Tony Duquette - Tapa dura

This book reveals the designer's taste for the theatrical. Tony Duquette took de Wolf's no-holds-barred style in his manefsto. He crafted rooms that were beguiling, grandiose and pure Hollywood...opulent and overstated with gilded lilies, leopard patters, rock crystal, tented ceilings and endless rococo paintings.Tony Duquette designed sparkling jewels, spectacular stage sets, extravagant costumes, and interiors for pleasure pavilions inspired by dreams. He loved richness, drama, ornament, individuality and eccentricity. He considered 18th Century France the apogee of design and civilisation and recreated a Sun King's ransom of painting and festoons for his own interior spaces.'I always decorate as if I were working in that period rather than merely re-creating it'. Duquette designed with authentic fabrics and colours, painting and decorative objects. Each space was a pastiche of Duquette's passions: Chinoiserie, gold-leafed trays, Louis XV chairs, clusters of pillow made from Balinese fabrics and Japanese brocades. He is known for embellishing, draping and layering. His signature over-the-top style includes decorating with shells and faux coral, rearranging tabourets and porcelain, applied faux-malachite and vignettes set up to a crescendo of clashing colours.

Wendy Goodman is the Interior Designer Editor of New York Magazine, the contributing Style Editor of Departures Magazine and a contributing Editor for Elle Decor. She has taught courses in interior design at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she lives. Hutton Wilkinson is President of Tony Duquette, Inc. Wilkinson, who began working for Duquette while still a teenager, ultimately became his business partner. He is also president of the Elsie DeWolfe Foundation. He lives in Dawnridge, the Beverly Hills Estate that he inherited from Duquette.