A little splash of color

As a New Yorker born and raised, I know the value of black; the sophisticated self confidence it conveys. The steadfastness of the light absorbing shade is incomparable. Agreed. But color. Oooh color. It whispers to me. I'll make your eyes greener. You'll sleep easier in a robin's egg blue bedroom. But I aspire to black. I admire the adherents. I had a friend in D.C. whose entire wardrobe, save the odd pair of designer denim, was black. Entirely black. I marveled at the ease she must have in dressing, let alone packing. But the pantonic seduction was too much. I cannot deny my childhood obsession with pink. POP is awash in a rainbow of colored dots, clothing color coordinated, and in summer, black is but a little punctuation.

So you can imagine the smile that warmed my somber winter face when I stumbled upon pictures of the majestic Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, featuring rooms designed by society decorator Dorothy Draper in the 1940's and maintained by her protege Carlton Varney. There they were, over the top, unadulterated, unabashedly proud color soaked rooms. Don't get me wrong, I'm not abandoning my roots, but maybe here, as in the black-and-white checked marble floors that accent the floral prints on towering drapes and overstuffed plaid chairs, we can occasionally use it as the outline not simply as the substance. After-all, pink is a universally flattering color!