Anthropologie's TABLEAUX

For years now I have been purchasing most of my clothing from Anthropologie, not in small measure because I just love spending time in their stores. Love the whimsy of their merchandisers and the one-of-a-kind treasures casually displayed on seriously distressed floors and in dressing rooms (18th century French mirror, anyone?); I can get lost looking through translucent hand painted coffee cups, and isn't it even more quaint that nobody would ever use 1 oz delicate porcelain confections for seriously diluted American coffee?

But today it is not about the Anthropologie stores that I am excited. Over my seriously diluted American coffee (served in an appropriate 8 oz silver and white striped sturdy mug) this morning, I started looking at their March catalogue, whose very romantic cover depicting an ethereal model walking from a light-filled verdant garden into a moody, high-ceiling-ed manse with many layers of peeling paint turning its walls into a canvas of old, cool colors in stark contrast with the promise of life luxuriating outside, was a winner from the moment I saw it in my mailbox. It's pages are seriously sexy, in a Wuthering Heights kind of way, despite the occasional tropical hints of vegetation. And then at page 48 start the "tableaux".

I had blogged once, about 2 years ago, about Deborah Buck's book TABLEAU and how I found it so appealing because that's how my artist mom taught me to look at images around me, as possible vignettes, still-lives of our surroundings. For 20 pages in their catalogue, Anthropologie delights with perfect tableaux marrying their leather, glass or metal accessories with fabrics, fruits and vegetables, brightly colored scarabs and feathers, in a symphony of jewel tones and painterly light. How very elegant and aesthetically delighting and, have to admit, unexpected to find such quality waiting in one's mailbox (unless you had previously ordered it by mail as a prized book).

The last pages of the catalogue deal with their furnishings, and I already have a favorite in the Le Versha chairs, which I can imagine scattered in all their array of colors under a grove of trees and a must-have, the Gilded Glow Floor Lamp, simple, understated but with clear sculptural presence.