Eloise at the Plaza

Although I loved Where The Wild Things Are growing up, without a doubt my most favorite children's book was/is/will always be Eloise at the Plaza.

In fact, look over to your right...See where it says A Bit About Peppermint Bliss:

"I am Bailey.

I am 23.

I am a city child.

I live in Chicago..."

That, my friends, is a direct reference to the famous opening lines of the original Eloise book.

"I am Eloise.

I am six.

I am a city child.

I live at The Plaza."

The beauty of being an American Studies Major is that often you have the opportunity to write "highly academic thesis papers" on things you love, like Eloise. For my Explorations in American Childhood class at UT I wrote an extremely serious paper on the 1957 children's book by Kay Thompson and how:

"Up until this point there had not been a loveable “bad girl” in children’s literature, though there had been several popular “bad boy” characters. The enormous popularity of a character like Eloise in the 1950s reveals a great deal about changing attitudes on girlhood at the time; The enduring legacy of Eloise today reveals even more about American girlhood regardless of generation."

It is all very high brow and intellectual, and if you are interested in my more academic works I am happy to email you a copy, however, for our purposes all you need to know is that the Eloise series is still very much a driving force in my life.

SO!

You can imagine my horror when I found out a few years ago that Donald Trump (Mortal Enemy of Good Taste and Everything Lovely) had bought the ailing Plaza Hotel and was planning on bastardizing it into becoming part of his gold encrusted empire.

So devastated was I that I buried The Plaza and all my girlhood memories deep in the back of my mind until I found THIS delightful nugget in my internet browsing the other day!

"Come to think of it, they actually have a lot in common. Eloise (of “Eloise at the Plaza” fame) and Betsey Johnson (of funky fashion fame), that is. They both have hard-to-tame blonde locks and a girly sense of style, and they both call New York their home.

So it only seems fitting that Ms. Johnson is designing an Eloise suite at the recently refurbished Plaza Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. The two-bedroom suite—to be whimsically decorated in pink and black—has a notable design history.

Past Plaza suite designers have included fashion designer Christian Dior and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who lived at the hotel for five years during the construction of the Guggenheim Museum.

Ms. Johnson, whose fashion show is scheduled to take place tomorrow at the Plaza’s Palm Court, plans to start work on the suite immediately following the conclusion of fashion week."

Of the project, Betsey herself has said:

"I'm tickled pink to be designing the Eloise room in the Plaza. When I recently moved uptown and my first granddaughter was born I rediscovered Eloise and hoped that something magical would happen between me and my favorite hotel. This is the perfect pink combo!"

BRILLIANT!!

Have I misjudged you, Donald?

More Betsey...

I just have a huge design crush on Betsey Johnson, so I think we are going to keep going with her here today. I found these pictures of her New York apartment at HookedOnHouses.net that I thought were worth showing.

{Her NYC Apartment Living Room}

{NYC Apartment Living Room #2}

{NYC Apartment dining room I love the pink and yellow, and that chandelier!!!}

{The master bedroom at her NYC apartment, pink heaven!}

{NYC apartment dressing room}

{Even the Kitchen is  like a delightful pink creampuff, but with an edge, just like Betsey!}

{I love how the bathroom has this white neutral palette, it gives your eyes a chance to rest before taking in all that fabulous pink all over again each day!}

{And honey, look at that VIEW!}

I just love how exuberant and joyful and unrelentingly PINK it all is! So over the top, yet so well done. If PINK ever needs representation, I think it need look no further than Betsey Johnson. Within her fabulassss NYC apartment PINK is all at once, girly, edgy, sexy, silly...

"Pink is my new obsession,

Pink it's not even a question,

Pink on the lips of your lovah,

'Cause Pink is the love you discovah"

{Thank you for that Aerosmith}

To me, Betsey is just so over the top, its like a hillarious joke that you are in on. Whenever I wear her dresses, which is often, I feel so girly and fun, but also a little bit like a rockstar, LOVE IT!

I mean, who wouldn't want to wear this fab punk/princess number. 

Inspiration & Translation: Betseyville

Another person who loves bright, crazy colors as much as I do is Betsey Johnson. Her house in Mexico was the inspiration behind the renovation of the garage apartment at my Moms house in Houston

While this design was a less literal interpretation, Betsey definitely pushed us to re-imagine the way we use bright colors in a space. 

{Living Room}

{View of the Kitchen from the Living Room}

{Guest Bedroom}

{The Master Bedroom}

Often times in decorating I find that as much as you plan out a space, the things you find when searching for the "perfect" fabric can often steer you in a different, and altogether more fabulous, direction. 

In the case of my apartment in Houston, this gorgeous Clarence House fabric totally made the room happen.

And as always, this amazing renovation (I only wish I had the before photos, they are truly unbelievable) was a "collaboration" between myself and Lori Trahan Doran...And by collaboration I mean she completely rocked it and I learned along the way.