Author(s): WILKINSON HUTTON

ART

This book reveals the designer's taste for the theatrical. Tony Duquette took de Wolf's no-holds-barred style in his manefsto. He crafted rooms that were beguiling, grandiose and pure Hollywood...opulent and overstated with gilded lilies, leopard patters, rock crystal, tented ceilings and endless rococo paintings.Tony Duquette designed sparkling jewels, spectacular stage sets, extravagant costumes, and interiors for pleasure pavilions inspired by dreams. He loved richness, drama, ornament, individuality and eccentricity. He considered 18th Century France the apogee of design and civilisation and recreated a Sun King's ransom of painting and festoons for his own interior spaces.'I always decorate as if I were working in that period rather than merely re-creating it'. Duquette designed with authentic fabrics and colours, painting and decorative objects. Each space was a pastiche of Duquette's passions: Chinoiserie, gold-leafed trays, Louis XV chairs, clusters of pillow made from Balinese fabrics and Japanese brocades. He is known for embellishing, draping and layering. His signature over-the-top style includes decorating with shells and faux coral, rearranging tabourets and porcelain, applied faux-malachite and vignettes set up to a crescendo of clashing colours.