I would never describe my personal taste as pretty. You won’t find ruffles on my toss cushion flanges or pompom-ed trim on my roman blinds. Polka dots and frilly details and florals are definitely not my jam. And pink? Well, it has its place and I have a restraining order against it.
Kate Spade’s fashion line is all of the above with a side of sweet pastel macarons. Not my bag.
But when it comes to interior design? I’ll have what she’s having.
Spade is yet another fashion designer dipping her perfectly pedicured toe into the very giving and less seasonally judgey interior design space. Furniture and fabric are simply less trend propelled and great design survives season after season (Le Corbusier, Noguchi, Saarinen, Starck, Lloyd Wright – this list goes on and on). This can be said a lot less in fashion – save for a Louis Vuitton purse and maybe a timeless pair of black pants. And a great black pump. And hopefully those Stuart Weitzman suede boots I just traded my daughter’s RESP for. Fashion can be flakey.
I have never really given Kate Spade a proper shake. It was the flowers and the ribbons and the monkey change purses and those blasted polka dots.
But her fabrics, now available through Kravet, have made me a convert. To find something really unusual in fabric is no easy feat. In fact, many designers who have fabric lines bearing their names have just gone to the mills and curated a line – picked and chosen and culled to create something careful from a much longer list. They aren’t creating fabric or colour or delivering anything new and inventive. They are mixing and matching a shit ton of separates and telling you how to wear them. Yawn.
Spade has created something entirely her own and probably what I love most about it is 
the colour. I love a white wall and live for neutral, larger upholstered pieces as they are so expensive to swap out but for layering, show me the colour. Her Poppy Red and a brilliant hue she calls Picnic Green are to die for – especially in her gorgeous wool felts from Brazil. I am equally crazy for her textures – Lunch Date (I know, right?) and Linen Craft are next level and would liven up any occasional chair or dining seat cushion.
The polka dots are still there folded in with fun prints that I am ok living without but the bones of her fabric line give me all the feels.