A DESIGNER'S INTRODUCTORY GUIDE TO ORANGE

A STEP BY STEP FOR GOING FROM BLAND TO BOLD WITH ORANGE

We've had a thing for orange for quite a while so I wanted to take a look at what trends were looking like to see if we were passé; Donald Trump's hair not withstanding.

Trolling the Internet I discovered orange seemed to still be holding it's own.  So the orange pillows we've stocked our living room with

and the new orange infused carpet we bought to replace the pee stained (this was dog done not human) rug in the office was okay.

Now if you're hunkering for a little orange in your life here's a bit of inspiration and a plan to get you going,

Lets start out with baby steps and do some accessorizing with orange. I'm guessing if color and especially orange is totally intimidating to you then you might want to start with something you can throw away. Try flowers if the result of adding a touch of orange makes you too nervous and weak in the knees. The flowers are going to die soon anyway.

Another way of to ease your way into orange is to take it down a notch and go with a more elegant and understated version of orange. Try the burnt version. It's a duller less risky way to dip your toe into the vulgar world of orange.

Pillows and throws are always a way to introduce pops of color and still keep your country club image intact if you swing traditional.

Keeping orange in the traditional design family is actually pretty easy. Throw some embroidered antlers on an orange background and then lay them on a neutral sofa and people will think you're some snappy designer.

Now once you've accepted that you can handle a little orange you should be ready to take it to the next level. You could add a strip to the rug on the floor and a more permanent accessory like a lampshade. You should feel pretty good about yourself at this point. You've made a bold move. You've now accepted that you can handle a little orange infused into your design aesthetic and it might even have brought a little swagger to your design confidence.

Now lets go for a bigger step where you can not only see the orange but begin to smell it as well. It you've got the guts for it you can start flinging orange on your walls, make your bed with it and even carry it in a bag on your arm.

You can sit on it, put a drink down on it or even wrap it around you.

You don't even have to be cutting edge. You can still put on your velvet beaded Connecticut evening slippers and say, "Oh Darling" out of lips that appear only to move when you take a sip of your extra dry three olive martini.

Just imagine all the places or objects you can cover in orange. Take this beautiful Asian inspired chair set in front of this incredible wallpaper lit with orange paper lanterns.

Or this minimalist living room where orange is like an exclamation mark on a stark black and white sentence.

Then if you've really earned your orange balls you can shoot for the moon with orange and put it on your ceiling.

Or you could let it drip and swirl from floor to floor

You can polish it like an apple and let it shine in your kitchen

You can go complimentary and quilt it on the back of a nook surrounded by a sea of brilliant blue.

The Moroccans were big on orange and you could be too with plaster walls, niches with tiles and a settee cozied up with orange bolsters and seat cushions

You could also create your own Orangerie if you had a Renaissance inspired mansion and wanted a place to winter your delicate fruit garden

You can keep it simple

Or you can go all out.

We tend to take ours neat with a vintage brandy























THE GALLERY

Contact, Times Square, 2002
Andrew Moore, photographer
Represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery