A group of leading US decorators sitting for a portrait at a party before the opening of the Home Furnishings Show.
Location: New York, NY, US
Date taken: October 1957
Photographer: Eliot Elisofon
This could be fun. I can't put a name to a face. Anyone out there care to enlighten the rest of us??? You can click on the picture for a closer look.
1 week ago
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2 comments:
I don't know if it's just me, or whether it's true of a lot of people in design, but I can recognize things like the distinctive lines of famous chairs in later upholsteries, and I can often identify historic wallpapers from partial repeats better than I can recognize people in old photos. So I can't say that any of these people look familiar to me, although one woman at the left center looks a little like Betty Sherrill, or, at least, what she might have looked like half a century ago. Maybe.
At any rate, if these really were the Big Names of 1957 in decorating--rather than a local assortment who merely happened to show up for a fancy opening--they surely got there based on their abilities, not on their looks or their cool-factor. Certainly, none of these folks--brilliantly talented though they nay have been--would have even made first call-back in casting a decorating show today. Too bad.
As one of our instructors in ID school used to say, "There are two paths to success: you can be a good designer, or you can be a good-looking designer. Either/or. Few people are both."
After enlarging the image I looked for Mrs Archibald Brown of McMillan, Mr William Baldwin of Baldwin and Martin, George Stacey, 3 of the great names of that era. And I looked in vain.
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