Hollywood Regency, There and Now

In my early days of growing up, my mother was heavily influenced by the movies that highlighted interiors from the Golden Era in Hollywood film making.  The style was called Hollywood Regency, however I didn’t realize that until I grew up.  It spanned from the 1920’s to the 1950’s, typified by such designers as Dorothy Draper and Billy Haines.  Today, Barbara Barry uses the influence in her interior design.

First, we had elegant linen draperies that spawned the bird motif, of colors of the brown twigs, the blue birds, and cream white background.  Eventually, she took those down and let my sister make halter tops for us, and we loved wearing them.  She gave way to medium green draperies with gold tassels emanating from a skirt at the top as the header motif.

She amassed such furniture in gold velvet sofas, dark green tufted sofas, gilded wood crafted end tables, gold coffee table with swirled accents. and modern looking chairs, some of which I still have today in my interior.  The latest trend those days was using drum shades on a pair of Stifel gold and ivory lamps.  She had a lamp in our finished basement that had a shade of about 3 feet high made of pottery relief in a modern pattern, turquoise and silver.

Today, we are reflecting on antique mirrors, vibrant color, animal print rugs, black and white floors, art deco fluted chests, lacquer, chrome and gold, bamboo frames, ottomans with fringe, sofas with tufting, single color shades, pink and turquoise, damask, and sunburst mirrors, to name a few.

Any of these go with our modern clean white sofas of today!