Enduringly, Red

Red is a color that really wakes you up, brilliantly, no? ..But using it in a room must be approached carefully. It never translates “dated” like peach or mauve; it’s always in style and it seems we never tire of it. Doses vary though. Some can swim in it, others accent with it. I’ve tried for years to capture the ‘perfect’ red, and the closest I’ve come was a nail polish color by Elizabeth Arden called “Cherries in the Snow” which gave me a visual high. Can’t you just picture them?

Diana Vreeland is famous for her red room, “A Garden in Hell”, done by her decorator, Billy Baldwin. Coco Chanel always wore red nail polish. It’s the color of a valentine, and the deep red of a rare steak or a luscious ruby. It’s the sublime red of a Cardinal’s robe, and I love the mix or reds in Picasso’s “Personage Rembranesque et amour” which I had the pleasure of viewing in Lucerne last Fall.

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About Barbara Ashfield:

Here are my inspirations for living well and living with beauty – people, places, objects and moments. They make me see the elegant, and even the exotic, in the everyday and inspire me to infuse every day with elegance.