THE DAME
Sister Parish (1910-1994) was the last of America’s grand dame decorators — and arguably, she was the greatest of them all.
After all, Parish originated the American Country look, one of the most enduring decorative styles of the last half-century. While the look —with its mix of good English and French furniture, along with painted chairs and tables, overstuffed sofas, and walls adorned with paintings of dogs and botanical prints.
AMERICAN COUNTRY STYLE
Parish’s rooms had warmth and character, . Most surprising, these traditional interiors never dated, but seemed timeless. As she once observed, “Innovation is often the ability to reach into the past and bring back what is good, what is beautiful, what is useful, what is lasting.”
She was christened Dorothy May Kinnicutt, but soon got the nickname “Sister” from her three-year old brother.. She met Henry Parish and the couple married soon after; Sister was 19. A young wife on a budget, she made draperies out of white mattress ticking; covered the walls in a white striped paper; and painted the bedroom floor cherry-red with white diamonds. Captivated by the charming home, her friends began asking for advice on their own homes.
STRIPED PAPER
What had begun as a delightful diversion turned into a career several years after the stock market crash, which forced her husband and father to take big pay cuts. decided then to make a professional go of decorating… Catering to the socially prominent, she came up with stylish ways to better arrange the antiques they already possessed and inexpensive strategies to freshen their homes.
This way she got know respectable people as — Eleanor Roosevelt, Astor, Mellon, Vanderbil and Whitney and started to decorate their homes
Her public profile was raised considerably when Jackie Kennedy, asked her to take charge of the family quarters at the White House but the ladies did not get on very well and Parish was sacked.
Through the work of her firm and those who apprenticed there, Parish continues to influence American notions of taste and style to this day. That is a legacy.
