Daniel House Book Club
Welcome to The Daniel House Book Club. We’re here to learn more about great design together. Whether you’re designing a new hotel or just furnishing your first apartment, we’re exploring books that will help you create spaces you and / or your guests and clients will want to return to again and again. There’s a lot of design out there and though I hate to be a downer, not all of it is good. But all of it could be, if we armed ourselves with a little more knowledge. This is not a podcast created to persuade you toward one aesthetic or another, but to explore together the immense library of design genius that has been contributed to the world by so many great talents that came before us and some that are still among us, so that when we arrive at our next jobs, we’ll find our place amongst the ranks of our amazing profession. I’m Peter Spalding, the Chief Creative Officer of The Daniel House Club, and I’ll be your host.
Daniel House Book Club
The House in Good Taste: America's First Decorator
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Peter Spalding
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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In the last episode, I said Elsie de Wolfe was the Joanna Gaines of her day, except way chicer, but that may have minimized her gigantic shoes – it might be better to call her the Kim Kardashian of her day. In de Wolfe, we see our modern concept of celebrity. She is often called America’s first decorator, but she was so much more. She was a stage actress, a social connector, a publicity genius (I think), and a not-too closeted lesbian, which didn’t seem to bother many. In 1935, Paris critics named de Wolfe “the best dressed woman in the world,” as she did not cater to trends but wore what suited her best.