French Chic: The Art of Decorating Houses
by Florence de Dampierre
Photographs by Tim Street-Porter
Published by Rizzoli
Reviewed by Annie Kelly

de Dampierre’s book Chairs, a History (Abrams), was published in 2006, it quickly became a hit. “There was nothing much on the subject, so I thought it was a good idea," she says mo-destly.” Now I travel around the country giving lectures all the time!” A charming, and perennially cheerful Frenchwoman, the stylish de Dampierre first arrived in New York from London in the mid-1980’s. She opened a store uptown called Florence de Dampierre Antiques specialising in painted furniture from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. De Dampierre’s first book followed soon after, The Best of Pain-ted Furniture (Rizzoli 1987), which traced the rise of richly colored, and ornamented chairs, tables, and other types of furniture across Europe and the United States. This timeless book, with large clear photo illustrations, is still in print today.

Encouraged by its success, she planned another, inspired this time by the decorators that she had got to know as a dealer. Called simply Decorator, (Rizzoli 1989), de Dampierre profiled forty eight international decorators whose work seems timeless, even today. Nearly twenty years later, many of them are still going strong—stalwarts like David Easton, Jacques Grange, Bunny Williams, Juan Montoya and John Saladino. "They all bought from me, and so I knew them all very well,” explains the author.

Her next book French Chic, again for Rizzoli, will be out in the fall. It des-cribes the French approach to decorating for an American audience, with plenty of anecdotes and practical advice. This topic is obviously close to de Dampierre’s heart, as it is based on her own house in Litchfield, Connecticut. She lives there with her husband and children, and it brims with decorating ideas, and, as you might expect, lots of painted furniture. The book opens with a quick tour of the house, but then embarks on a historical journey describing French style and its influence on the United States.

“The ties between America and France ran deep from the start. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, two giants of American history, who returned from visits to France shortly before the start of the French Revolution, brought back crates of objects, furniture and books, in addition to many ideas for the newly conceived America. Both were infatuated with everything French.”

de Dampierre’s third chapter, Visite Guidee, is a more comprehensive visual journey through her own house; this is more than just a guided visit through her domain—she is constantly explaining the decorative elements in a historical context, interspersed with chic advice—“A successful salon, or living room needs a focal point. A mantel is best but if one is not available or possible, use something else, such as a huge mirror, a pain-ting, or a view.” The chapter includes French-inspired menus and recipes, enlivened by photos of Dampierre’s own table settings, which are inspirational enough for their own book.

French Chic is more than just a decorating book. Although it has some of the elements of the very successful Affair with a House by Bunny Williams, the reader will emerge with a much deeper un-derstanding of the history of decor-ation, and many of the reasons be-hind elements that we take for gran-ted in today’s houses.