Decorating Secret Of The Stars: Multiply

What do supermodel Coco Rocha, superstar writer/artist Douglas Coupland and super designer/TV personality Kelly Deck have in common besides B.C. roots? They know how to multiply.

MORE IS BETTER | Repetition, as designer Kelly Deck pointed out to me recently, is central to good interior design. “If we’re designing the interior architecture of the home, we often determine well in advance what repeating architectural elements we’ll use throughout the design. Perhaps the millwork and doorways will all have chunky wood wraps, or the hardware throughout will be square, polished and jewel-like. These are subtle uses of repetition, but they’re fundamental in creating an interior that feels quiet and unified.”

More literally, repetition is very effective in decorating, particularly when you’re trying to stretch a budget—or make a high-impact artistic statement. Here are the ways the model, the writer and the designer have multiplied to great effect.

The Model | Richmond homegirl Coco Rocha lives in Manhattan with her husband, interior designer James Conran, in the apartment pictured above. As Rocha reported to Vogue, she was delighted to find the eight mirrors on her living room wall at Crate & Barrel for “$200” after her designer (we are assuming it was Conran; and it looks like they are currently on sale two for $159) told her it would cost around $15,000 to custom-create the same effect. “I love a good bargain,” she told Vogue. We do too. See more of the couple’s home and read the full story at www.vogue.com.

The Writer | Douglas Coupland, in artist mode, is a master of repeating elements, though he doesn’t employ this technique in his work because he wants to make art on a budget or loves only humble things. “This piece [the targets in the photo] just happened to come from relatively inexpensive materials. If one of those targets had cost $5,000, it’d still be in there,” he told me. What I love is how Coupland makes art from unlikely things, very often pumping up the impact with a multiples theme. See the rest of Coupland’s home (and more ideas) in The New York Times, www.nytimes.com.

The Designer | Kelly Deck is a master of ingenuity. “On a large art wall where you need to take up a great deal of space but do not necessarily have the $6K required to purchase an original artwork, a collection of found objects like the doilies [found at The Sellution and shown here] framed identically and carefully placed will be very impactful,” she says. “I’m always watching for unique collections of objects that have the potential to be wall art.” Having just returned from India, it will be exciting to see how the things she saw and/or found there find their way into her work (visit www.kellydeck.com). —C. Rule

Photos: Cocoa Rocha, Claiborne Swanson Frank, vogue.com; Douglas Coupland, Martin Tessler, The New York Times; framed doilies, Barry Calhoun, Kelly Deck Design