FEATURED PRODUCTS THIS VALENTINE'S

Valentine day is associated with red , what is it about red that it is now the color of love world wide? Well, we are red lovers ourselves at the studio, reds and its different tones, and our favorites are pink and hot pink as we use in some of our products, that's why the products we chose for this month have a little bit of red in them, take a look!

The product of the month for this Valentine's is the Vine Chair, debutted last year in ICFF 2009 in our rasberry aniline dye as you can see in the picture above with a lovely valentine's pillow made with our Maori fabric.

We also have other products perfect for this month given that they have a touch of red in them, like the Pavo Luxury Linen - Nadir Colorway, the Hand Tufted Swirl Rug - Spring Colorway and the Hand Knotted Silk Lotus Rug - Cidermill Colorway

Enjoy!

To view our full catalog please go to our site.

For any inquiries please call 212 308 9091 or stop at our showroom (250 E. 65th St. #8D New York, NY) Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10:00am to 4:00pm or by appointment.

A BIT OF HISTORY:

"HOW DID RED BECOME SO POWERFUL"

Four hundred years ago in 17th-century France, red was a color of power. French history expert Joan DeJean says red was "always a color associated with palaces, with Versailles."

According to DeJean, Louis XIV put a little red into every step he took. "He was a man who was very proud of his legs," she reports. "He was known as having gorgeous legs and he wore all kinds of fashion that would show them off." Louis wore knee-length tight pants and beautiful silk stockings. His heels — which were quite high for a man — were not just red, but scarlet. Soon nobles all over Europe were painting their heels red. Red was chic, flashy... and expensive.

Red was an expensive color in 17th-century France because at the time, the dye was made from a little bug found in Mexican cactus, the cochineal. "People made their living trading this dye," says Rebecca Stevens, curator of Red, the current exhibition at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. "It was as good as gold."

According to Stevens, when the Spaniards got to Mexico in the 1500s, cochineal became the New World's major export to Europe. The Spaniards harvested the bugs by scraping them off the cactus plants and then drying them. The dried bugs, which looked like small pellets, were then shipped to Europe. The importers in Europe didn't know whether the little pellets were a berry, a bug, or a mineral.

The Spaniards, says Stevens, "spent a lot of time and trouble keeping that a secret to protect their sources." The bottom fell out of the bug market in the middle of the 1800s, when synthetic dyes were invented. Previously, red was only for the rich who could afford the expensive insect dye. In some cultures, the privilege of wearing red was reserved exclusively for the powerful. According to curator Rebecca Stevens, in some countries it was forbidden for ordinary citizens to wear red. When you saw someone wearing red in Japan or Italy, she explains, you realized, "this is a person of high status." But non-nobles broke the rules all the time; some Japanese lined their kimonos in the forbidden color or even wore red underwear.

Red can be a naughty color — red-light districts and bordellos. It is both the color of Satan and the color of the Roman Catholic Church. Stevens notes that red was a color often associated with divinity; medieval and renaissance paintings show Jesus and the Virgin Mary in red robes.

Red is for happiness — Indian brides get married in red saris.

Red for good luck — the one-month birthday of a Chinese baby is celebrated with red eggs.

Red is rarely an accident. "A textile is not dyed red by chance," Stevens says. "No you use red for a specific reason whether it's for love, for fertility, for happiness — you made it red on purpose."

Via npr

Very interesting, no wonder we all like red and as you can see we love using it whenever we can here at the Studio.

PRESS

"Featured in House Beautiful Magazine"

This is a great start for 2010 and just so you don’t forget about us here’s another magazine where you can find us. This time it was House Beatiful that wrote some advice from Diane for their “Makeovers, Ideas, ideas, ideas!” section, January-February edition. Check out Diane's tip on page 24.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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-the studio