I just got a copy of Selina Lake's
Bazaar Style, originally published in 2008 by Ryland Peters & Small but in a new printing as of last month. I love the book and I think that if you're meant to love it as well, you'll know right away when you first take a glance at the many wonderful color photos. You're either a
Bazaar Style person or you're not -- I can see this in the reactions of certain people when they first see my...well, let's call it decor for now -- if their eyes dilate sharply or they aren't quite sure where to look, then they are not fans of the eclectic and colorful.
Bazaar Style is not for champions of regimented pastel tones or people who cringe at mixing florals with stripes, or for anyone who might not put a modernist painting on a toile-papered wall. Or for those who don't find any personal gratification in rescuing a discarded coffee table from an alley and painting it Bombay Red. We are all different, there's nothing wrong with that, but for those of us who do like the flea markets and thrift stores and rummage sales of the world and all the treasures they hold, or for those of us who like to celebrate the past alongside the present/future in quirky yet meaningful formations, this is a lovely read that will spark your decorating imagination. And I quote: "The bazaar look cannot be bought on one shopping trip. It grows organically over the years...[i]t celebrates the beauty of our everyday possessions...and loves colour." Indeed.
You might even want to leave the book itself prominently displayed, just to show that particular sister-in-law or whoever in your life that yes, you can use an old gilt-edged soup tureen as a place to keep your house keys or you can also string twinkly Christmas lights around a print of Van Gogh's
Cafe Terrace at Night. You can most certainly put a Mexican religious candle of the Virgen de Guadalupe next to your grandparents' wedding photo -- if it feels right, yes, you really can.
