In the pink for Christmas
Step outside your comfort zone this Christmas – check out Evie Kemp’s brown Christmas tree decorated with mauve and apricot flowers, writes
Come Christmas Eve, there won’t be just one Christmas tree in Evie Kemp’s brilliantly decorated house – there will be four, and one of them will be brown.
We know this because it’s already up, and it’s covered in artificial mauve daisies and lavender, and apricot dahlias, and it looks an absolute treat.
But the trees are just the start.
There will be wildly colourful decorations right through the house, including a wreath on the door covered in fake flowers, and strings of coloured origami-style paper ‘‘pom-poms’’ around the fireplace and beams in the living room.
The Auckland-based designer, who is known for her extreme approach to colour, excels at Christmas. She can’t get enough, and she starts early.
But why a brown tree? ‘‘Normally you let your trees go brown, and then you throw them out,’’ Kemp admits. ‘‘But I saw this one on Trade Me and there was something about it. I thought ‘that sounds so weird’. I just love the warmth that is brings. ‘‘Colour is fun for a fake tree, rather than green, because they never look as good as they do when they’re real.
‘‘I’m always trying to do different things, and with the brown tree I just got really into these warm colours – purples, pinks, oranges. These are very much my happy colours. But I went a bit moodier, collecting things as I went, and growing the palette.
‘‘I am trying to be better about not buying new things every year, but with social media everyone wants to see something new, and wants to be inspired. I see new things, but it can be so wasteful, so I am trying to embrace reusing stuff, and buying secondhand, and donating things to others.’’
The four trees in Kemp’s house are never identical – there’s the brown one in the dining area, one in the snug (where the TV is), and that is usually a real tree put up later in December because she ‘‘can’t get past the smell’’.
And there will be a tree in the hallway, and a blue metallic one in the ‘‘red room’’, the main living space.
‘‘That one’s a bit more kitschy – it has pink flamingos, and jellyfish, and nudie ladies. All the random ornaments I have collected. It’s the less tasteful tree. I don’t have any angels with trumpets or Santas. All my ornaments are quite quirky,
weird things.’’ The designer, who is a Dulux ambassador, painted the wall beside the brown tree two weeks ago, to complement new carpet tiles she has laid in shades of orange, burgundy-red, turquoise blue and pink.
And she found the perfect lounge chair to go with it at an op shop ‘‘last week’’ for $175, covered in colourful striped Designers Guild fabric. She recently reupholstered her dining chairs to tone in with the changed scheme.
Why are the rest of us so stuck with green and red? ‘‘I think it’s because we do what we know,’’ Kemp says. ‘‘We do what feels safe, but at the end of the day it’s a celebration. In this part of the world, we’re still getting everything [Christmas items] with snow on, but it’s quite fun to make the most of the fact that we do have a summer Christmas. We can be a bit more free.
‘‘We have this beautiful light and these lovely long days, and you can decorate to reflect that. You can go summery, or you could do something that’s really personal to your family. I think it’s just about breaking away from the norm.
‘‘It can be hard for some people to feel it is ‘right’ if it is not based on tradition. I think that is what people are worried about – if they make a change it won’t be Christmassy enough. But anything with fairy lights is Christmassy.’’
Kemp says different stores will often bring in new colour themes. ‘‘Kmart have their red, gold and green this year, but they’ve also brought in champagne and mauve-brown coloured ornaments that are really nice and so cheap. And here I am saying don’t buy new stuff.’’
And Kemp breaks off the chat to accept a courier parcel she expects is her ‘‘new Christmas pyjamas’’.
The designer has a Christmas-themed table centrepiece, featuring realistic red robins and leaf bowers she found at Freedom.
‘‘I really struggle with table styling,’’ she says. ‘‘I often go overboard and feel I lack the finesse to do a beautiful table scene.
‘‘I kept this one really simple, unlike a previous year when I burnt the table down. I had homemade candles that burn fast, combined with a very expensive bespoke pink and orange dried floral wreath that I thought would look great with candles.
‘‘I had sewn laboriously this beautiful tablecloth with a fringe all around, and I had glass bowls with expensive chocolates and beautiful wrappers.
‘‘Fortunately, I didn’t have the lamp over the table at the time, and the table is marble.
‘‘I threw water all over it, and it was a smouldering mess and there was nothing left of the tablecloth.
‘‘Then I put a hole in the wall with a broom trying to turn off the smoke alarm.’’
Kemp acknowledges there’s a warning in that story – but she still lights candles, just a lot more carefully.