THE INTERIOR DECORATOR

FTER DECADES of puddling in paint pots, puttering among the pot-
teries, eyeing the spindly legs of “Queen Anne” chairs and getting
the feel of innumerable fabrics, the Art School ushered me out into
the world with a diploma and the assurance that in a week I would be
competing with Elsie de Wolfe for the contract to “re-do” Buckingham
Palace. But Mrs. De Smith’s sun-porch and $25 a week from a depart-
mental store is a far cry from Buckingham Palace and a gilt-edged card.
However, if you have the right connections and are fortunate enough to
convince Mrs. De Smith that her library “just isn’t,” you can average
$15,000 per annum.

And if you were born with an innate aptitude for “riding the
hounds” and have managed to enshroud yourself with that atmosphere
of “Old Masters” and ““Mouldy Tapestries” and have that gaunt look that
the “nouveau riche” so delight in (but in reality was acquired from
starving in an attic) you can announce the opening of your own shop
(which will be more than likely to fold after the first month).

Of course it has happened that the occasional artist-decorator has
risen to the prominence of art critic for “Home Beautiful” or dictator
to the “smart set” but alas! we can’t all be Cecil Beatons.

The interior decorator is presumed to have the ability of a high-
pressure salesman, combined with the psychic powers of a Hindu mystic.
He must know if his client would appreciate the intrinsic value of a
home furnished with period pieces or demand that her “‘chateau” be a
nightmare of Rococco.

The interior decorator with executive abilities can do things on a
grand scale, such as contracts for steamship lines, hotels or “rainbow
rooms.” However, there’s also the angle of burying one’s self in a library
and studying for years and years and finally emerging with horn-rim
glasses and long hair and setting yourself up as a connoisseur of Bohemian
crystal or glass bricks. And then there is also the tea and fig bar plus a
very small fee to be had from lecturing before the “Ladies’ Aid.”

If you haven’t the artistic temperament and the soul of an artist
equal to a fight to the death with some stolid carpenter as to whether or
not “plate-rails” are still accepted or feel that you cannot be resisted from
flooring Grandmother when she insists that the piano be littered with
family portraits. Don’t become an interior decorator.

After a lifetime of hard work every interior decorator’s dream is
to have his own exclusive shop in a secluded little corner (in the smartest
Part of town) with a gay little shingle flapping in the breeze.