The Sterility of Perfection + The Rule Breaker's Success

Author: Billy Baldwin Year: 2006 (Intimus reprint; original excerpts from Billy Baldwin Decorates, Chartwell Books, 1972, pp. 24–7) Source type: chapter (two excerpts from Billy Baldwin Decorates reprinted in Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader, eds. Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston, John Wiley & Sons, with the editors' framing introduction)

Raw file: raw/chapters/baldwin-2006-sterility-perfection-rule-breaker.md

Summary

Baldwin's paired excerpts — reprinted in Intimus as the anthology's practitioner manifesto — stage the decorator's polemic against two enemies of the lived interior: perfection and rule-following. "The Sterility of Perfection" argues that the beautifully completed, fashion-following room is dead on arrival — "a series of foyers leading to nothing," "so beautiful, yet so cold" — and that "Nothing is interesting unless it is personal": rooms must begin "as outgrowths of the owner's personality, then become lovelier, more personal, and more welcoming with every year," sustained by fire, dogs, books ("the greatest decoration of all"), accumulated collections and "a touch of wit," and wrecked by dicta taken as unalterable (Elsie de Wolfe's roses that "were just furniture") and by fashion, "one of the greatest sterilizers of the would-be perfectionist." "The Rule Breaker's Success" then names the discipline's real first principle: "The first rule of decoration is that you can break almost all the other rules" — successful rooms "declare the owner's independence, carry the owner's signature, his very private scrawl" — before walking through the defeasible rules (pattern against pattern, two chintzes, echoed color) and the few that survive ("pieces of equal value together"; no mediocre fillers; no dominating object; three beautifully run rooms over twenty neglected ones). The editors' introduction frames the texts: Baldwin "rallies against the tyranny of perfection and questions those who advocate rules," his designs "freely play with history, form and finish, each in service to the comfort and expression of living."

Key Claims

The perfectly decorated room is sterile: Baldwin's "magnificent French apartment in New York" is "a series of foyers leading to nothing" — "How sad to see rooms so beautiful, yet so cold"; even "the master bedroom looks like an unwelcoming guest room" (p. 26).
Personality is the criterion of the interesting: "Nothing is interesting unless it is personal" (p. 26). His young client's declaration — "I hope you understand that we do not want our house to be perfect" — shows the couple "had glimpsed the awful sterility of perfection" (p. 26).
The personal room tolerates functional mixture and visible use: their library pairs "a superb Louis XVI desk" with "sitting unashamedly beside it, an efficient filing cabinet" (p. 26); a cringe-inducing counter-example has "shiny walnut paneling, yards and yards of brand-new untouched books, a new desk without a trace of evidence that it had ever been used" (p. 26).
The decorator's limit condition: "Everyone has his own needs, his own preferences, his own ways of using space. When a decorator disregards these needs, or tries to superimpose an alien personality, he cannot bring off that wonderful warm atmosphere of a private, personal place" (p. 27).
The things that "give a room heart": a burning fire "whenever there is the slightest excuse," dogs in the country house, "books – the greatest decoration of all," lighted candles, fresh flowers, potpourri (p. 27).
False refinement is a failure mode: "There is nothing quite so boring as false refinement, or so vulgar as misplaced elegance" (p. 27). Cole Porter's instruction — "Please don't try to hide my television, or make slipcovers for my piano" — is the type-case of lived rooms against staged ones (p. 27).
Decorative advice taken as "unalterable dictum" deadens: the woman who kept twelve red roses on her hall console because Elsie de Wolfe "had probably said, 'Wouldn't it be nice to have some red roses there'" — the roses "never looked as if she had fallen in love with them in the florist's window. They were just furniture" (p. 27).
Fashion is a sterilizer: "There's no reason for rooms and houses to change as often as hairdos and skirt lengths. All rooms should begin as outgrowths of the owner's personality, then become lovelier, more personal, and more welcoming with every year"; "If I find that something I am doing is becoming a trend, I run from it like the plague" (p. 27).
The client's responsibility: "A client has no one but herself to blame for a sterile, uninteresting house if she hasn't the gumption or self-assurance to assert herself." The Ruby Ross Wood anecdote — the frantic client who "had become so afraid of her own room, she felt everything in it had to be an arrangement" — is the pathology of perfected rooms (p. 27).
Inhabitant-authorship: some people "add enormously to a room in a way that no decorator ever could"; Baldwin completes his work with the instruction "All right. Now go ahead and mess it up" — they "break up the hardness of the perfect look, and make the room their own" (pp. 27–28).
Accumulation over acquisition: buying "a whole collection at one fell swoop is almost an invasion of privacy"; the gathered-over-years collection kept "right out in the open as the English keep them – on tables and commodes where you can see them and touch them" adds "immeasurably to a room's vitality," while formal display "in some ghostly lighted cabinet, as the French often do, makes me shudder" (p. 28).
Wit wards off sterility: "A touch of wit can help a great deal to ward off the sterile look" — the wooden monkey, the Duke di Verdura's split fieldstone with the hidden green-enamel lizard — but never calculated: "I would never go out and buy something 'funny' for a room. No object should 'wink' at us" (p. 28).
The essence of the warm room is incongruous personal placement: the fortune cookie ("Your marriage will be prosperous") kept "like a jewel" in a valuable French glass box is "the essence of making a room warm and alive" (p. 28).
The meta-rule: "The first rule of decoration is that you can break almost all the other rules. A room arranged absolutely according to the book, with little i's dotted and big t's crossed, is all very well in its impersonal way. But the rooms that are really successful declare the owner's independence, carry the owner's signature, his very private scrawl" (p. 28).
Rule-breaking worked through: pattern on pattern ("nothing is more enchanting than the indoor garden that grows from flowering chintz, flowered walls, flowery needlework rugs," pp. 28–29); two chintzes ("No one hesitates to hang two flower paintings in the same room, so why not allow two flower chairs, like distinct and lovely bouquets?", p. 29); "There's chic in repetition" (the Connecticut "Norwegian Louis XVI" salon in chalk-white and checked pale-blue fabric, p. 29) and "There's chic in not repeating" (the red flock-paper room with no echo; "a chair covered in poison-green satin will lose its fine sting if the green is recalled," p. 29).
A few principles "seem safe from contradiction": "it's always wise to put pieces of equal value together" — a contemporary painted mirror over "an elegant old commode… will insult the antique, and show itself for an upstart" (pp. 29–30); the exception that proves the rule is the Louis XV mantel with "purple violets in modest clay pots," legitimate because "the pots don't pretend to be more than they are; they are, in their own way, just as authentic" (p. 30).
Gradual acquisition over total design: "don't fill in the gaps with mediocrity… simple slipcovers in one pretty color… Let the room grow slowly to maturity. There is 'costume' decoration as well as 'costume' jewelry – in itself, it may have charm, but it tends to destroy the charm of the Real Thing, if used with it" (p. 30).
Against the dominant object: "No one object should dominate a room" — except "a great work of art," which "will have the grace of all great things, and won't be too obtrusive"; "Today we don't want to be too conscious of the mise en scène; don't want to have curtains, chairs, paintings thrust themselves forward as topics of conversation" (p. 30).
Quality over quantity, smallness over grandiloquence: "It's far more important to have three rooms that are beautifully done and beautifully run than to have ten or twenty that are dreary and neglected"; "If we live in small-scale rooms, we needn't be limited to small-style decoration. A tiny library – with boiserie and double doors – can have as much style as a ballroom, and can offer more stimulus to conversation" (p. 30).
Editors' framing (Taylor & Preston): Baldwin "breaks with a tradition that promoted homogeneity, but advances on those seeking individuality and personality so that all aspects of interior decoration are used for effect"; "he rallies against the tyranny of perfection and questions those who advocate rules for interior decoration"; his signature interiors are "recognisable for his flare to mix and match period styles in an effort to charge their individual characteristics and create a uniquely decorated room," demonstrating "his commitment to reconcile his clients' needs with lifestyle" (p. 26).

Connections

Concepts: Sterility of Perfection · Rule-Breaking · Domestic Interior · Taste · The Decorative · Interiority · Style · Authorship · Appropriation · Interior Design · Gender and the Interior Authors: Billy Baldwin · Taylor & Preston (editors and framing introduction) · Elsie de Wolfe (named figure, now paged — her advice-anecdote supplies the "unalterable dictum" roses; her own 1913 text is ingested as Suitability, Simplicity and Proportion), Ruby Ross Wood, Cole Porter, Duke di Verdura (named figures — Wood's client; Porter's television; Verdura's wit-object; Wood/Porter/Verdura not paged, see log) Debates: Interior Design vs. Architecture — the decorator's own knowledge-claim, structured as defeasible rules rather than architectural purity · Tradition vs. Innovation — free play with history ("mix and match period styles") as the decorator's version of obeying-and-defying the rule Related source notes: Taylor & Preston — Proximities (the Intimus introduction that frames this text; its taste, decorative and self-expression claims) · Bachelard — The Dialectics of Outside and Inside (fellow Intimus selection: the intimate interior at phenomenological depth, where Baldwin works at the practical-manifesto level) · Csikszentmihalyi — Design and Order in Everyday Life (household objects as concrete symbols of the self — the empirical ground of "Nothing is interesting unless it is personal") · Deyong — A history of style and the modern interior (the style-history that Baldwin's free play with period styles puts into practice) · Hollis — (Re)constructing Histories (the composite, multi-authored interior as historiographic problem — Baldwin's client-authored rooms are just such composites) · Heller — Everyday Life (individuality against particularistic homogenization — the philosophical register of Baldwin's personality-criterion) · Spuybroek — Habit and Inhabit, Stuff and Trash (inhabitation as appropriation: the theoretical version of "go ahead and mess it up")

Direct Quotes

"I know a magnificent French apartment in New York that someone has brilliantly described as 'a series of foyers leading to nothing.' How sad to see rooms so beautiful, yet so cold." (p. 26)

"The young man said, 'I hope you understand that we do not want our house to be perfect.' This young couple had glimpsed the awful sterility of perfection, and realized at once what I have always maintained: Nothing is interesting unless it is personal." (p. 26)

"Everyone has his own needs, his own preferences, his own ways of using space. When a decorator disregards these needs, or tries to superimpose an alien personality, he cannot bring off that wonderful warm atmosphere of a private, personal place." (p. 27)

"I cannot conceive of a house in the country without dogs, or of any house without books – the greatest decoration of all. These give a room heart – along with lighted candles and the smell of fresh flowers, or bowls of potpourri in open windows." (p. 27)

"There is nothing quite so boring as false refinement, or so vulgar as misplaced elegance." (p. 27)

"Please don't try to hide my television, or make slipcovers for my piano." — Cole Porter, quoted (p. 27)

"'Do you know who plays that piano?' she said. 'Rubinstein! Get those flowers off.' 'Well,' I replied, 'does he play it every night?'" (p. 27)

"But the roses never looked as if she had fallen in love with them in the florist's window. They were just furniture." (p. 27)

"One of the greatest sterilizers of the would-be perfectionist is fashion. There's no reason for rooms and houses to change as often as hairdos and skirt lengths. All rooms should begin as outgrowths of the owner's personality, then become lovelier, more personal, and more welcoming with every year." (p. 27)

"If I find that something I am doing is becoming a trend, I run from it like the plague." (p. 27)

"A client has no one but herself to blame for a sterile, uninteresting house if she hasn't the gumption or self-assurance to assert herself." (p. 27)

"The woman had become so afraid of her own room, she felt everything in it had to be an arrangement." (p. 27)

"I work out the colors and fabric and furniture arrangement, and when everything is in place I say, 'All right. Now go ahead and mess it up.' Then they buy and arrange the paintings and objects, make needlepoint pillows, fix flowers, move a chair to a place where it really is more comfortable. They break up the hardness of the perfect look, and make the room their own." (pp. 27–28)

"For a decorator to go out and buy a whole collection at one fell swoop is almost an invasion of privacy." (p. 28)

"A touch of wit can help a great deal to ward off the sterile look." (p. 28)

"But I would never go out and buy something 'funny' for a room. No object should 'wink' at us." (p. 28)

"The first rule of decoration is that you can break almost all the other rules. A room arranged absolutely according to the book, with little i's dotted and big t's crossed, is all very well in its impersonal way. But the rooms that are really successful declare the owner's independence, carry the owner's signature, his very private scrawl." (p. 28)

"It's a rule that pattern should not be played against pattern, that figured curtains need a plain wall. But nothing is more enchanting than the indoor garden that grows from flowering chintz, flowered walls, flowery needlework rugs." (pp. 28–29)

"No one hesitates to hang two flower paintings in the same room, so why not allow two flower chairs, like distinct and lovely bouquets?" (p. 29)

"There's chic in repetition – a splurge of the same fabric for curtains, sofas, chairs. Don't be timid about making this an all-out effort, or your friends will suspect that you undercalculated your yardage." (p. 29)

"There's chic in not repeating." (p. 29)

"In a gray monochrome room, a chair covered in poison-green satin will lose its fine sting if the green is recalled in a pillow or two on the little gray sofa. It's superfluous to repeat the green at all, but if you must, do it in an off-shade and another medium – perhaps an emerald-green chandelier." (p. 29)

"Don't hang a contemporary painted mirror over an elegant old commode. The mirror may have its decoration virtue, but in that false position it will insult the antique, and show itself for an upstart." (pp. 29–30)

"But this makes sense, because the pots don't pretend to be more than they are; they are, in their own way, just as authentic." (p. 30)

"Let the room grow slowly to maturity. There is 'costume' decoration as well as 'costume' jewelry – in itself, it may have charm, but it tends to destroy the charm of the Real Thing, if used with it." (p. 30)

"No one object should dominate a room. A great work of art is the richest endowment a room can have, and it should be given a dominating position – but if it is really great, it will have the grace of all great things, and won't be too obtrusive." (p. 30)

"Today we don't want to be too conscious of the mise en scène; don't want to have curtains, chairs, paintings thrust themselves forward as topics of conversation." (p. 30)

"It's far more important to have three rooms that are beautifully done and beautifully run than to have ten or twenty that are dreary and neglected." (p. 30)

"If we live in small-scale rooms, we needn't be limited to small-style decoration. A tiny library – with boiserie and double doors – can have as much style as a ballroom, and can offer more stimulus to conversation." (p. 30)

"In sharp contrast to advice literature of the nineteenth century, Billy Baldwin's designs freely play with history, form and finish, each in service to the comfort and expression of living." — editors' introduction (p. 26)

"he rallies against the tyranny of perfection and questions those who advocate rules for interior decoration" — editors' introduction (p. 26)

"His own signature interiors for New York's wealthy and famous demonstrate this thinking, and are recognisable for his flare to mix and match period styles in an effort to charge their individual characteristics and create a uniquely decorated room." — editors' introduction (p. 26)

Open Questions

Baldwin's manifesto is addressed to rooms "for the comfort and expression of living" — but his clients are "New York's wealthy and famous" (editors' introduction). Is the anti-perfection interior a general theory of dwelling, or a leisured-class ideal that presupposes the perfected room as its foil?
The manifesto's client-centeredness ("superimpose an alien personality") sits uneasily with the editors' observation that Baldwin's interiors are "recognisable for his flare to mix and match period styles" — whose signature does the really successful room carry, the owner's "very private scrawl" or the decorator's? Does the genre of the decorator memoir (anecdote as evidence) resolve or disguise this?
Can the "mess it up" instruction be a design method — the decorator designing the conditions of appropriation — or does it only work where the client already has "the gumption or self-assurance" (and the objects, and the years) to do it?
Baldwin's anti-trend stance ("I run from it like the plague") vs. taste's status function: is fleeing the trend the most positional move of all (distinction through refused distinction), or a genuine escape from fashion's sterilizer?
"No object should 'wink' at us" — Baldwin finds wit but forbids designed wit. Where does this leave the calculated eccentricity of later interior design (and the staged eclecticism of the Instagram interior): is the found-eccentricity/design-eccentricity line designable at all?
Does the meta-rule ("break almost all the other rules") give interior design a genuine, teachable knowledge-claim against the charge of having "no philosophical base of knowledge" — or does it merely aestheticize connoisseurship?
The rules Baldwin does preserve (equal-value pairs, no upstarts, no dominating object, authenticity without pretension — "the pots don't pretend to be more than they are") are quality-hierarchies of connoisseurship. Can rule-breaking be democratized without either dissolving into "anything goes" or re-erecting the perfect look?

(Note: the raw file's header reads "Intumus: Interior Design Reader" — an OCR corruption of the book's actual title, "Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader." The raw text also renders "flair" as "flare.")