French Curves and Story-Telling
Uniting Past and Present with Metrie and DXV
There’s a classic grounding behind the re-imagined world of Anna Karenina. The refined backdrop allows a stylized and theatrical scene to play out in full creative spirit.
The ‘Design Telling a Story’ set, inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s classic literature piece, is one that I created, as a DXV Design Panelist, for the luxury brand, DXV by American Standard.
The DXV design tale was recently brought back to life at the 2016 Toronto Interior Design Show. It was told through many complex layers but the fundamental dimension was fixed within the classic architectural profiles of Metrie, an interior finishing company who focuses on enduring elements that blend past and present.
The design is imagined around an epic love story that takes place in the sumptuous environment of Imperial Russia. Like a bird, the beautiful and vibrant, Anna, hovers between her two loves and her two worlds. She quietly performs in her refined, high-society world, as the wife of Karenin, and she flutters with open-heart and passion, as secret lover of the dashing cavalry officer, Vronsky.
Anna’s duplicitous spirit plays out symbolically within the set by means of a watery visual contrast in detail, tradition and hue. Taking its footing at the floor level, there is a gradual ombre shift from darkness to light, from olde world to new world and from complexity to simple, free form. The scene is not eclectic, rather it represents a fluid stylizing that sits within the classical theme.
Underneath the layers and transitions of style and era, there exists a timeless wrap of architectural detailing. What remains true from floor to ceiling is a framework of bespoke mouldings and profiles that belong to a collection called French Curves, by Metrie. As part of their Then and Now Series, the glamorous French Curves profiles are inspired by the classic forms of the Baroque and Empire periods.
These are the distinctive details providing symmetry, harmony and balance to a stylized theme that is rooted in a bygone era. They are what provide the ‘classic hinge’ and they hold the two worlds and every abstract detail together.
A baseboard detailed with fluid curves is finished to mimic Nero Marquino marble. It’s a defining element that provides a strong visual connection to the intricate details of an Imperial marble floor. The mid-nineteenth century styling manifests itself here within the perimeter profiles and sparkling decadence of classic scrollwork.
The statement piece baseboards then transition into the next layer. Together, with Metrie’s French Curves chair rail, they encase upholstered walls of fragmented velvet damask. The stylized textile that reinvents a classic pattern has an inherent ombre shift from dark to light. It represents the first shift in tradition from classic to modern.
Large picture frame panels are carved out with the applied mouldings of French Curves. The classic panels define the features that hover between the eras. They frame the striking watercolour fashion art that merges classic silhouettes with the brushstrokes of modern haute couture. They embrace my most freely-imagined creation, the ‘smashing the classics’ mirror, that performs a lovely solo of break and release towards the modern and free world.
The elements are patinaed with softly-layered hues that open up to a brilliant white as they reach the pinnacle of the scene; the realm of Anna’s free spirit where she is wildly in love. Here, a robust French Curves crown acts as the last embrace of the olde world. It meets an animated ceiling of suspended acrylic panels etched with exaggerated scrollwork and pierced with an ode-to-theatre deconstructed chandelier. The finale hovers in modern juxtaposition to the classic marble scrolls of the floor beneath.
The period love story is told through many broken rules. The classical world is decadently detailed and then deconstructed and fragmented into abstract shards. The layers and re-imaginings and the two realms of Anna evolve and revolve harmoniously through a solid foundation of timeless elements. They perform like a classic piece of literature uniting past and present.
