INTERIOR MONOLOGUE: DESIGN THEORIES

Recently, the Coggins apartment was featured on Cup of Jo, with photographs taken by the most excellent Stephen Johnson. It was great to be with a real interior photographer. Stephen is a true advocate of directional light. You might not guess it, but we covered all the windows but one with garbage bags so there was only one light source. Before the photo shoot I was not expecting to be standing on my window sills taping them up. Anything for a shot!

Joanna and I spoke about interior design and the fact that I'm from an acquisitive family of book stackers. When your mother is an interior designer and your father is an artist and writer. Lots of art, lots of books, lots of antiques and lots of, what we jokingly call: objèts. You can see photos of their house on Cup of Jo, but it looks much more minimal than it really is (though you might not believe that).

A few thoughts about rugs, since people often ask me about that. First, I don’t know how many I have. I stopped counting when I got to twenty. I think it’s good to stop counting how many knit ties you have when you get to, say, forty. You don’t want to know, and you don’t need to know, beyond the fact that it’s a lot. My feeling with rugs is that the more you have the less good each one has to be. They don’t read individually, they read as a group. If you have one rug then it will draw attention and should be nice. If you have a dozen overlapped then they don’t have to be so elaborate. (Incidentally, if you’re on eBay and looking at any of the countless rugs then make sure you look carefully at a close-up photo of the rug folded up, which most dealers show. That gives the truest sense of the color. Sometimes their wide shots are slightly edited so the rug looks better than it is, close-ups can’t lie.)

This idea works for art as well. If you have one painting over your fireplace then people will notice it, and, undoubtedly, make assessments about it. When you hang things salon style then the pressure is diminished. That’s not to say you don't want something nice but you don’t need to stress so much. I think people are reluctant to buy art, they don’t know where to start. I’ll write more about this another time. But generally I think work on paper—drawings, collages, prints—are a good way to start. Though I’m always looking for a painting of a horse, which I have never found for some reason, I think they're all at the Ralph Lauren mansion on Madison.

I also think people try to resolve their homes too quickly. It takes time! An apartment, like a wardrobe, needs to evolve, as you do. It reflects things you’ve found traveling, or when you got a job and had a discount on overpriced candles (hey now Napoleon candle I got when working at Bergdorf Goodman!). First you buy a chair, then later you drape a piece of fabric over it and later you put a pillow on it. The same way as you would add a pocket square to a sportcoat. Rooms that have been designed at once look like hotel lobbies that don’t quite work. Too many decisions were made too quickly. Be patient, it will all work out. Have faith in the process!

I’ve been in this apartment for more than ten years. It didn't always look like this (though it wasn’t far off). Somewhere on the internet are photos of it with just a few rugs, you can actually see the floor. It looks very sweet and innocent, like a teenage boy who can’t grow a beard. I had no idea the rugs would take over everything, it just happened. Like many things, what makes perfect sense in retrospect can never be planned.

The apartment in a more innocent time. .