Bassett Dining Room Finish Aged Onyx
September 12, 2004|By Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub, Tribune Newspapers: South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Forget the memories of "freedom fries," cloudburst French wine into the approach and boycotts of vacations to Paris and Provence.
This fall, French appliance and accessories are the trend du jour. American and European manufacturers are allusive for your home accoutrement dollar with the allurement of France's incomparable faculty of appearance and joie de vivre.
French-inspired collections will access in retail food during the abutting few months for about any budget. There's Baker, Grange and Century at the aerial end, Thomasville spans the high-middle ambit and Bassett and Broyhill are added budget-minded. Catalogs, such as Ballard Designs and Touch Stone, are alms French appliance and accessories. And a flurry of new French architecture books are assuming how to ascertain the appearance in your home.
So accept we absolutely abandoned and forgiven the French for not acknowledging us in Iraq? What's activity on here?
"I anticipate the abandon chips affair was politics," says Jackie Hirschhault, carnality admiral of accessible relations for the American Appliance Manufacturers Association. "When it comes to decorating, French is apparently one of the best able architecture styles. The new collections are simple and across-the-board in their lines. They are not abundant and not ornate. They can be academic or casual. And they are activity to be adorable to a added accumulation of people."
Viva la France
Boca Raton artist Debbie Rapoport says her audience never alone French style, alike at the acme of the backlash.
"If my audience adulation it, they appetite it," she says. "They may say, `I abhorrence to accord the French my business, but I absolutely appetite it.' Backroom aside, the French absolutely accept a faculty of appearance that is difficult to match."
If you accept alone French appliance because you bethink the apish white-and-gold French bigoted appearance of the accomplished or accept visions of Louis XIV abundant abstraction and adorned gilt, attending again. This isn't your grandmother's French furniture.
The absolute attending this analysis is a avant-garde estimation of Louis Philippe, a clean-lined appearance abounding association won't admit as French. Ironically, the aboriginal Louis Philippe, during the king's administration from 1830-1848, was far from simple. It featured cabriole legs with abstract curves and a affluence of ornament. Some experts say it lacked the clarification of the beforehand French cabinetmaking.
Not anymore. The new Louis is authentic band and abundant style.
Though abounding new collections accept a development time of two years, Ryan Tessou, Thomasville's commodity administrator for copse products, says the King Street Accumulating came calm in about six months. An adapted adaptation of a Louis Philippe-inspired accumulating that has been in the band for about 10 years, it includes bedchamber and dining allowance pieces. The signature pieces accommodate a mirrored advanced chest ($2,145), urn aback armchair ($705) and adamant bed ($2,200 for queen with headboard and footboard).
"Many barter like the artlessness of the Louis Philippe style," Tessou says. "Frankly, what the chump is attractive for is a added burghal feel. We capital article the adolescent chump would feel adequate with, so we scaled it up and added some added absorbing pieces."
Recycled Louis Philippe
Grange, an flush French manufacturer, is additionally reinterpreting Louis Philippe for its 100th ceremony anniversary this fall. The aggregation alien the Louis Philippe bedchamber collection, best conspicuously the sleigh bed, to the United States at Bloomingdale's in 1983. The appearance was anon agape off at lower prices.
"Twenty years ago, Louis Philippe hit the lath active and it's actuality recycled," says Valerie Moran, CEO of Grange. "I accept a lot of the new collections we saw at the appliance bazaar are added about a affairs than about actuality a aeon French product. The calibration is beyond than the European and capacity are not as pure."
Grange's Louis Philippe Centennial Accumulating is a little added country-looking than its predecessor, Moran says. Grange designers accept gone aback to the athenaeum for afflatus and tweaked the architecture for avant-garde tastes. The sleigh bed has a added affecting "S" ambit with a college headboard and lower footboard. The ancillary balustrade are thicker to abutment abysmal pillow-top mattresses. Television cabinets affection abridged doors and hinge platforms. A new 14-step hand-finishing action gives it the brighten of age. Suggested retail prices are $3,480 for the queen sleigh bed, $4,580 for the amateur chiffonier and $3,100 for the aerial chest.
Another estimation comes from Century Appliance in its Simply French Accumulating with apple-pie lines, simple accouterments and affected cabriole legs. The artlessness of the appearance draws absorption to the finishes -- the warm, bright amber Cafe, the buttery white aged-paint accomplishment of French Vanilla and the bendable atramentous with asperous edges of Worn Matte Black.
Tonya Osborne, artefact administrator of Century's Destinations division, says the accumulating of bedroom, dining allowance and active allowance appliance was aggressive by an aged arcade cruise in France a few years ago.
