decorator
horoscope
by
summer 2001
As you blossom in the pull of Jupiter’s abundance this summer, be assured, decorator: Your rooms will feel the pull too. Seasons change and with them the stars. They press upon our walls and furnishings, as surely as they press upon our hearts. Testy Saturn’s entry into Gemini late this spring portends liberating movement, festivity, and flow. Paper one wall in grass-cloth; consider (then reject) net curtains; replace your pile carpets with sisal and jute; press your linen slipcovers, and unpack that saucy Droog vase for the display of casual summer sprigs. These minor seasonal pleasures are so welcome and necessary. But with the Cancerian eclipse coinciding with solstice this June, your rooms will also be drawn toward intimacy, the keeping of secrets. A serious home economist must attend to the pungent specificity and tempo of the individual heart. “Paris will change; melancholy remains,” said Baudelaire. (And we know the dingy sheets his life was writ upon.)
swann
CANCE
In a gentleman’s club in Brighton I smoked my first cigarette and learned the difference between trousers and pants. The Regency is seeming so attractive again. Have you considered frivolity? As Jupiter appears in your sign for the first time in twelve years, bring your shy confidence off the shelf and revel a little. Try stripes, not as predictable accents but as a theme-lamp shades, roman blinds, wallpapers, runners. If this seems dizzyingly carnal, it’s because you’ve never let yourself confound foreground and background. Given Pluto’s slow transit, I would have to recommend three-inch bands of malachite and cherry, or pinstripes of persimmon and butter. Enhance the effect with Canadian codeine.
LEO Your superb tailoring 1s not enough this summer. Nor is last year’s flatware. Once that’s been replaced (ten sets of finely crafted chopsticks in glazed wood cost less than a cab ride to Groucho’s), you’ll need to consider what style of reflection you’d prefer-Venetian foxing, something smoked or convex, or framed in Perspex, paillettes, or gilt bees? In your quest for a dignified setting, your surest instrument remains your mirror. Place it to best reflect the rich and fleeting. such as a bit of Atlantic sky. Saturn is entering a new phase, which suggests a bevy of mirrors will be even better. Always hang them too high or too low. (And don’t concern yourself with symmetry.)
VIRGO
You’re always delving. C’est fatigant. If you persistently yearn for a garden, why don’t you bring the outdoors in? With the July 20 new moon, you should eschew conventional furnishings and spread your simple picnics on an herb-strewn floor. Latticed doors, curtained in lace, suggest a garden trellis. In fact, you could lattice an entire room. It would feel like a charming pastoral gazebo. Yes, I overly adore the latter eighteenth century. But Uranus’s path suggests routine has been getting to you. My advice is practiced: Install a rustic swing. Kick off your slippers. Play at Fragonard. Serve something fizzy.
If your message has not been getting through, maybe this summer should bring a change in your style of communication. Your window treatments, for example. are looking a little war-torn, Try approaching your drapery problems with caprice. not solemnity. Consider deep fringes and poufs or a poetical motif of lyres. Borrow freely from an inappropriate nostalgia-high Victorian has an appealing perversity-and don’t scrimp on linings. For that romantic glow, line heavy brocade with lighter shades of violet and pearly rose. Transparency isn’t you, but drapes left minimally open suggest an effect similar to that of slightly parted lips.
LIBRA
SAGITTARIUS
As for you, your rose is undoubtedly the Baronne Prevost perpetual, all creamy pale and husky with a flicker of raw pink at the heart. Which reminds me, at a small dinner party recently I was per· mitted to caress the taupe pashmina neck scarf of a beautiful foreign singer with a bad throat. As I told this mute exotic beauty (offering consolation); self-reflection brings transforming results. What is your vulnerability? Christopher Dresser? Venetian glass? Whatever it is, it is also your finest luxury. Give in to Neptune: Permit yourself luxury’s display against rich chocolate-colored walls. You can prepare for this metamorphosis by removing your lesser bric-a-brac to make space for the immoderate presentation of your favorites. Donate your bookends to charity. You won’t be needing them. Then paint the shelves lapis and observe.
SCORPIO Put your fur throws in storage. I’ve found it frees one up. Neptune’s transforming energy guides you toward other forms of enchantment. Seek out early basalts ware from Josiah Wedgwood. Like fine gilding, it is polished with wolfs tooth. A simple pair of black bisque vessels will catalyze your famously moody lack of compromise. This summer certain transits tell us the best setting for your emotional dramas will be minimal. And don’t forget roses—not the common hybrid tea rose but the heady pendant clusters of the musk or the entirely irresistible dark crimson ever-blooming moss rose, the Deuil de Paul Fontaine, with its intriguing mahogany and silver shadows.
CAPRICORN
Each successful garden, even the most formal parterre, has its bosco, the tangled corner or grove suggesting the danger of the wilderness. A garden without a bosco has no spiritual symmetry, no soul. I myself have found it impossible to indulge in the mutually enjoyable exchange of glances in a garden without such wild allocation. Montsouris is quite morbid really. Saturn’s late-spring entry into Gemini aches for this kind of abandon. Indoors, cloven one, you should consider consecrating a room or nook to the contained art of permissiveness. Mix your prints—a minimum of six will challenge your discretion. Display unused gifts. Punctuate your infamous self-discipline with tassels and toile de Jouy. Nested tables of birch will encourage chance to rearrange the room. and let dull habit give way to the evolving cosmic pattern.
AQUARIU
In the long summer days bare walls call too much attention to themselves. Nothing lends the personal touch as much as what you use in decorating your walls. You know better than anyone that discipline is a friend, and you’re very fond of order. Very fond. Mars turns direct on July 19. Here is an assignment I’ve devised especially for you: Scrub the walls. Scrub them again. Again. Paint them matte white. Sharpen an HB pencil, and make sure you keep it very sharp. Start at the center, and slowly begin to draw a spiral outward without pausing. You cannot give yourself too much time to do this. Never lift the pencil. Did you believe that home decorating could ever be so relaxing? You’re perfect.
PISCES Everything amazes you. Whatever could you add to your collection of souvenirs and curios? An artistic divider screen will provide a distinguished and original note to the eclectic Piscean room. Lord Byron made his with decoupaged prints of pugilists. After what happened to me in Detroit, I’d prefer something less fickle, like goldfish. Choose your favorite theme, and engage the handyman talents of your friends near the lunar eclipse on July 5. The August new moon will inspire you to reach even further with your renovation. I suggest that you display your extensive collection of unusual pressed leaves by thought fully pinning them in a grid formation over the walls and ceiling of your bedroom. Perhaps you will begin to see patterns.
ARIES
The lunar eclipse on July 5 indicates you need 10 form a more cunning balance between social and private concerns. I think it’s time you decorate your rooms for nighttime activities, then invite your colleagues home. The walls should be painted the color of the evening sky. Jupiter’s cycle in Gemini demands a built-up glaze of azure, magenta, and slate. (The rich burgundy trim is your call.) Bring its duskiness to life with lighting planned to create an enticing hush of evening atmosphere. Candles aren’t particularly you. Something meltingly modern from logo Maurer might be more complementary. And remember that a gallery of intriguing pictures always charms guests and stimulates a lagging conversation.
Don’t overlook the soft sofa cushions in your seasonal alteration. The stars say chintz—I say trim it with rows of rickrack braid, You could even slipcover the seats of side chairs with cheerful printed cottons and use the leftover material as tiebacks for your crisp organdy curtains. Does this inspire you? Not really? With the solar eclipse on June 21, you’ve begun to question your attachment to coziness. But believe me, Taurus, with Mars casting its belligerent spell this summer, you’ll have good reason to whisper. Wide-open spaces are lovely ,f you’ve got nothing to hide, but, dear friend, this summer you do: Move all your furniture away from the walls.
TAURUS
GEMENI
The first time I visited Paris my most important piece of luggage was the very elegant portable typewriter, the Hermès Rocket. I had a room in a small hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens, a hotel mentioned in passing by Rilke in his Notebooks. My room faced into the deep central court, and through the window I could see, facing me, a serious young man also seated at his typewriter, Sound familiar? Venus says you’ll be feeling the scrutiny of your neighbors all summer. Gemini, maybe you should befriend them. fresh sprays of honeysuckle or an Aalto bowl of peonies in your communicating window can say so much to a voyeuristic doppelgänger. Expand your floral vocabulary. Study the exacting language of blooms—gardenia means “secret untold love,” and the modest African violet says “such worth is rare.’’