Ashley began the week with some history so I will finish it with some, too by revisiting the Great Lady Decorators.
Selecting the decorators for these three posts was not an easy task. After all, I had to choose from a dozen featured in The Great Lady Decorators by Adam Lewis. I selected Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper, Rose Cumming and Sister Parish because they all shared so many qualities. All came to their occupation not through choice but as a result of circumstances which presented a need. They were risk-takers. They were leaders, not followers. All were somewhat eccentric. Elsie and Rose were flamboyant, “over the top”. Elsie dyed her hair blue. Rose dyed hers lavender. Dorothy and Sister actually had a familial relationship: they were second cousins. Between them, they covered the development of decorating over more than three quarters of the 20th century.
Rose Cumming
Rose was an Australian who became stranded in New York on the way to England to be married. It was 1917 and ships were not accepting female passengers for Atlantic crossings. She was traveling with her sister, Eileen. Since their family was socially prominent, letters of introduction were sent and they were welcomed into the arms of New York society. One of the people they met was Frank Crowninshield, editor of a new publication, Vanity Fair. Rose told him she was bored sitting around doing nothing all day and going to parties every night. He suggested she become an interior decorator. Rose replied that she’d be glad to try it but didn’t know what it entailed. She also met Otto Kahn, one of the wealthiest men in America at the time and they had a torrid affair. He provided Rose with the money to open her decorating business. She entertained the members of the international set as well as members of established New York society and her name frequently appeared in the social column of the New York Times.
Rose was passionate about color: daring and dramatic. She had her own particular combinations of jade and blue, saying, “Parrots are blue and green. Why shouldn’t fabrics be?” She mixed blood red with tangerine and hyacinth with deep purple and pink. She liked to use antique fabrics and furniture showing age. She became the decorator for movie stars like Marlene Dietrich and Mary Pickford. She wrote a book called The Finest Rooms. She dressed flamboyantly and dyed her hair lavender to rival Elsie de Wolfe’s blue hair. At home, she dressed in a Chinese Mandarin robe.
Rose often wore black crepe shapeless long dresses with randomly pinned fabric swatches and silk cords, meant for curtain tie backs, around her waist. She appeared for dinner at the residence of Sister Parish wearing such an ensemble plus a crown of plastic ferns in her hair. The doorman thought she was a bag lady and Mrs. Parish had to come down to the lobby to claim her guest.
Rose was innovative. She was the first decorator to leave the lights burning all night in her shop so the interior could be seen at all hours. She used cellophane for curtains and when Mylar came on the market in the 50s Rose used it for wallpaper. Such an out-of-the-box idea for wallpaper makes her my kind of woman! I think I would have gotten along swimmingly with Rose. While I don’t dye my hair lavender, I do have a favorite brightly patterned Mandarin silk robe. As a Casart Coverings partner, I’m always searching for new design patterns and innovative uses for our product and I’ve often felt like a salmon swimming upstream.
Rose’s contributions to decorating live on in the fabrics she designed and which are still being produced under her name. One of her favorite phrases was “Either you have flair or you don’t.” After her death in 1968, her sister became president of Rose Cumming, Inc. and managed the business until it was closed in 1977. Some time ago The Peak of Chic featured Rose Cumming and an Ode to the Eccentrics in a post and you can read more about Rose there. The following picture is from that post.
Sister Parish, another Great Lady Decorator
Mrs. Henry Parish II, nee Dorothy May Kinnicut but affectionately nicknamed “Sister”, was born in 1910. About her name she is said to have quipped, “It has not been an easy cross to bear. It has caused considerable confusion. My husband constantly complained about the awkwardness of being married to a woman whom he called Sister.” Sister made her debut at the Pierre Hotel in 1927 and spent the following summer in Paris in her parents’ apartment. She said this was a turning point in her life. She looked at the beautiful furnishing in a new and thoughtful way. “My eyes were opened and so was my heart”. Three years later she married Henry Parish II who was also from a distinguished family. Later, in a rented home, Sister decorated in a fashion way ahead of the day. She stripped dark furniture and painted it. Upholstered pieces were slipcovered in floral chintz and floors were painted in geometric patterns. Friends started asking her for decorating advice.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, her husband was forced to take a cut in his salary. The thought of living on less and not being able to provide a gracious life for her family was not acceptable to her. Without discussing it with her husband, she decided to go into business. As with the other women decorators before her, working was unthinkable for a married woman with children in her social circle. Undaunted, she opened an account at a fabric house, rented a one room commercial space, painted it herself, brought a wicker chair and wicker desk from home, and hung out her sign: Mrs. Henry Parish II, Interiors! A friend had asked her to decorate a new restaurant, Howard Johnson’s. The orange and aqua color scheme that she created is familiar to all. Her primary goal from the beginning was to properly provide for her family. It certainly was not to one day be called “the queen of interior decorating” by the New York Times.
Sister Parish closed her business during the war when her husband was stationed in Florida. Following the war, she had an import-export arrangement with Colefax & Fowler of London, but terminated that when laws limited the amount to money that could be taken out of England. She reopened a shop under her first business name and worked there for 30 years. Newspaper and magazine coverage was very difficult to come by because clients didn’t want pictures of their homes published. Socially, it was acceptable for a lady’s name to be in the paper only three times during her life: when she was born, when she married, and when she died. In 1960, articles in the New York Times and House & Garden brought about a change. Sister was asked by Jacqueline Kennedy to help with her plans for the White House.
The reporter for the Times didn’t clarify the name “Sister” and the headline read: “Kennedys Pick Nun to Decorate White House”. Everyone immediately wanted to know more about Sister Parish! This was followed by an extensive story about Sister’s summer home, Dark Harbor. The colors, the chintz, country rugs and ruffled curtains resonated with readers and became ‘the country look”. Sister was swamped with work and proposals. Her friend, Van Day Truex, who was design director at Tiffany asked if she would interview Albert Hadley who had just resigned from his decorating job at McMillen. She did and an on-going relationship was forged at that meeting. The most important things they shared were talent and determination to get the job done right. Hadley said about their partnership, “Of course we had our differences, and they could be enormous. I could have never done what I did without her, and she would not have accomplished what she did, without me. We both always knew this.”
In the fall of 1994, in declining health, her family flew her to her beloved Dark Harbor where she died. Susan Carter described her grandmother in her last days as a monarch coming to her end with the defiance of imperial majesty.
Until WWII, interior decorating was dominated by women. After the war men realized this was a lucrative business if one had the talent and drive and more men began to enter the design world, following in the footsteps of the Great Lady Decorators.
– Lorre Lei
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