views this collection as simplify-
ing the consumer's life by offering
a comprehensive package.
Design theory and artistic mis-
sion motivate apparel designers
to cross over. But economics is
paramount. There is an expected
long-term slump in the apparel in-
dustry, and home design has be-
come more important to Ameri-
cans, largely due to "cocooning,"
our silicon-chip-enhanced ability
to see movies, conduct business
and wreak all kinds of havoc with-
out leaving the sofa. Mass-mar-
ket consumers are even more
knowledgeable about such hall-
marks of quality as fiber content,
thread count and wood grain.
Where 15 years ago there was
crate furniture, there are now like-
ly to be more formal upholstered
pieces. Even Gloria Steinem has
written of her about-face: After
years of priding herself on her
spartan, nearly empty apart-
ment— it symbolized the fact that
she wasn't tied to a nest— she dec-
orated. Now she extols the virtues
of a beautiful home.
I
mproving our lives seems to
be a mission of successful
lifestyle designers like Alexan-
der Julian. Universal Furni-
LV_EM E R 2 4
Opposite page: The J.G. Hook Home Fashions Collection by Bassett Furniture fea-
tures furniture, bedding, wallpaper, stationery and accessories. Above: A Laura Ash-
ley-dressed room. The English firm is a crossover pioneer.
dresses" that respected the nat-
ural, uncorsetted lines of a
woman's body. In 1895 he de-
signed his own house, including
all interiors and furnishings, cre-
ating a "total environment" 88
years before Ralph Lauren made
the concept so commercially suc-
cessful.
The architect Walter Gropius,
who succeeded Van de Velde as
director of the influential Weimar
School of Arts and Crafts in Ger-
many, later wrote that he "ad-
mired the comprehensiveness of
his approach," but he seemed to
question the ego that went with
it. About the designer's teaching
methods, Gropius wrote, "Van de
Velde, conscious of his strength,
believed one man could change
the style of a whole country."
Change the style of a whole
country? Van de Velde was not the
last designer accused of such
high-falutin' objectives. Just ask
Ralph Lauren, the apparel de-
signer who in 1983 launched the
tremendously successful Ralph
Lauren Home Collection, a com-
plete home-furnishings collection,
from furniture and floor coverings
to bedding and napkin rings. The
venture was so successful it rev-
olutionized the home furnishings
industry, and for that matter the
apparel industry
"I think Ralph Lauren set the
standard," says Margaret Hayes,
former executive at Saks Fifth Av-
enue and president of the Fash-
ion Group International, a
prominent society of women in
the fashion industry.
"People didn't do lifestyle pre-
sentation before that," says Nan-
cy Vignola, a senior vice president
of Polo/Ralph Lauren in charge of
the home-furnishing design stu-
ture actually promotes his Home dio. She has worked with Lauren
Colours as the answer to the fren- for 19 years and watched him cre-
zy of modern life, echoing the sen- ate and present whole environ-
timents of the renowned ments of home design. "He
turn-of-the-century Belgian-born started very large," says Vignola.
architect Henri Van de Velde, who "He purposefully went in doing
actually believed his work would everything."
Among the "environments" Vi-
lead to a healthier environment.
In 1894 Van de Velde called for gnola remembers from Lauren's
a new art, or art nouveau, that first collection of 1983: the Log
would seek a continuity of form Cabin environment with flannel
and line paralleling nature and sheets, Navajo blankets, etc.; the
applicable to many design disci- Jamaica environment with beau-
plines. He designed everything tiful hand-painted sheets and ob-
from curvilinear buildings and jects; and the Thoroughbred
their contents— furniture, table- environment with tweeds and
ware, book bindings— to "reform DRESSING THE HOME page G6