Rose Cumming: The Lady, The Muse, The Legend, The Book!
ROSE CUMMING: THE LADY, THE MUSE, THE LEGEND,
THE BOOK! “One can picture the scene – an eccentric woman with lavender hair
being driven in an ancient touring car surrounded by three admirers, blowing a
trumpet out the window with a crystal chandelier strapped to the roof! They
wound their way back to New York and all ended well.”
That eccentric woman in lavender hair was none
other than Rose Cumming – one of the so-called “great lady decorators” of the
early twentieth century who was bizarre, eclectic and always surrounded herself
with all things bold, dramatic, sumptuous and colorful. Thankfully, the collaboration of renowned
writer Jeffrey Simpson, Cumming’s great-niece Sara Cumming Cecil, the design
house of Dessin Fournir and publishing house nonpareil Rizzoli has resulted in a book that finally and
definitively puts together all the bits and pieces of an enigma (until now) of
a person who, in the oh-so-popular world of interior design, has spent too many
years in the shadows of her fellow peers.
Not only did Cumming push and break boundaries in the realm of
interior design and decoration, but she also inspired and befriended such
design icons Albert Hadley, Mark Hampton, Thomas Britt, Bunny Williams, Mario
Buatta and many countless more. The book Rose
Cumming: Design Inspiration by Jeffrey Simpson is not so much a book about
facts or figures, but more of a journey to a time and era now completely lost
with its ability to shock, change and bewitch one through fabrics and
furnishings and lots of daring firsts.
But with the generous amount of vintage photographs, pics of Cumming's fabric swatches,
transcripts of notes and private letters, quotes from those who knew her
extremely well, Simpson evokes decades of Cumming’s life in a very smart
package – perhaps Studio of Style’s most favorite book of the year. Oh, and the quote above is found on page 220
of this hefty, glorious book of 224 pages that will have you returning to it
again and again to simply savor in the strangely beautiful world that Cumming
conjured for herself but sold by the bolt from her famed shop on the corner of
53rd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City that was cluttered
beyond belief with shelves containing her famed chintz fabrics as well as
chandeliers, bric-a-brac, empty candy boxes, antique furniture and lots of odd
stuff in just the right places to create a sense of fabulous Old World
theater. In fact, there is so much to
read about Cumming in this book, that all we can say to you (our savvy reader!)
is to just get the book and let it unfold itself to you – and you’ll be hooked,
intrigued and just plain astounded by this lovely lady who would go on to
befriend such luminaries as Andy Warhol, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,
Jacqueline Onassis and Marlene Dietrich – who found Cumming’s beautifully bizarre
world of such great interest. “I think she freed up all of us to take more
chances,” says designer Bunny Williams in the book. In 2005, the company of
Dessin Fournir acquired Cumming’s fabric and wallcovering line because, says
company CEO and co-founder Charles Compeu, “she was one of the bastions of
design and represented the best of New York in a time that no longer exists. If Rose were here
today, what would she be doing? Luckily for us, Rose created more designs than
she was able to produce and we discovered a treasure trove of documents and
inspirations among her archives.” (See
related story in post below.) And
indeed, this new book by Simpson is a treasure trove as well – and a
long-overdue paean to someone whose eccentricity, clever eye and sense of
adventure continues to live on for a new generation to explore and fall in love
with!
http://rosecummingdesign.com/index.html
http://www.dessinfournir.com/
Images and story quotes courtesy of Rizzoli
