It screams summer while instantly transporting you to a tropical locale, but there’s a great debate among design enthusiasts about who designed the famous banana leaf wallpaper. Was it Dorthey Draper or Don Loper? Don Loper is often mistakenly credited … Continue reading →

It’s a classic American design. A recent MH+D cover shows a family happily barbequing and sitting on a set of classic webbed lawn chairs. There’s a comforting feeling that sweeps over many of us when we see these retro chairs. … Continue reading →

Architect Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) is known for his sculptural forms, the most recognizable being the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a symbol of the United States’ westward expansion. Other well-known designs include the TWA Terminal at New York’s JFK Airport … Continue reading →

My husband gifted me a Kit-Cat clock soon after we were married. We hung it in our tiny Brooklyn apartment’s kitchen, and its kitschy design worked well with the rest of the space. The thing is, I felt like it … Continue reading →

Most of you have seen this lamp. The Wisteria lamp is probably the most recognized of Tiffany lamps, other than maybe the Dragonfly. Despite what has been written in the annals of design history, it was designed by Clara Wolcott … Continue reading →

The words decor and aesthetic are two of my tween’s most frequently used words (if you have a child over the age of 11, you’re familiar). A couple of weeks ago, my oldest daughter ran over to me, completely overcome … Continue reading →

Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen is known for softening the ascetic modernist style with his industrial and furniture designs. In the late 1950s, he designed the SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Jacobsen conceived the hotel as … Continue reading →

Memento mori is Latin for “remember, you must die.” It is a classification for a type of jewelry popular in the late sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries but still being produced today. It is not to be confused with mourning … Continue reading →

Summer officially ends this month, so it seems appropriate to pay tribute in this issue to one of the greatest (if not the greatest) water toys invented. With one squirt you can totally drench your friend, relative, or enemy while … Continue reading →

Is it kitsch, tacky, or a classic? In her book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, nature writer Terry Tempest Williams declared that the plastic pink flamingo was “our unnatural link to the natural world.” When designer and … Continue reading →