by Kate Jonuska
this interior stylist and author preaches curation
IF MINIMALISM AND modernism have always felt harsh to your gentle heart, you will likely sink as happily into Curate: Inspiration for an Individual Home by Lynda Gardener and Ali Heath as you would a bubble bath in a vintage, clawfoot tub, likely surrounded by your favorite things, artfully displayed.
“I am a magpie at heart,” admits Gardener, an interior stylist and boutique hotelier in Australia who teamed up with British journalist and designer Heath to create this somewhat anti-minimal design book. She adds, “I could never be a minimalist— the draw of beautiful things is a constant joy.”
By exploring her many boutique properties in Australia and around the world via luscious photographs, Curate teaches “interior styling” over “interior design,” meaning the constant collection and curation of beloved objects over a set design. Whether defined by form, function, palette or whim, displaying these collections creates lived-in, livable spaces and a personalized home.
Causal is key in Curate, where beds are layered with multiple linens an intentionally rumpled to be inviting and where art can sometimes hang unframed, tacked to the wall and curling romantically. The emphasis on collection can be a challenge, forcing patience and consideration, and often results in a melding of old with new. Too much of one or the other, says Gardener, flattens the design and “makes it feel ordinary.”
Instead, she enjoys reclaiming architectural elements from demolished structures, such as a boarded ceiling salvaged from a former factory; a set of antique garden doors discovered at a salvage yard; or new fireplaces built with found and rescued bricks. When mixed with newer objects, no item is too precious or too common, and everything is used and loved to the max, without reservations.
The results of this design strategy are not only rich and multi-textural but also more sustainable, battling a design culture of overconsumption. The book’s romantic and maximal approach is sure to please design magpies the world over.
