and bold accessories, right down to the Jonathan Adler wool pillows on her couch.Around Bridgeton, they had a word for Elaine Goldstein's design aesthetic: modren. And that's not a typo.

Jonathan and his brother Andrew messing around
on red Bertoia chairs at Mrs. Goldstein's house
Mrs. Goldstein then, on the right

Goldstein, a Philadelphia girl with a passion for art history and a predilection for Herman Miller, animal prints and lacquer, moved kicking and screaming to that South Jersey farm town with her optometrist husband in 1958. The good folks there didn't quite know what to make of her. (She once informed her handyman that her decorator was coming down. He said, "I'll be right there, I'll put it back up.")

A red Bertoia chair
Jonathan remembered the chair at Mrs. Goldstein's
and uses it in one of his room decors today

Goldstein decoupaged the kitchen walls in New Yorker magazine covers. She used thin wire and nails to create a homage to famed illustrator Saul Steinberg on a black-lacquered bathroom door, visible from the towering picture window in her home's white brick facade. She plopped a silver hippopotamus on a coffee table and a ceramic ocelot beneath the piano, covered the sofa table in snakeskin and introduced the shag rug to Cumberland County.

"I just kind of knew what I wanted, and I would go for it," says Goldstein, who now lives with her husband, Albert, who is retired, in an oceanside aerie in Margate.

The kid who lived next door had a word for Goldstein's decor, too: fabulous.

Mrs. Goldstein now

That kid grew up to become the mod potter (and now ubiquitous home decor maven) Jonathan Adler, and the memories of this Jersey housewife's graphic, self-assured approach to interiors is part of his design DNA.

Jonathan at his Bar Mitzvah
I'm in love with him
and could be one of the fledgling
fag hags surrounding him then and now

"It was all just done with panache, and a sense of pop and a sense of fun and color," Adler says in a recent interview. "She knew me as the sort of best family friend who was just playing tennis with her son and running around and being an idiot, and who would ever think decor is lodging in a 10-year-old's brain? It was."

Jonny at the wheel

Ever flip through a shelter magazine or wander through a design boutique and puzzle over the profusion of mirrored glass, circus-tent stripes and ceramic big game? You can thank (or blame) Elaine Goldstein. Adler summed it up best in his 2005 book, "My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living": "As born-again Christians ask themselves when confronted with a dilemma, 'What would Jesus do?' so I ask myself, 'What would Mrs. Goldstein do?'"
Putting aside his formative exposure to Goldstein's lacquer, Adler's parents were a huge influence as well. His father, Harry, was a lawyer with a passion for painting and sculpture (three of his whimsical, expressionist lithographs grace Goldstein's walls in Margate). He was a "rigorous modernist," Adler says, but their home's interiors were animated by his mother, Cynthia, who now lives in New York City. "It was full of bold colors and Marimekko textiles. It was really groovy. People were more open-minded and wacky than they are today."

Harry, Cynthia, and Jonny

I think he is fabulous," Goldstein says. "When I see lime green Chippendale chairs, I could never have those in my house. What amazes me is that he is constantly coming up with new things."
Goldstein's Margate condo is far less exuberant, particularly since a redo nine years ago displaced the tartan carpet and the red, yellow and blue "supergraphic" of swooping stripes that spanned the dining room and living room wall. But you don't need an archaeologist to unearth the bones of Adler's aesthetic.
There's the glamorous, smoky mirrored coffee table, perfectly in keeping with the "cinematic glamour" of Adler's Palm Beach chic. The ceramic horse and rider that Goldstein picked out for her trousseau has a touch of the primitive modernism seen in Adler's wall plaques.
Then there's the famous silver hippopotamus perched on a side table. You can buy a ceramic hippo etched with geometric patterns for $250 on Adler's eponymous website (and you also can buy the geometric wool pillows that grace Goldstein's sleek leather sofa, so this is definitely a two-way street).
But it's less the specific pieces and more the mindset that is her legacy. "The thing that was so great is that it was all unimpeachably chic," Adler says. "The furniture was all really brilliantly designed, but there was not an overly serious character to the house. It was a great juxtaposition of chic, with modern bits of art and ethnic, African stuff, all done with incredible panache."
"You have to trust your instincts," Goldstein shrugs. Her home in Boca Raton, the repository for many of the pieces that Adler once coveted, astonishes her Florida neighbors as much as it did her Bridgeton pals. "I know most people can't relate to it. It's so modern. I don't give a damn."

When I didn't give a damn -
My JA Living Room

My Billy Baldwin Brown And Sexy Living Room

It's finally time to see what I've been working on for the past couple of weeks! I hope you enjoy it!
Here's a peek looking inside from the dance parlor. We put up the shutters, discarded for outside use because they are old and falling apart. I scraped and sanded them, and then stabilized the surface with satin finish poly. The stripe doors were painted four years ago, but now I did a free hand painted thin brown stripe to look like a chalk pin stripe to see if they'll still work out. What do you think?
The silk drapes and wall lamp with the brown silk shade and green silk wire cover are in the dance parlor which "looks" into the living room.
Now that you're inside, let's look around. I shot these photos using only natural light and a slow shutter speed. The light outside shifted quite a bit, as a rain storm was coming in. So I apologize for the dark photos. While the room has a deep color, it does not feel dark or dreary. It feels sexy and soothing and chic, and brings me back to my deep dark New York roots!

The paint is Color Place mixed into a Kilz base. Color Place is a Sherwin Williams paint made for Wal Mart (at about half the price). The color is called Buffalo. It is a warm brown with an undertone of gray. Light plays off of it beautifully. I painted the dance parlor this color four years ago, and decided to continue with it to fool the eye into looking like the living room is a much larger space. The new batch of paint matches perfectly. I use flat paint, and wrap the room in color - the walls, ceiling, and trim get the same color and paint. It hides flaws and make the boundaries seem endless.
I love the color of the old shutters against the walls. I needed to "center" this window to get the furniture placement I wanted. I would have liked to get a huge antique screen, and I mean huge, as the windows are 80 inches tall! But there's no budget for that! I love the old New Orleans shutters so much - it's Creole Regency! I think the tattered red paint looks like an old Chinese or Tibetan or Venetian paint finish. The shutters on the window can be opened.

I absolutely love the way the couch came out! The faux white leather is such a fabulous contrast against the deep color of the walls. I did not have the original skinny cushion re-used, but replaced it with a higher profile cushion to update the look of the sofa. The vinyl is very soft and fabric like. It's flannel backed. And of course the nail head trim is to die for!
I am so happy to finally achieve a symmetrical furniture placement. This is the first view of the living room. Previously the large Baker credenza with the flat screen TV and the off center window, were the first things you saw. The chandelier never looked quite right, though it has always been hung in the center of the room. Now it all lines up, thanks to the shutters.
I flipped the nine foot long credenza to where the couch had been. I had to block a door that leads to the guest bedroom. However there is another entrance to this room, and this door was seldom used. I think the door mural looks better then ever behind the credenza.
I did a Dorothy Draper trick (from her book Decorating Is Fun!), by painting the edge of the credenza doors the same color as the walls. She recommends painting furniture and picture frames to match wall color. I know some of you are cringing that I would paint a Baker piece. However, when I bought it years ago, it was just a $100. piece of thrift store detritus, not the Hollywood Regency treasure it has become. If ever I want to sell it at an investment piece price, I'm sure I can have it refinished. The top is pecan wood, and has never been touched.
The Baker piece is in the manner of Fornasetti from their Italian line (it has the label). I have a Fornasetti print resting on top, along with the caged glass lamps I rescued from the street. I have learned to live with the DVD and VCR, because it's important to the hubs. I just added a couple of pretty remote boxes and a piece of coral.
Here's a total view of the credenza. I try to make the flat screen a part of the art and objects. It's so weird to photograph a TV set - I don't know if it's better to have it on or off in the shot. There's a little French antique metal folding chair in front of the credenza.

Here's a view to the other side of the room. The light has shifted and it's a little dark. But I wanted you to see how tall my windows are, and how I a treat an unused "front" door as another window.One of my favorite views is between the two windows. I placed an antique rusted metal drinks cart there, and propped up a very distressed vintage mirror (it has been in the garden and survived Katrina!) on it. My old Ballard Design Della Robbia lamp got one of the PB black shades. I "layered" another table in front of this, a gold wheat sheaf base table. It has a huge square glass top, but I replaced it with a 30 inch round one. I love using it as a book and magazine table. And of course the Ghost Chair is one of my favorite things.

It may look a little cluttered, but I love it. I "needed" a floor lamp, so I fashioned one out of a small table lamp on top of an antique bamboo plant stand. The etagere holds a collection of white objects, that look so good against the brown.




A few little details: black tassel pull on a lamp; antique cherub peeking out from behind the distressed mirror (I'm selling the cherubs on eBay now)...

...the other cherub, one orange Foo dog, a little iron urn of shells, and an old brown transfer ware plate with bugs and a bird on it. You can also see the great patina on the drinks cart.

The view from the couch into the dance parlor. And in this corner the Eames chair (also for sale on eBay now soon to be replaced with a chaise lounge the hubs chose for himself). Above is the Will Barnett print "The Young Couple".


So now the doors are closing on the tour...

I hope you enjoyed looking at it, as much as I enjoyed doing it!
It's still just a little bit of a work in progress. I plan to try out a new striped rug I ordered, and get a lantern to replace the chandy. And of course the chaise lounge is coming on the 26th. Also sussing out an Ikat pillow. The French settee is being recovered in the same faux white leather. I bought 15 yards (60 inches wide), and there was enough fabric left over to do the settee. I am also going to recover my four antique Isabelina salon chairs (we use them as dining chairs) in the same white faux leather. It's good, it's really that good.



And now credit where credit is due...

Who's your Daddy? Want me to build you a couch?

Thanks to the hubs, my Alberto, for never getting in my madcap way when I'm on a decorating jag. He hung the heavy shutters, even when he didn't understand what I was going for; he took down ugly fire alarms (this was an institutional building when we bought it), and expertly patched up the huge holes they left; he totally redid the cable TV wires; he rewired lamps for me; he let me show him pictures of chaise lounges; and he keeps the wine poured and the kisses coming.

The chaise the hubs wants and is getting!

The staging area in my office

And a very special and heartfelt thank you to my angels Sabina and Joe who made it possible for me to do this. I can hardly wait for you to come and enjoy it in person!
And thanks to all of you my dear bloginistas, for reading and writing and egging me on.

The inspiration - a small sampling from the clipping file:

I don't know the top two interior designers
Do you?
Love the deep colors, screen behind the couch, symetry

Billy Baldwin Interior Design
Slipper chair, bibelots, books. French chair, deep color

Billy Baldwin Interior Design
Slipper chairs, little tables, books, deep color

Billy Baldwin Interior Design
Screen behind white couch

Jonathan Adler Interior Design
I still love ya Jonnie -
even though you made me crazy!
It's a very Billy Baldwin room don't you think?

Jonathan Adler Interior Design