1 July 2008 - 20:53Hollywood Regency

June 30, 2008

Hollywood Regency (its prequel and its sequels)

Someone once remarked “nothing succeeds like excess.”  There is no question that the excess of the moment is a kind of hyper-glamour some call Hollywood Regency.  What exactly is it?  You could say that it’s what happens when you cross early 19^th century English glamour with 1930s Hollywood glitz.  What’s particularly interesting about Hollywood Regency is that this is the third time it has come back in fashion since the 1930s.  Maybe this has to do with the cyclical nature of style, be it architecture, interior design, or fashion.  In fact, our brains may be hard wired to desire the stimulation of change, while needing reassurance that the new is firmly anchored in the past.

What Hollywood took from Regency is a feeling, a sensibility and a few themes.  Regency, of course, refers to a style of English furniture and decoration during the time when George IV was Prince Regent and later King (1811-30).  The style was characterised by an elegance and refinement that was classical in its sensibility. And yet it was often more pastiche than pure classicism. Greek and Roman motifs were melded with the grandeur and scale of French Empire. Allusions to Turkish, Indian and Egyptian styles were also sometimes added.  In spite of this eclecticism, Regency can be considered the last gasp of neo-classical elegance before the long night of Victoria descended. 

Fast track forward one hundred years, through assorted Victoriana, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco.  Hollywood Regency arose in the 1930s as a hybrid of Regency and European Art Deco.  With Deco, it shared an affinity for classical allusion, exotic materials like bamboo, and rich finishes such as lacquers and mirrored surfaces.  Dorothy Draper and William Haines are foundation figures of the style, designing interiors for the stars during Hollywood’s golden age of the 30s.  Draper was more East Coast than Hollywood, although she designed the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Her signatures were bold use of colors (aubergine, pink, chartreuse and turquoise), the juxtaposition of black and white, especially her checkerboard floors, the use of lacquer, massive white plaster friezes and inset mirrors.  This was the stuff of Hollywood glamour.  William Haines, an actor turned designer, was Hollywood through and through.  While his designs referenced classicism in his extensive use of Greek columns, he also made Chinoiserie an integral part of the style. Although Chinese styles had not figured prominently in the original Regency, they stood for the exotic. And the cultural history of exoticism shows that the differences between Chinese, Indian or Egyptian cultures don’t really matter– they are romantic and exotic, therefore, effectively interchangeable. 

Hollywood Regency is at present in its third incarnation.  It appeared as an original in the 1930s.  It then reappeared in the 60s as a hybrid form, reacting against the austerity of 50s modernism and yet incorporating elements of modernism within it.  And now it has reappeared once again in the new millennium.  This time it has returned as a foil to minimalism.  It has come back in response to a lack: the lack of exuberance and excess in modernism and minimalism. But although it returns, it never comes back exactly the same. Now we have Kelly Wearstler as its foremost exponent. Her inspirations can be found in 1930s’ Paris — Serge Roche’s plaster icanthus leaves and extravagant mirrors — but she vamps it up even more. Her Modern Glamour, is design book as performance art .

Given all this, it’s understandable that Hollywood Regency is hard to define.  People tend to want definitions that draw sharp lines between things.  But Hollywood Regency is a style with blurred rather than sharp edges.  This in large part is because Regency itself was eclectic with whole new layers of meaning and reference being added in the 30s, 60s and today.  But there is something else at work here as well. Blurring inevitably increases as a style becomes increasingly popular with more and more people interpreting it for themselves. 

From the JAMES DUNCAN COLLECTION