COTE DE TEXAS BLOG

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Cocktails with The New Traditionalists

I recently had the pleasure of being asked to style a bar for a cocktail party celebrating the new collections of The The New Traditionalists. You might know them better by one of their lines Mason Gray or for their children's furniture line Duc Duc. Luckily there were no children at the party last week! Just lots of fabulous friends and designers like Jonathan Rosen, Harry Heissmann, Kevin Isbell, Nick Olsen, Ron Marvin, Bruce Shostak, and Laurie Reynolds who is now working with Bruce!

Since I live uptown and The New Traditionalists showroom is in Soho, I tried to use as many accessories they had on site as possible. This is something that I often so at my client's homes so it actually worked out well.

All of the furniture names are actually numbers that are meaningful to the company. The credenza that I used for my bar/entry table is Credenza No. Two Twenty Five. Not sure if you can tell by the photo but the gray finish was applied over a dark blue finish that can be seen around all the edges. It looked really beautiful in person and perfectly complemented my blue and orange color scheme. You can only see a glimpse of one of their chairs in this photo but you should definitely check out their upholstered pieces. The applied leather trimmings and details are like nothing I've ever seen!

The accessories did include a few pieces from my own apartment including my gold boxes, Eiffel Tower, candle and monogrammed match boxes. I also don't advocate smoking but the multi-colored Nat Sherman cigarettes in the silver cup were a nod to A Single Man and added more color.

While my styling project was like something I would do in a client's home, it couldn't compare with the work of real stylist Frances Bailey! She styled the Armoire No. Five Sixty Four with an orange lacquered interior that I loved! You can have the interiors lacquered any color and it's a fun surprise to find when you open a door or drawer!

I love the Domino magazine quality to the styling of this bar by Frances. I definitely think I need to have her give me some lessons!

Brady Wilcox the Chief Creative Officer of The New Traditionalists styled this simple bar on the Dresser No. Nine. I love how the white lacquer drawer fronts look with the darker wood finish. You can play with the color combinations to your heart's content! The furniture is all made American as well!

Monogrammed cocktail napkins are a nice touch to any home bar! I think that might also be a vintage trophy that was used as an ice bucket!

I owe a big thanks to The New Traditionalists team of David Harris, Rebby Gregg, Phillip Erdoes, and Brady Wilcox for allowing me to be a part of their special night. I can also confirm that a good time was had by all! Cheers!

Make Mine a Double: Part Deux

One of my readers once pointed out that you can't know everything about everything. Sometimes I post photos that inspire me without knowing the whole story or that there is even more to the story, so I love it when my readers email me with more information. A few days ago, furniture designer Paul Benson contacted me to let me know that he had designed the piece that was turned into the bar in the room designed by Steven Gambrel that I posted in Make Mine a Double back in December.

The orange sideboard is part of a collection he designed for Distant Origin in New York. Steven Gambrel had the sink installed in the center for his client. The bar below is part of a new collection that will be shown at the De Sousa Hughes showroom in San Francisco starting later this month. I am so happy that Paul emailed me and that I could share more of his amazing work with you. It's also nice to know that even if you can't afford Steven Gambrel to design your house, you can at least buy the same furniture!

Photos from Steven Gambrel and Paul Benson

Make mine a double!

Now that I'm almost finished decorating my apartment for the holidays, I was thinking that I should invite my friends over. Only problem is that I don't have a bar so I've been pouring through my files for inspiration. The holy grail of bars of course belonged to designer David Hicks. When I attended his son Ashley's recent lecture on his work, he posted the photo above and quoted his father who declared, "I like rows and rows of tonic bottles, apple, tomato juice, two or three syphons of spirits lined up behind each other; it gives a generous, welcoming atmosphere, and if a bus-load of friends descend upon you, you are ready for them." Looks like I have some shopping to do!

Designer Miles Redd has my second most favorite bar that takes it cue from David Hicks. He also outlines a list of essential items for a well stocked bar in House Beautiful here. It's a perfect list for me to take shopping!

Miles' bar and a few of the others include tortoise shell glassware that I think I will be adding to my list. I love the look!

One of my other favorite bar looks was from Eddie Ross' old apartment featured in Domino. Eddie collected all of his silver from the flea markets so looks like I will be making a few trips there myself!