Hank's Finds

There's a stylish guy named Hank who has been bringing to his antique market stall some very cool out-of-print books. This weekend I couldn't resist nabbing Vogue's Book of Etiquette, from 1969. I thought it could serve as a conversation piece -- maybe be the source of some laughs. But actually most of the 700-plus pages are filled with timeless tips. In short, always put the feelings of others first.

It wouldn't be so bad if everyone added this to their summer reading list.


I also picked up 1964's The Finest Rooms (Jennifer has mentioned this title before). A host of design legends contributed essays: Sister Parish, Billy Baldwin, Michael Taylor, Rose Cumming. And the iconic White House yellow Oval Room -- as decorated by Parish and Jacqueline Kennedy -- was chosen for the book's cover.

While doing the initial flip through, this Michael Taylor-designed room grabbed my attention. It appears he used with wild abandon a one-color-and-white bird print.


Likely the same Scalamandre linen floral Jonathan Adler selected some 40 years later for Jane Wagman's apartment, as seen in Elle Decor, May 2005. Photography by Sang An.

Michael Taylor is often dubbed the father of the California look: classic-meets-casual with liberal doses of white. But in the bedroom above he is quick to credit his predecessor, the 1920s queen of the all-white room, Syrie Maugham. Here Taylor used copies of antiques from the Maugham collection -- English chinoiserie bed and bench in pickled pine along with buttoned and bowed chairs.