How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century

I am pleased I bought this book. It is a bit different, focusing on some big celebrity names of times gone by (predominantly 60's, 70's and 80's) eg Goergia O'Keefe, Bunny Melon etc and how they decorated their homes. You have to be aware that these ladies were mostly immensely wealthy and therefore had endless money at their disposal to buy properties, antiques, art of all types and hire decorators to help them if wished. So it is not exactly a resource book for the likes of me (and most of us presumably) who are just decorating their one house - which like as not will be fairly "normal" and not a chateau or a number 3, 4 or 5 residence in another country! However it is interesting just to read about the people and see what they did and be critical about their interiors. Also it is not impossible to use a design tip or two from a corner of one of their vast rooms. I am assuming that these famous ladies would have featured in magazines gone by but now do not - so it is definitely worth adding this to your library if you are very interested in interiors. You may find yourself disliking some things and then warming to them when you flick back through - thus your notions or what looks good are being challenged. The book is well produced with good paper and photographs and with a good quality paper cover on hard back. It is a good book to handle, not overly large format (just a tad smaller than a magazine I think, but obviously thicker) but the photos are often a full page or a 2 page spread so in fact its a good size to actually read. If you are looking for only one or two books to help you decorate you home in style however I would suggest you look for something that dirctly reflects your sort of house or style (eg country house or cottage or London house or modern apartment or whatever) and there are loads out there. Unless of course you are a multi-millionaire and want to see how your predecessors did it - in which case start here!

A glorious book!I am most delighted with the purchase of this book.Rizzoli Publishing has produced a sublime tome. Tapp, has created a fine, entrancing book.What a selection of great women and the homes they created.Photographs, good sense and intelligent writing. A splendid book.For such little price you get a superb book of the homes of the greatest women of style.

This book was everthing I expected and brought these great designers to life.