New Celia Birtwell online Shop!

As far as I'm concerned this is the stuff dreams are made of - a Celia Birtwell online shop! I've loved these extraordinary prints for decades and this shop is so well put together and has such a fantastic range of her stuff! There's everything on here from clothes, to garden trowels, to wallpaper, to face compacts. Some of the patterns are her traditional 70's Boho-Chic classics and some of the more contemporary ones are more of a Paris-pretty vibe. There is even a vintage clothes store with original Ossie Clarke dresses that she produced the patterns for (very on trend at the moment!) There's a fantastic interview with Ms Birtwell, by Annie at the ever inspiring MyDeco blog today too!

 

 

My Home!

Recently I've bought a really rather nice new camera. Hence I've been papping everything in sight! I thought you might like to take a peek into my home, so here's a few pics of the Pargy pad.

The first picture is of my childhood teddy Wilby (aka Wilberforce Bonthorpe Shelmerdene III)! The next couple of pics are of my beloved kitchen. The blue units were in the flat already when I moved in. I like to have bright pink accessories in there. I once saw Zhandra Rhode's kitchen in a Sunday supplement, and it wasn't too different! The bright pop art picture in the last photo was created by my other half, Paolo Pesce (or Mr Fish as he is known!) As you can see, the colours he uses are incredible!  

Jonathan Adler Ceramics

@ the utterly brilliant online shop/ blog Castor + Pollux (also a real shop on the sea-front in Brighton!) I've featured these guys a couple of times now with their Angie Lewin prints and Jackie Brazil jewellery, but now I've found a new love - Jonathan Adler! His beautiful ceramics have a very fifties feel to them if you like that period. Mr Adler is another US outfit that I hope follows the pack along with Anthropologie and Kate Spade and brings his fabulous wares to our shores! See below pics to swoon over! (all available at Castor + Pollux).

Julia Rothman

I totally j'adore the work of New-York (City Island) based illustrator Julia Rothman! She is part of design trio Also, whose style you may be already be familiar with ("Also" was commissioned by Design Sponge to create a "more feminine, craftier and elegant" redesign of their very popular blog/ design site)! How gorgeous are these beautiful Louis Chairs!

Perpetual Wall Calendar!

I've been searching around for a decent wall calendar for some time now, and now I've found it - this is a great variation on the perpetual calendar theme. You can either chalk on birthdays/ meetings etc or add post it notes! There are some great wall decals out there, but Fern Living are my favorites!

Trend Forecast 2011

...and this season we shalll be mainly adorning ourselves and our homes with, triangles! Modernist, masculine, feminine, glamorous, illuminous and 50's retro triangles. In today's post I will be looking at the three-sided from all angles!

I bought one of  these pink Alchemia chairs from Calligaris at the Ideal Home exhibition in London several years ago. Funnily they arrived from Rome 6 weeks later, when I was actually in Rome and I saw them in the showroom! The colour of these is incredible, but I also love the orange and red ones too!

...whilst lady Gaga isn't everyones' cup of tea (personally I think her image is great fun!), you have to admit that this headpiece from the utterly brillant fashion prop designer Fred Butler is a work of art. Commissioned and made for the unforgettable "Telephone" video with Beyonce earlier this year

...I really enjoy AnOther Magazine, and they have this great feature called "Another Loves", and this watch from Urban Outfitters was "loved" by Fred Butler; go take a look at her blog and you can see why - it is very much in her style!

...Modernist and masculine - Tamasyn Gambell notebooks. A real Bauhaus feel to this design!

...sadly, on a final note, Britain lost two of its' finest designers this year- Lucienne and Robin Day. I've had a lifelong love of Lucienne's fabrics. The top fabric is the one which started it all off, "Calyx", designed in 1951 for the Festival of Britain, and eventually produced by Heals (the rest is history)! You can see the design at the V&A Museum in London. Here it is again used to furnish some incredible chairs!

For other great trend forecasts, check out Design Refuge!

Charlotte Mann

Charlotte Mann takes doodling to a new level. Her fantastic drawings with marker pen on walls are staggering in their detail. Former Central St Martins student Mann has done some great work with fashion Designer Peter Jensen and exhibited many times in Milan. I especially love the below dining room - a modern take on Rococo opulence. Definitely one to watch!!

Donna Wilson

Congratulations go to the amazingly talented Donna Wilson for winning "Designer of the Year" at Elle Decoration's British Design Awards 2010. I love the quirkiness of style, and the confident use of colour that she uses in her wonderful textiles, ceramics and stationery. The below vase is new to her online collection and I think it will soon become a firm favourite!

Bird Jug

The very colourfully attired, Ms Wilson!

Womble Chic!

For those readers that are are not from our shores (or are too young to remember), the Wombles, were a pretty funky bunch of animals that spent most of the seventies picking up litter from Wimbledon Common and "upcycling" it for their fantastic underground home! Hopefully the below Womble Chic inspired pics might help you with some interior ideas of your own; living in a burrow on Wimbledon Common is optional.

Please note that no Wombles were harmed during the writing of this post.

Triangles!

If you like tetris/ triangular type shapes in your design than you will love the Los Angeles based J1Studio, which wonderfully describes itself as doing thus: "producing simple, functional, unique, modular and systematic objects that function as furniture". The T.Shelf, the M.Stool and the V.stand have now arrived!

T.Shelf

Various Past Projects

M.Stool

V.Stand

Katrin Moye Ceramics

Katrin Moye and her team of "decorating assistants" create beautiful greeny-blue hued domestic ceramics that have great style, but also a nice homely feel. The cake stands are especially awesome; I think they would add a bit of retro style to any kitchen or dining room table! Liberty of London stock various pieces from the Christa and Dotted Stripe range, plus Katrin also has a few fabric based deisgns on the ever brilliant Clothkits Website.

Tiny Hoops and Dandelions

Dotted Stripe Collection

Christa Collection

Ingrid Collection

Beyond the Fridge

Quite recently, I was looking around for a decent memo board (to no avail). I ended up with an awful standard-issue cork one (which after seeing these is probably going to get put on FreeCycle). Beyond the Fridge take the humble memo board and make it into a work of art! These magnetic boards are made from durable steel and have a high gloss finish. Actually it seems a shame to cover them up with anything so banal as a shopping list. For a bit of fun, take a peek at their lovely Gallery slide show which displays them so nicely.

Coffee Pot

Millefiori on Black

Utensils Red

Fornasetti Room Fragrance

Here's an early morning Monday treat for you! Any Pargy regulars will know about my love of Fornasetti, so you can only imagine how overjoyed I was to find that there is now a room fragrance range: which also includes very beautiful ceramic encased candles and also insence sticks (or josticks to you and I). Take a peek at the beautiful Fornasetti fragrance site and dream away!

New Niki Jones Catalogue

I was very happy this weekend to look in my letterbox and find the new Niki Jones catalogue; full of very bright and beautiful ojects to brighten up the home! I'm particularly partial to the below spice jars, which to be quite honest do look a bit like something you might keep a dead relative in, but when you see them all grouped like this they are so stunning. I was also going to mention how much I adore the below Christmas tree baubles, but it's only October, and hence way too early to mention!