36 
House & 
Garden 
ON CONSULTING A DECORATOR 
What a Decorator Is—How She Works—What Role She Plays In the 
Creation of the Home—The Human Appeal of Good Taste in the House 
MARY A. LEWIS 
S O complex has modern life become that it 
is almost humanly impossible for the up- 
to-date woman to be trained in all the arts 
contributing to the ensemble of the home and 
home life. She may have the desire to do, 
but the actual execution must of necessity Ire 
left to specialists. 
A specialist looks after the health of her 
family—she no longer pins her faith on home 
remedies or even on the general practitioner. 
A specialist makes her gowns—the occasional 
sewing woman now does only the simplest 
sorts of work. 
In much the same fashion the specialist in 
decoration has become a necessary, separate 
contributor to the creation of the home because 
the decorator is better fitted for the work than 
the average unskilled woman, however artistic, 
earnest and sincere she may be. This is no 
reflection on the American woman; in fact, it 
is amazing the number and diversity of things 
American women do well. That she calls in 
a decorator to help her is simply proof of her 
appreciation of the value of expert advice. 
A DECORATOR is a specialist in good 
taste. It is her stock in trade, the very 
basis on which she works. She may express 
it in the lines of a chair, the color scheme for 
a room or the grouping of furniture, but with¬ 
out it she is as helpless as a doctor would be 
without a knowledge of materia medica or an 
artist without appreciation of tone and color. 
Good taste must be so ingrained that it func¬ 
tions subconsciously and with as little effort 
as breathing or walking. The decorator must 
know at a glance what will and what will not 
be suitable, what will and what will not com¬ 
bine. It is this instantly active good taste that 
the client calls into service when she avails 
herself of the advice of an interior decorator. 
T HERE are nine and forty ways of de¬ 
fining good taste, and every single one of 
them, perhaps, is right. 
To me good taste is the knowledge of what 
human beings—collectively and individually 
—require to make their surroundings more 
livable and attractive. 
Choosing the right kind of furniture, rugs, 
hangings and accessories for a room and ar¬ 
ranging them to suit the needs and tastes of 
the individual concerned, constitute an answer 
to a human need. 
Human needs, human manners and customs 
and philosophy called into being alike the 
sturdiness of the Jacobean age and the delicate 
refinement of Louis XV and Louis XVI. The 
human needs of modern life are demanding a 
like attention to-day, and to serve them in her 
capacity the decorator is especially trained. 
She not only decorates rooms, she creates sur¬ 
roundings in which people live. Without this 
human side, decoration would merely be fol¬ 
lowing a few rules on 
the use of color and 
line in the house. 
H UMAN needs 
and tastes 
change, and to gratify 
them there are made 
constant changes in 
the materials used. 
New fabrics, new fur¬ 
niture, new acces¬ 
sories are being 
turned out every day 
from studios, fac¬ 
tories and ateliers. 
The decorator must 
keep in touch with 
these new produc¬ 
tions, or she is lost. 
She must know what 
“the trade” is offer¬ 
ing, or she is of little 
use to her client. 
That knowledge of 
the market is an as¬ 
set which the amateur 
cannot command be¬ 
cause she cannot be 
in constant and close 
touch with it. 
When a client, 
then, seeks the coop¬ 
eration of a decorator 
she is getting not 
alone good taste, but 
up-to-date service on 
the latest expressions 
of good taste. 
1 ET us see how the decorator applies these 
^ principles in her everyday work. 
A client calls. She wants wall coverings and 
hangings for a bedroom. Immediately the 
decorator wants to know the exposure of the 
room, how many windows it has, how high the 
ceiling is, how large the room is, what kinds of 
furniture it contains or will contain, what sort 
of rug is being used, etc., etc. She will also 
learn by observation what general type of per¬ 
son her client is. 
All these points must be grasped in an in¬ 
stant, for each has a bearing on what kind of 
paper and hangings would be suitable for that 
bedroom. Subconsciously the simple rules are 
applied in each case. 
If the exposure is north and the windows 
few and small, then the room will presumably 
be dark and will require a tone giving the 
sense of light and space. If the ceiling is low, 
the walls must be made to simulate height; 
if too high, the ceiling must be brought down 
on the walls to make it appear normal. If 
the furniture is of good period lines it will 
be best placed against a wall which will sil¬ 
houette it effectively—preferably a plain or 
paneled wall. Such walls give the atmosphere 
of rest, which a bedroom requires. 
There are also the curtains. As this is a 
north room, no light should be shut out, but 
as much light as possible diffused over the 
room. It should be made warm and intimate. 
Moreover, the curtains should give color in¬ 
terest. Harmony must be found with the rug 
and the furniture. The windows may be an 
architectural eyesore, or they may justify one 
of a dozen different kinds of valances, over¬ 
drapes and under-curtains. 
T HIS may seem simplicity itself—the sort 
of thing any busy woman might do. But 
the decorator’s work has only begun. For 
there are not alone the physical principles to 
apply; she must visualize the room as an art¬ 
ist sees a picture before it is painted, or an 
architect the buildings against the sky line. 
She must see that one woman in that setting, 
and she must seek the things most suitable for 
her and her type of life. This means shop¬ 
ping endlessly in the wholesale houses, looking 
over scores of samples of papers and fabrics 
until the right one is found. 
I have purposely taken a bedroom for an 
example, because it represents only the sim¬ 
plest problem. Imagine the thought and study 
and shopping required to find the right fab¬ 
rics and furnishing, carpets and pictures, pa¬ 
pers and fixtures for an entire house. Imag¬ 
ine the necessity for making each house dif¬ 
ferent, creating in each the right sort of sur¬ 
roundings for the people who are to live in it. 
When you understand this, you begin to grasp 
how invaluable the decorator’s services can be 
to the betterment of American homes. 
You also have some idea of the scope of the 
decorator’s work and the diversity of her inter¬ 
ests. She labors to humanize the artistic. This 
combination of the artistic and the commercial 
is the service rendered the woman who would 
have her home in the best of taste. 
