Indigenous Design

By KIMBERLY MAYER

Do you remember it? All around New York City in the 1980’s people were hoisting lodge poles into their apartments, redoing floors in Saltillo tiles, hanging antler chandeliers with forged iron hardware, trying to grow specimen cacti in native baskets, and trading in their Limoges, Waterford, and Baccarat crystal for Indian pots and Mexican glassware.

Meanwhile, Christine Mather’s design book Santa Fe Style was selling like hotcakes off the shelves. I know, for I purchased a copy.

I remember too when my mother hired an interior decorator who remodeled a graciously large bath in our Georgian Colonial home c. 1823 in an abstract modern blaze of turquoise and aqua, papering even the cupboard doors.

I knew then, as I know now, something was not right.

Much as we have learned to prepare foods fresh, farm to table, we need to design our spaces with a sense of place. Local is the new exotic.

It doesn’t mean we can’t throw in a dash of turmeric or smoked paprika. In interiors too the excitement is often in juxtaposition, such as industrial steel with rustic. But to pull that off we must keep one solid foot, at least, in where we are—otherwise, the “other” won’t come off at all.

You can’t pretend you are living on Canyon Road in Manhattan.

You can’t make a vintage bath, in tiles, fixtures and architecture, suddenly modern with wallpaper.

And Tommy Bahama prints on retro rattan furniture are only going to fly where it’s barefoot and warm and by the beach. Preferably in Hawaii.