January 2018
Happy New Year, and happy la dolce vita days. Chances are you’re taking photos of kids on blow-up unicorns in the pool, buying whacky knick-knacks at markets, forever booking, cancelling and rebooking restaurants, and promising yourself you’ll get an ice-making machine before next summer. This is how off-duty/on-duty rolls, and unless you take off for a month to an exotic island hotel like some decorators I know (Ruth Duke, I’m looking at you) your big easy break isn’t all hands-off at home. But I do think that we take in new things and notice more when we’re away from our usual year-round routine and so we planned The Escape Issue to inspire you to consider the lifestyle of relaxation in a couple of cool new ways.
If we have them, and they are still alive, our gardens could serve as personal sanctuaries and escape havens a step or two from our front door, much like the shady glades you’ll find featured in Med to Measure (page 76), or the languid verandah fringed by leopard trees at the retro-baroque country hangout of Etienne Hanekom, a designer known for his mood-boosting use of colours, in this case flamingo pink and sage green, to characterise a space in All In Good Time on page 92. No shady glades but an astounding design meander through the trees and dunes makes the journey between beach house and beach and back again an escape in itself in Boardwalk Empire on page 54.
Vintage and retro speak summer style fluently. In Air Apparent on page 60, a villa with poptinged energy shows how a selection of gorgeous mid-century pieces can take a mod white vibe to the next style level. The bedroom is a room in which I could spend all year, never mind just a holiday. What’s the appeal there? I think it’s the colour combo – sand and sunset – that makes me feel escape, because colour, too, is a super emotive tool that speaks escape shorthand in spades and has the ability to script the mood of a space instantly. Not All Who Wander (page 84) makes the case for shopping local and crafty for a funky Afro sun-soaked vibe, whilst in Design Solutions (page 37) Hubert Zandberg lays on a spectacle of marmalade, teal and chartreuse in a small space for an equally intoxicating and exotic escape.
Till the next issue, please keep in touch on Instagram (houseandgardensa) and Facebook (Housegardensa), and visit houseandgarden.co.za. If you want to post images from the magazine on your own social media, we’d be very happy, but please tag us using #houseandgardensa – because we’re probably back at our desks longing to be in a pool with inflatable creatures, but we’re actually researching the what’s what of ice machines for you, so please, don’t spare the shout-outs!