Keys Under Palm Trees

Hello my fancy friends, thank you so much for tuning in today. I’m so excited to get into today’s topic. We’ve done a few episodes about historical designers like Ray and Charles Eames, Florence Knoll, and the Saarinen’s - but all of those names are all distinctly tied to the mid-century modern era, and the world of interior design goes way beyond that particular style and time. If you’ve ever studied interior design in any capacity, one of the first names you’ll hear in reference to the history of our profession, is Dorothy Draper. I told my partner I was doing an episode on Dorothy Draper and they were like, “from Mad Men?!” But no, although Dorothy’s husband was named Dan Draper, so I can see the confusion, but Dorothy was real person, and we are going to learn everything about her today, from how she got her start, why she was so ground breaking, to how you can bring her style into your home. So get comfy because we are diving into the extravagant, maximalist world that DD created.

But first, let’s talk about the Color of the Week. Or the Color of The Year I should say. It’s one of my favorite moments in time, that happens every year in early December - that’s right Pantone has announced their color of the year for 2023 and it is Viva Magenta Pantone 18-750. Pantone describes this color as an “unconventional shade for an unconventional time,” and noting it is a “nuanced crimson red tone that presents a balance between warm and cool.” They also describe it as a “transformative red tone capable of driving design to create a more positive future." Pantone is always trying to communicate exactly why the color they chose is relevant socially and this year my favorite phrase they used for Viva Magenta is calling it a “fist in a velvet glove” “it is assertive, but not aggressive.” The narrative around this color reminds me a lot of the 2009 Color of The Year, Mimosa, which was a bright yellow that was meant to inspire hope and joy during a major economic down turn, which isn’t a bad approach in my opinion. Color makes us happy. If life is giving you lemons, paint an accent wall. Now, Pantone recommends pairing this color with lots of light neutrals, which is one way to do it, but I really love embracing a full jewel tone palette, bringing in deep teal, navy, and even black, and just letting the whole vibe be super moody. Welcome to the Magentaverse.

Anytime I see a creative person rise to fame, I'm very curious about their background. And I'll be honest, I am cynical about the systems that are in place that will allow certain people to rise to power and not others. And today there's often a big effort to promote the idea that a successful person has gotten to this high level of achievement all based on merit, talents, brilliance, what have you. When in reality, a large majority of the people we see succeed come from comfortable, if not highly affluent backgrounds. So these are not people who are running around trying to figure out how to pay bills and feed themselves. They can focus on their creative endeavors because all of their needs are met, and then some. 

With Dorothy Draper, there's no attempt to hide the fact that she came from an exceptionally privileged, wealthy, and connected background. Dorothy was born and raised in Tuxedo Park, New York which in addition to being home of New York State’s annual renaissance festival, is a beautiful, secluded, highly affluent gated community. Her family was very well-connected. Her maiden name is Tuckerman and the Tuckerman family had connections to the Roosevelts, the Walcotts, the Astors, even the Kennedys supposedly. Dorothy was homeschooled, but did a couple years at a prep Academy on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, where her family had a pied-à-terre, naturally. She also made frequent trips to Europe from a young age and which exposed her to a wide variety of architectural design and styles.

When she was 23 she married a physician, Dr. George Draper, who went by Dan for some reason. Fun fact about him, Dan was heavily involved in eugenics, he was a member of the Eugenics Research Association and was close friends with many other eugenicists like Francis Galton and Charles Davenport. I find this important to think about because while Dorothy's husband's beliefs and practices are not a reflection of her, they are two independent people and she divorced him in the end, but because accessibility and inclusivity are so critical in interior design, I think it's really important to understand the full picture and context of people whose work we idolize. You know, these bright cheery interiors that we're going to talk about in a minute were affectively being supported by an income that was generated from a really harmful practice and philosophy.

But, with all of that noted and understood, we can still look at how Dorothy was able to use her privilege and power to shape the world of interior design for the better. The Drapers started investing in real estate, and as Dorothy developed a sense for that market, she also became interested in residential decoration. She gained attention for the major renovation she oversaw on her own Upper East Side Brownstone, which involved expanding into the existing backyard to create a space for parties and gatherings. She then created a new outdoor space on the roof of the addition, and invited all her wealthy and well connected friends over for a huge house warming party. She impressed everyone, so by the end of the night she had a list of new rich clients who wanted Dorothy’s touch on their homes.

From there, Dorothy was able to create a business for herself. In 1925, she made it official by opening the Architectural Clearing House, which was meant to pair clients with architects, but also linked Dorothy with her own initial clients. The business was announced in the March 1925 issue of Vogue under the name Mrs. George Draper, as Dorothy had yet to make a name for herself. Now Dorothy was not the first interior designer by any stretch of the imagination, and we spoke in the episode “Go With The Flo” that Florence Knoll really pushed the industry into it’s professional era, but Dorothy was the first designer to really create a business entity outside of herself and her name that was focused on interior design, which we love.

So, it’s important to look at what was going on at this time, in 1925 New York City and the greater world in terms of design and style. Frank Lloyd Wright, you know the only architect most people can name off the top of their head, was not really at the peak of his career, he was just past the peak I would say. But he had built up this massive portfolio of Prairie Style homes in the Midwest that were geometric and minimal. The craftsman house was fully taking over on the west coast. In Germany, the Bauhaus was teaching a whole new era of modern design that sought meaning in every detail, nothing frivolous was tolerated. And many good things came out of this, in another 25 years Mid-Century Modern would be fully developed and the need for the extraneous fluff of the Victorian era was falling away. This may be in part because of the toll World War I took on the economy. Minimalism might have been sounding like a more responsible approach, but that’s speculative on my part.

So as Dorothy is developing her own style in this environment, what she ends up doing is actually revolutionary, because she’s rebelling against the modernist trend of the time, and she goes full maximalist. Some of the signature moves that Dorothy become know for include giant black and white checkerboard floors, elaborate and playful moldings, trims, bases, and railings, that used traditional ornament but in larger scales, which made them feel less fussy and delicate and more animated and proud. Dorothy had a lot of fun playing with scale - she loved to use super highback lounge chairs, giant striped wallpaper, and oversized chandeliers. She used super saturated colors in large, bold quantities. Her favorites were chartreuse, sky blue, and rose red. She didn’t use a lot of wood, in fact some accounts say she hated wood all-together, although I couldn’t find anything explaining exactly why that was - maybe it’s because the modernists around her were using it with reckless abandon and she wanted to switch it up. And theory wasn’t really entering into what Dorothy was doing, at least not in a literal way like we saw with the Modernist movement. She would say “If it looks right, it is right.” More than anything, Dorothy wanted spaces to be lively and fun. She said we humans must resist the “will to be dreary," a "morose little imp" that tells us not to spend time or money on things we know would be frivolous and fun. People started referring to her work as Modern Baroque, as it certainly references the organic, decorative elements seen in the Baroque era but reinterpreted to look more joyous and streamlined. But Dorothy described it as Regency, which refers to particularly to British style from approximately 1795 to 1837. 

Now sometimes you’ll hear the phase Regency Moderne used for this style, but more likely than not you’ll hear Hollywood Regency more often. This term is actually credited to Dorothy, which confused me when I first heard that because Dorothy is an East Coast broad you know? She wasn’t in Hollywood. But, she did do work on the West Coast which influenced the term. In fact, she expanded into designing hotels all over the country including her most famous project - The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. This massive 700 guest room hotel was a huge undertaking, but Dorothy was given complete creative freedom, including designing staff uniforms. She stayed on until the 60’s to oversee any updates to the hotel, but this was all before the Greenbrier built that secret government bunker during cold war, which DD did not design.

What else did Dorothy do? She had a running advice column in Good Housekeeping called Ask Dorothy Draper, which was her best attempt at providing her vision and interior design advice at an affordable, accessible level, so we love that. She also developed several textile patterns that have become complete classics. First there’s her Cabbage Chintz which is a pink floral design, medium scale, that would easily be associated with Grandma Chic or Cottagecore today. But then there’s Brazilliance. This huge green banana leaf print was custom developed for the Arrowhead Springs Hotel in California, and became so popular it took on a life of it’s own. We’ve been seeing the second life of this print everywhere for the last 5 years, from restaurants to jewelry shops. This is very similar, but not to be confused with a pattern called Martinique that’s featured at the Beverly Hills Hotel and was design by Don Loper, a good five years after Brazilliance was birthed. I’m not saying that this was a copy, sometimes the zeitgeist just produces multiple versions of similar things, but if you want to spot the difference, Brazilliance includes bunches of green grapes in the mix, whereas Martinique is strictly banana leaves.

Most importantly, Dorothy was encouraging people to decorate their homes in bold ways that expressed their personalities, rather than worrying about conformng to current trends or expectations. Her impact is still being seen today with current designers like Jonathan Adler and Kelly Wearstler siting her as a primary influence. So if you want to bring a little DD style into your world, embrace your inner glamazon and bring in some over-scaled lighting, or an accent wall print so gigantic you need to be on the other side of the room to really see it, a black and white checkerboard area rug, or a just a touch of palm leaf print. I love you guys so much, thank you for learning all about Dorothy with me, if you’re enjoying this podcast, give it a little five star tap on Apple Podcasts, I’d appreciate it so much, and I will talk to you in the next episode.