The Bolt Behind The Blue: September 2012

...Recently purchasing stock for our website, I found that I was revisiting the Hollywood Regency Style, characterized by the high glamour and glitz which emerged through the talents of interior decorators Dorothy Draper, Elsie de Wolfe and Billy Haines. These decorators, Billy Haines in particular, decorated the homes of the Hollywood stars during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood.

The style was originally an off-shoot of the Art Deco style of the 20's and 30's and combined Deco lines with shiny lacquered surfaces,Asian influenced furniture, velvet drapes, silk lampshades and lots of gilt and crystal glimmering chandeliers.
It was a sumptuous, opulent and much more luxurious look than the streamlined look of the high Art Deco age, as the Hollywood stars of the day regularly showcased their homes for magazines.

Billy Haines was an ex-Hollywood actor turned interior decorator and the leading light of the Hollywood regency style - his use of lightness with colour, glass walls, lucite and simple furniture meant that it was easy for him to fuse neo-classicism with the emerging modernist styles.

As the decades wore on, Hollywood regency proved to be popular as a more feminine antidote to Mid-century Modernism, with one of Elsie de Wolfe's apprentices, Tony Duquette, becoming the new star of Hollywood Regency Decor with his maximalist style....