by Kate Jonuska
how styling your home can improve your life
MANY DESIGN BOOKS inspire with specific ideas or techniques to aesthetically improve your home, but in “Style: The Art of Creating a Beautiful Home,” Natalie Walton inspires more than beautiful interiors. The stylist and author engages readers with the history of design and the philosophy of the creative process. She also explores how, rather than an act of materialism, styling can be a mindful and intentional practice that can improve your life—every day and in the big picture.
“Your home is one of the greatest gifts in your life … It is where you can create beauty and enhance everyday experiences for yourself and those you love,” writes Walton, who says that creating authentic and comfortable spaces can be an act of service and generosity for yourself and your loved ones. Styling, she elaborates, “It is an art and science that can be learnt, and a practice that can bring you daily joy.”
Certainly, Walton’s “Style” covers design foundations, including focal points, scale, movement, balance and rhythm, and unity and contrast. However, as she’s shown in her other books (“Still: The Slow Home” and “This is Home: The Art of Simple Living”), Walton believes that design requires introspection about your authentic self because your style is an expression of self summed up by three elements: your story, your feelings and your values.
Showing how design can be healing, she delves into the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi (which embraces impermanence), kintsugi (which sees beauty in the broken) and kaizen (which translates as ‘good change’ or making continuous improvements). She quotes the Bhagavad-Gita, Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant and the Buddha interspersed with design tips and beautiful photography.
In a world where design can feel expensive and competitive, “Style: The Art of Creating a Beautiful Home” is an inspirational design primer that doubles as a journey of self-exploration, taking what can be seen as a materialistic and superficial art form to satisfying new depths.
