styleNorth

There are all kinds of gorgeous, high-end stores in Toronto that I’ve never blogged about because frankly, if I can’t afford to shop there, what’s the point? But I’m making an exception with Avenue Road, partly because there’s such a buzz about the place, partly because it’s so darn beautiful and partly because it was designed by hometown boys George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg whose stellar work is the subject of a gorgeous, newish coffee table book (Architecture/Interiors Press), above right.

Avenue Road is housed in a century-old generating station on Eastern Avenue not far from Broadview. The space took more than a year and buckets of cash to overhaul but the effort has paid off handsomely. A light-filled atrium was created through the centre of the building giving the space an airy feel that allows the merchandise to really breathe.

And what merchandise! Sumptuous vignettes spill over three floors and 15,000 square feet. Some of the items have to be custom ordered but Avenue Road proudly trumpets its Stocked selection of pieces that are ready to wrap and go.

Unless you call Rosedale or Forest Hill home, the prices will probably make you dizzy. But after surveying Yabu Pushelberg, it’s clear that the couple — they’ve been personal and professional partners for 30 years — prefers a less-is-more approach provided it’s steeped in luxury. So what if the Vladimir Kagan Sculptured Table (below) is $5,390 — you’ll never need another coffee table and it will still be chic enough for your children to fight over when you’re gone.

Yabu and Pushelberg’s personal taste is extremely modern and incredibly refined judging from their three homes featured in the book. Clutter is anathema to the pair; their private residences boast clean lines, clean walls and lots of room to breathe — much like Avenue Road (where the designers have a partnership interest).

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Do artists and designers have cooler spaces than the rest of us? Um, yes, as it turns out, at least that’s the conclusion I drew from Design Domestic, a photo exhibit currently up at Toronto’s Design Exchange until August 19. Curated by Noa Bronstein, the show presents glimpses of the personal tastes and styles of some well-known Canadian curators and design professionals, people like industrial designer Andrew Jones (no relation), whose dining room is pictured above. Other featured spaces belong to Jason MacIsaac (Ministry of the Interior), Shaun Moore (MADE), Montreal landscape architect Claude Cormier and installation artist An Te Liu (below), among others.

Each set of photos is accompanied by an “artifact” from the subject’s home, like Katherine Morley’s porcelain Arctic Bookends, below, from Moore’s space.

One item in particular that caught my eye was a Juliane chair (below) in An Te Liu’s home: it’s a rare chair that’s been featured here on styleNorth in one of my favorite posts by Susan Forint (saf affect).

Design Domestic is on show in the DX lobby and admission is free so swing by on a lunch hour if you’re in the business district; upstairs is a pretty great survey of Canadian design called Bent Out of Shape, which I blogged about on LiveWithCulture.ca recently.

Photos courtesy of Design Exchange except exhibit shot by Chris

When I did the reveal post about my dark walls I was a bit surprised that no one commented on the fact that the new cream lampshades (above left) weren’t quite the right size. The shades weren’t new, they were ones I’d pulled out of storage while I had custom shades made. The new shade on the right is one inch taller and one inch narrower: the difference is subtle in the photo but much more apparent in three dimensions. Yes, the old shade would have looked alright with a slightly smaller harp but I didn’t have one on hand, and anyway, I think a 7-inch harp is just too small for a 16″ lamp. Also, because the lamp is contained within a shelf, the wider shade extended too far past the edge of the frame.

I did some web research regarding shade size and discovered there are all kinds of “rules”, the most common being that a shade should be at least one third the height of the lamp. In some cases this is appropriate, in others, not so much. So I consulted the real experts, the high-end decor peddlers on 1stdibs.com.

As the trio of lamps above demonstrates, there really are no hard and fast rules, it’s all about style and proportion. The blue Murano lamp, left, has a 50s/60s feel, which is appropriate for the shape of lamp. The other two are closer to my approach with the shades being slightly shorter than the height of the base. Whenever possible, I simply take the lamp to the store with me when choosing shades and even then I sometimes get it wrong. Make sure you can return the shades if necessary and don’t remove the plastic covering until you’re certain you’ve picked the right ones.

I have to give a plug here to Toronto’s Aristocrat Lamps and Lighting, which is in the throws of a going-out-of-business sale featuring 50 - 75 per cent discounts. My new shades cost me just $30 for the pair. Directly across from the Drake Hotel at 48 Abell Street, Aristocrat is open Monday - Friday from 8:30 am - 5 pm and Saturdays from 10 am - 5 pm.

Photo above courtesy of Swank Lighting.

I would NEVER pay $123.50 for a shelter book, which is why I’m only now getting around to The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé (Vendome Press). I have coveted this title since first seeing it late last year, but only recently did it find its way to my favorite book reseller, Toronto’s BMV, where I scooped up a copy for $49. I have yet to find a discounted edition of the Christie’s hardcover catalogue from “the sale of the century,” The Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé Collection (Flammarion), but a friend has kindly loaned me his copy so I could blog about it here.

Both books are exceptional and surprisingly different; Private World is a compendium of photos by Ivan Terestchenko (with text by Robert Murphy), who was invited to capture the sumptuous opulence of Saint Laurent and Bergé’s seven homes before they were stripped for a 2009 auction at Paris’s Grand Palais. More than 30,000 art lovers toured the preview before the first hammer fell on February 23, 2009. When the sale was over three days later, the collection had raised an astonishing $483.8 million, the highest total ever for an auction held in Europe according to Auction Central News.

As reports from the sale rolled in I was certain I was seeing typos in the reporting: nearly $30,000,000 for a single chair?!!? Surely the copy editor had mistakenly added an extra zero. But no, that’s the price Eileen Gray’s Dragons Armchair, above left, fetched, a world record for any piece of 20th-century decorative art. Matisse’s 1911 canvas, Cowslips, Blue and Pink Fabric, above right, was the priciest piece from the sale, realizing $46.4 million for the Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent Foundation supporting scientific research in the fight against AIDS.

But this post isn’t about the sale, it’s about the books that document the collection and the homes in which the pieces were displayed and cherished. “We lived amid all these masterpieces ‘naturally,’ without feeling we were in a museum,” writes Bergé in the preface to the Christies book. “We never specialized in a genre or style. On the contrary, it gave us pleasure to see Burne-Jones rubbing shoulders with Frans Hals, Jean Court with Eileen Gray, Jean-Michel Frank with Goya, and so many others, simply for the glory of art.”
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The worst part of moving is that you can’t find anything: I have a favorite photo of our boy Punch taken at a friend’s cottage where he is regal and calm and you really get a sense of his proud bearing. But the photo is eluding me this morning, this morning when I can’t sleep because the loss of him is still so fresh and raw. Mike and I said goodbye to our happy chappy last night, the cancer had taken too firm a hold of him. So I’m publishing the best shot I can find, taken in one of Punch’s favorite places with one of his favorite people, Mike.

Twelve years ago, when I decided I was ready to have dogs in my life I had hopes and expectations for what those dogs might be like; Punch exceeded them all. He was happy and affectionate, dopey and lovable, obedient and playful. Thank you, Punch, for everything; we did our best for you and you rewarded us handsomely.