Tired of style strictures? It's time to undecorate - the latesttrend, where anything goes and personality is king. By Huma Qureshi
How about an interiors style feature that doesn't tell you how toget-the-look or dictate what's hot and what's not for decoratingyour home? How about fashions and fads that don't come and go forjust this season but seemingly last forever, evolving with time,whenever you feel like it, just because? How about, instead ofcopying magazines and decorating your house like a showhome or astylised photographic still, you "undecorate" it instead?
Undecorating is the latest interiors trend, or, rather anti-trend, to come over from the States in a bid to liberate interiordesign from the rules and regulations of what goes together and whatdoesn't.
Spearheaded by textile designer Christiane Lemieux, founder andcreative director of US home furnishings store DwellStudio, theundecorating movement is as far removed from Kelly Hoppen-esquestructured and flawless interiors as you can get. In undecorating,the design rules aren't about feature walls, perfect proportions andcomplimentary colours or coordination; in undecorating, the designrules are: there are no rules.
The term "undecorate" was more or less coined by Lemieux herself(it's the title of her new design book, out this month). In theintroduction, she sums up what it's all about - contrary to what itsounds like, it's not about stripping back to essentials orminimalism but more about letting loose a little.
She writes: "Undecorated is following your instinct, even whenit's telling you to do something a little crazy, a little different,something against the rules.
"It's an approach that has nothing to do with trends and it hasnothing to do with the rules. So you can have a period dining roomadjacent to your modern kitchen, if that's what you want, orwallpaper on the ceiling. Stranger things have been done.Undecorating isn't haphazard style; it's not thought-free. It'sabout being guided by something other than the traditionalconstraints."
Lemieux says her inspiration for the book came from the scores ofhomestyle and interior design blogs all run by interiors addictswith a passion for styling up their homes in a quirky, individualway.
This wave of interiors blogs is showcasing a freer and moreexperimental side to interior design, through documenting andphotographing every detail of a room makeover or sharing inspirationand new finds to create a very personal stamp on a property'sinterior.
"Undecorate is really my observation and response to this growingphenomenon of interior design developing on the internet," she says."People are taking charge of their spaces - free of professionalrules and guidance and the result is fresh, fearless and verypersonal. Otherwise, if everyone is reading the same how-to's, theninteriors become generic. Undecorating is the opposite to that."
The homes in Undecorate are all completely different; there's asimple, elegant beach house in New York, a rambling old renovationproject in Louisiana now stuffed with flea market, cottage-stylefinds, and an artist's California house complete with a giant paper-mache bear watching over the sofa in the studio. There are modernhomes designed for family living which break the traditional rules;the presence of young children doesn't prohibit laying down whitecarpets and the odd stain or two doesn't matter. In another home,the walls simply never got around to being papered. It soundsunfinished and messy, but in practice, it works. The bare walls "go"with the casual way the family lives.
"This is not about 'a style', it's more the observation of amovement of amazing interior design at the hands of non-professionals," explains Lemieux, who made sure that every photo inthe book captured a snapshot of "real" living, by refusing to use aninteriors stylist f or the photographs.
The point, she says, is that these aren't copycat, precious homesmimicking a certain style or certain look; rather, they are allunderstated, low-key and pretty places to live, put together not forjaw-droppingly stunning effect or on big designer budgets, butcomfort.
Lemieux's own home - a typical New York Soho loft where she liveswith her husband and two children - is also featured in the book.The apartment is mainly white, simple and comfortable, with big,squashy sofas and floorboards salvaged from an industrial building.
"I would call my home 'evolving minimal'. I have two kids and adog - they are at different stages every couple of years and I justgo with that," she says. "When you're decorating around a couple oflittle ones, you don't really have the luxury of statementfurniture."
There is however, one big statement piece: a huge, antique diningtable found at the Clignancourt flea market in Paris. "Some might befearful of using an antique in a household with two little kids,"says Lemieux. "But the truth is that in centuries past, craftsmenbuilt things to last."
In the UK, the undecorating movement can also be spotted in thesmall world of interiors bloggers. Zoe Martin, 31, blogs about herinteriors inspiration and home at ConversationPieces.co.uk and livesin a two-bedroom flat with her fiance in Edinburgh. She describesherself as an "undecorator".
Martin says: "I definitely follow my instincts when it comes todecorating but I'm also quite haphazard in my style. There's been alot of happy accidents in my home where I've put things together andit just somehow works."
For Martin, undecorating is about trial and error and having fun."I tend to pick up things as I go along, at markets and car bootsales, from Etsy, eBay or Freecycle, and then just see where they gobest in the flat. I have a general principle of only having stuff inour home which makes us happy."
It's taken just over two years for Martin and her fiance torenovate their flat, but at no point would she have hired aprofessional interior designer - it's completely against whatundecorating is all about.
"We have such eclectic tastes that it would feel like someoneelse's choices if a professional had chosen them. Your home evolveswith you as you add a little something here or there, and thatorganic feel would be hard to achieve with a professional," shesays.
"With interiors blogs, seeing what other people have doneinspires you to do your own thing, not to copy them.
"It makes you feel braver, like you're not the only crazy onedoing everything yourself."
There might not be any rules to undecorating, but are there anytips to escape from design constraints?
"Live with what you love," says Lemieux. "Contradictions make ahome personal. Choose the pieces that inspire you. If you lovesomething, the chances are you will love living with it and it willgive your space character and soul." Undecorate: The No-RulesApproach to Interior Design is published by Clarkson Potter (26.99).To order a copy for the special price of 24.29 (free P&P) callIndependent Books Direct (08430 600 030;www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk)
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