Design in Depth: Pattern Play

Pattern purists take a seat–your reign, for the time being, is over! Today’s interior designers are crunching the rules underneath their snow boots as I write this. Leopard with plaid? Polka dots and stripes? Geometrics with animal prints? Let’s see how four designers threw pattern rules out the window.

From New England Home; photo by Laura Moss. (Click to see more of this house.)

Nothing seems out of place when leopard is paired with plaid in this living room designed by Nancé Vigneau.

From New England Home; photo by John Gruen. (Click to see more of this house.)

Designer and store owner Kristin Gallipoli makes it colorful, makes it bold and makes it comfortable in her own home with geometric and animal prints.

From New England Home; photo by Laura Moss. (Click to see more of this house.)

How could stripes, polka dots and animal prints together make you anything but happy? That was interior designer Carey Karlan‘s thought, too, when she was decorating her Connecticut home.

Photo courtesy of stuart-crealstudio.com

Just to prove that today’s pattern daring designers are invoking a bit of history, take this little example from a living room designed by architect/designer Daniel Romualdez. It looks to me like he drew inspiration from the great Albert Hadley; the iconic American tastemaker was showing tiger stripes with botanicals offset by bold color blocks long before we all thought it was cool.

–Stacy Kunstel