"Conformity Bored Her"

It's so rarely that I feel inspired, or even amused, by The New York Times, so imagine my surprise to read an article today that I am head over heels in love with at the moment. The "news" is that a deceased eccentric French decorator's possessions are being auctioned in Paris, but really, there is so much more to the story.

Madeleine Castaing seems to have been the rare person who is truly committed to living a gorgeous life. The article details her affinity for leopard-spotted carpets, plastic flowers, assorted unconventional pairings, and rooms designed in homage to literary descriptions. Oher interesting details include how she walked by her future home each day wondering what it would be like to live there, and later opened an antique shop during the war. There are only a few accompanying photographs, but it's still quite evident that her design sensibility was just so amazing and true.

Here are a couple of impressions of her that the Times gathered:

"My grandfather thought she was crazy," Frédéric Castaing said, adding that opening a shop in the middle of a war was the kind of extravagant gesture fully in line with his grandmother's character.

"She was free, free, free, totally free, with a fantastic independence of spirit and liberty of thought," he said. "Conformity bored her." Which explains why she painted pink plastic morning glories a more pleasing shade of blue and wore dresses that matched her upholstery.

"It was all about atmosphere," said Count Bruno de Caumont, a decorator who is also the creative director of Edmond Petit, a Paris fabric company that produces many of Castaing's signature ingredients, like carpets patterned with tiny green leaves to resemble a forest floor. "Castaing used to say that she was making poetry with furniture the way poets make poetry with words."

Sotheby's has information on that auction, but that's not quite the point, is it?