That would be Mr. Axel Vervoordt, famous antiques and art dealer and interior designer extraordinaire. I have not met him yet, so my love is of the aesthetic kind, a boundless admiration for his artistic genius and encyclopedic knowledge, for his ability to sublimate material possessions into romantic ideals. Of course he's a hopeless romantic - how else could one take priceless artifacts and one-of-a-kind furnishings and turn them into love stories that not once hint at the fact that they're merely accessories to living at the higher end?
While I was still living in Switzerland, my Baron friend invited me on a visit to Kasteel van 's-Gravenwezel, Mr. Vervoordt's 14th-century castle outside of Antwerp, Belgium. However, my 20-something years old persona of the time had something better to do - so I declined, something that I obviously still regret to this day when, as a working mother, any time away from my young kids is laced with guilt.
On the brighter side, my job as a designer gives me all excuses to escape with one of his books in a sunny corner of my family room, pouring over the images and dreaming in off-whites and sienna and old gold and gilt and grey shale, dreaming of furniture the color of driftwood, of rounded stone, softened-by-age linen and blues that can never turn cold, just very, very romantic.
In my Heaven, the Universal Interior Designer is Mr. Vervoordt - and I'm his assistant.
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