The publisher, Beta-Plus, out of Belgium, has been in the book business since 1995, but their sales have really taken off these past few years since the world has gone Belgian. Their pages were full mostly of houses from Belgium. Here Vervoordt stands among the hallmarks of Belgian design – unstained woods, furniture made from organic materials, white walls, and sparse, monochromatic interiors.Īnd then in Houston during the mid 2000s, large, beautiful, and very expensive coffee table books began showing up mostly at the landscaping company, Thompson and Hanson. No one has yet knocked him off his throne yet, though there are several contenders in Belgium. He lured people to Belgium to tour his private castle and shop while they were there. He authored several best selling books that helped spread the word about what was going on his country. What is indisputable is that Vervoordt did introduce the world to this type of design. Today, Vervoordt is credited, rightly or wrongly, with starting Belgian design. It’s truly amazing how far he has come in 7 short years. In the beginning, there was just Axel Vervoordt, the famous Belgian antiquarian first seen in Architectural Digest in 2002. (See Jill’s wonderful house here.) Our exposure here in the south to Belgian Design was made of small steps that quickly added up. So, for me and countless other Texans, BROWN was Belgian Design for years and years and still is and always will be. At that time – the legendary Axel Vervoordt had barely made a name for himself. Jill, a charismatic trend-setter, had lived in Belgium and returned to Houston where she promptly opened an antique store stocked with wares she brought back from her adopted country. The ball is their court now.Īt one time, everything I knew about Belgium and its design and antiques, I learned from the woman who owns this shop, Jill Brown, a force to be reckoned with in Houston, 1st Dibs, and truly anywhere she goes. Will Restoration Hardware be successful? I’m not sure, their pieces are stunningly gorgeous, yet pricey. They are predicting that America is firmly on Belgium’s side, as if this was a soccer match instead of interior design. In fact, Restoration Hardware has taken on Belgian design in a big way, betting the company’s future on a look so new, so foreign to the masses. Whether you like this design, whether you loathe it, it is here and it’s not going anywhere soon. Weary antique lovers tired of frilly French and heavy English pieces are now flocking to Belgium to visit the warehouses and shops filled with things they have only seen before in pictures. The look is perfect for the younger generation, couples who don’t want their parents furniture have hungrily sought out the spare designs. This decade has indeed become the Belgian decade – the overscaled upholstery, the worm eaten, unstained woods, the linen textures, the large lanterns, the industrialized repurposed pieces - have all become a part of our lives without most even realizing that Belgian designers were behind it all. Yet, guided by this small handful of extremely talented designers, they chose not to exactly fill up their houses but instead sparsely and deftly decorated them, letting each precious piece speak for itself instead of becoming lost in a sea of fauteuils and bergeres. They fill up their newly renovated houses with beautiful antiques and art and they are courted by the eager designers waiting to guide them. People who can afford to and who do restore the many country manors that dot their flat landscape. The reason for Belgian design was explained to me by a designer from the Netherlands who said, that while the Netherlands is mostly a country of the middle class, Belgium has a very large poor population and a smaller, very extremely wealthy class of people. Why Belgium? Why Belgian design? Such a small country that few of us could immediately point to on a map, and even less of us have actually visited. Today Belgian design IS the hottest thing with no signs of overkill or boredom setting in just yet. Two years ago House Beautiful declared “Belgian is the new Swedish” – how prescient that statement was.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |