Nancy Lancaster
| Nancy Lancaster | |
|---|---|
Nancy Perkins in 1916
|
|
| Born |
Nancy Keene Perkin August 19, 1897 Mirador, Virginia, USA |
| Died | August 19, 1994 (aged 96) Little Haseley, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom |
| Resting place | Virginia |
| Residence | Haseley Court |
| Occupation | interior designer, interior decorator, socialite |
| Spouse(s) |
Henry Field (m. 1917–18) Ronald Tree (m. 1920–47) Claude Lancaster (m. 1948–53) |
| Children | Michael Lambert Tree Rosemary Tree Jeremy Tree |
| Parent(s) | Thomas Moncure Perkins and Elizabeth Langhorne |
Nancy Lancaster (9 September 1897 – 19 August 1994) was a 20th-century tastemaker and the owner of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, an influential British decorating firm that codified what is known as the English country-house look.
She was born Nancy Keene Perkins as the elder daughter of Thomas Moncure Perkins, a Virginia cotton broker, and his wife Elizabeth Langhorne. Her birthplace was Mirador, the estate farm of her maternal grandfather Chiswell Langhorne, in Greenwood, near Charlottesville, Virginia. She was brought up in Richmond, Virginia and New York City. Nancy Lancaster had four maternal aunts, of whom the most notable were Lady Nancy Astor, a British politician, and Irene Gibson, the wife of artist Charles Dana Gibson, who popularized the Gibson Girl. Her cousin Joyce Grenfell was a celebrated British monologuist and actress.
Lancaster's innate taste was only complemented by John Fowler's (her decorator partner) sense of color and knowledge of historic interiors. Although she always believed that a room should never look "decorated', she created this list of 7 rules to follow to make a room look "comfortable": 1- In restoring a house, one must first realize its period, feel its personality, and try to bring out its good points; 2- Decorating must be appropriate; 3- Scale is of prime importance, and I think that oversized scale is better than undersized scale; 4- In choosing a color,one must remember that it changes in different aspects; 5- Understatement is extremely important, and crossing too many t's and dotting too many i's make a room look overdone and tiresome. One should create something that fires the imagination without overemphasis; 6- I never think that sticking slavishly to one period is successful; a touch of nostalgia adds charm. One needs light and shade, because if every piece is perfect, the room becomes a museum and lifeless; 7- A gentle mixture of furniture expresses life and continuity, but it must be a delicious mixture that flows and mixes well. It is a bit like mixing a salad. I am better at mixing rooms than salads.
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