Icon Trend

Fierce and Beautiful

Australian Vintage Treasure Find

Icon-Baby's Vintage Treasure Find - Parchment covered side tables in the manner of Karl Springer

Icon-Trend Interior Design - Sydney Residential Project (Photo & Styling: Sabine Warlich)

Side table, 1970 by Karl Springer

Karl Springer is one of my most favorite Design Icons

Karl Springer was born in Germany but eventually moved to New York City to work as a bookbinder after his education in France. His early multi-nationalism and work with natural materials helped to shape his later work in furniture design.

Springer began working for Lord and Taylor in the late 1950s, and later moved to Bergdorf Goodman, where he continued covering books and collectables with leather and other exotic materials. In 1965 he was able to open his own design studio, and continued to run Karl Springer Ltd. by himself for many years.

The height of Springer’s design fame came during the 1970-80s when Springer was running multiple workshops and traveling extensively between them. This travel and exposure to new materials helped to fuel the creative freedoms he took with his designs.

Springer’s work has Art Deco, Asian, freeform, and African influences, all of which are incorporated into his modern designs. The quality of the craftsmanship is apparent in the lines but also in the materials: Springer chose exotic woods and leathers to work in, and he did not hesitate to use new materials like Lucite or ancient materials such as bone or brass.

Springer is often credited with the return in popularity of shagreen, an Asian sharkskin material that was popular in the 1920s, which was also a bookbinding material.

Get The Look /// Global - Ethnic and Contemporary

Icon-Baby, the Blog. Get the LOOK Get The Look /// Global - Ethnic - Contemporary

01// Amazing ‘Angel’ wall lamp designed by Francis Dravigny for Hive. Available at KEZU, Australia

02// Coquillage: Antique French commode. This could be a great DIY project.

03// ‘Wewe’ cushion featuring an African inspired banana print at AMARA, Australia

04// Light pendant at Gia Collectione, Australia

05// ‘Fungi’ mirror from Arteriors, available at Boyd Blue, Australia

06// ‘Corsage’ floor lamp from Arteriors, available at Boyd Blue, Australia

07// ‘Bliss’ chair in burlap from West Elm, Australia

08// Furniture artisan Christian Astuguevieille commode. see more here

09// Cloud like bench, ‘Lava’, designed by Karim Rashid for Vondom is a evocative focal point in any space. LOVE! available at – KEZU, Australia

10// Embroidered babouches from 'Muzungu Sisters'. here

'Angel' Wall lamp - Hive Designer: Francis Dravigny at KEZU

Coquillage chest and mirrored wall

Hand cut cowhides

From a selection at 'Hard to Find' , Australia

Java Batik cushions

Light pendant at Gia Collectione

From a selection at 'Hard to Find' , Australia

Java Batik cushions

Hand cut cowhides

Francois Catroux - Interior Decorator /// THEN and NOW

Lauren Santo Domingo's Paris apartment by Francois Catroux - Vogue

This Paris Duplex designed by the great decorator Francois Catroux, the go to interiors man for everyone from the Rothschilds to the Von Furstenbergs. All photographs in vogue by norman jean roy

Francois Catroux /// Interior Decorator - Paris 1970s

Book scan: Architectural Digest - International Interiors, 1979 / Interior Decorator Francois Catroux

Francois Catroux arrived on the Paris scene in the middle of the 1960's, when he settled after years of constant traveling. One day a friend droped in with an Italien lady. As she left she asked him if he would like to decorate her place. The lady was Mila Schoen, and the project was an enormous susses. Thus launched internationally and Mr Catroux soon had projects all over the world.

Book scan: Architectural Digest - International Interiors, 1979 / Interior Decorator Francois Catroux

"I would never go out to buy two night tables for the bedroom. Never! It is space that interests me, masses that seem to melt together, the use of screens, different levels,different qualities of transparency. These are the effects I like. And I really detest furniture."

Book scan: Architectural Digest - International Interiors, 1979 / Interior Decorator Francois Catroux

"Coming to me is a little like going to Cartier..."

His concern for quality shows also in his own apartment. Even at the beginning, because of precarious finances, he used inexpensive modern materials, but the basics were done in the best way possible. As a consequense the decor for his apartment can be arranged as convenient as a stage set. "Al, the screens are mounted magnetically and can be lifted right off."

Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux

Betty Catroux is instantly recognizable: lean, platinum-haired, the ultimate androgyne, she has a leggy tomboy style that was a visual philter to Yves Saint Laurent, whom she met in a nightclub, and to whom she was more than a muse. As her husband, François Catroux, said: “She was for Yves like a drawing. She was a pencil stroke that was his pencil stroke. She is what he would have dreamed of being himself, I guess.”

Francois and Betty Catroux

The late, great designer’s symbiotic relationship with Betty dates to 1967, the year she first came to Vogue’s attention as “one of the hippiest, most attractive "Left Bank boutique girls".
The attraction between the two friends was not only aesthetic, but intellectual:

They shared an escapist mentality. “We had a passion for the Rolling Stones; we adored all that was louche. We loved the night, the excesses,” said Catroux, who is rumored to have gone into rehab with Saint Laurent, in the late seventies. They also shared a

French bourgeois mindset, which made their exploratory strolls on the wild side especially dangerous: There was always the Right Bank to return to. As Catroux told later, “We liked the hippie mentality, but since we loved luxury their lifestyle was not for us! It just meant more freedom and rebellion.”

Among Saint Laurent’s rebellious sartorial statements was putting women in trousers. Commonplace, now—but that was hardly the case when, in July 1968, he showed a couture collection inspired by Catroux that was built around the man-tailored pantsuit.

Book scan: Architectural Digest - International Interiors, 1979 / Interior Decorator Francois Catroux

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