Focus On Style: Hollywood Regency

When designers from Hollywood's Golden Age, like William Haines and Dorothy Draper, encouraged West Coast film luminaries to decorate their home with overtones of glitz and glamour, a new design style emerged. The 1930s Hollywood Regency style was a favorite of celebrities ranging from actress Joan Crawford to the future First Lady, Nancy Reagan.

Hollywood Regency design, however, is not a relic of the past. The over-the-top style is not just for the rich and famous; a modern version is surging in popularity, fueled by designers like Kelly Wearstler. Shawn Henderson, design director for the online auction site www.eBay.com, says there's no denying the high Hollywood style is back. "Hollywood Regency has spiked in sales," Henderson says. "Recently a William 'Billy' Haines cabinet sold on eBay for $7,500."

Not everyone can afford original Haines pieces, but elements of Hollywood Regency style are within reach for even the most budget-minded decorator. Here's how to adapt a few Hollywood Regency elements to your home decor.

Going Hollywood Regency is all about the details, says interior decorator and furniture designer Barclay Butera. "The wonderful fabrics, fringe on lampshades, chandeliers with crystals — Hollywood Regency style is about glamour, but so much is found in the wonderful details," he says.

Designer Kristan Cunningham, star of HGTV's Design on a Dime, says for those working on a budget, jazzing up thrift pieces is also about having an eye for detail. "If your grandma gave you an over-the-top brass chandelier, replace the flame-tip bulbs with mod opaque globe bulbs," she says. "It creates the juxtaposition of 'super clean with super fussy' that is so relevant in Hollywood Regency."

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Focus On Style: Vintage Travel Posters

Art and Air travel are both meant to free human beings. One mentally, one physically. In best case of each form, we lose ourselves from the mundane reality. A 18th Dynasty Egyptian limestone statue may transform our mind of being into a remote ancient civilization; and an exotic place, with its unique smells, colors, and customs, invigorates our sense and sensibility. When the two comes together, we find the pleasure in the artistic quality of vintage airline posters.

If travel posters have seen a great surge in demand because of their sensual beauty of natural or urban scenes, airline posters, still affordable in the vintage poster market, may call for a more determined mindset who sees that the virtue of these pictures also reside in the instilled old-fashioned loyalty.

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Focus On Style: Advertising Memorabilia

Commercial or Graphic Art is generally produced for purposes such as advertising and packaging. An artist will generally illustrate or paint the original ad on paper only to be transferred to many surfaces such as paper, tin or wood once approved by the advertisor. Commercial art can include many genres of art and categories of art technique.

In the U.S., most outdoor signs made between 1890 and and 1950 were constructed of a base of heavy rolled iron, which was die cut into the desired shape, then coated with layers of colored powdered glass and fired in a kiln. This process made them durable and weather-resistant. Signs made this way were known as porcelain enamel signs or simply enamel signs.

Porcelain enamel signs originated in Germany and were imported into the U.S. They quickly became a staple of outdoor advertising across the country. Around 1900, designers experimented with bold colors and graphics on the signs and they were used to advertise everything from cigarettes and beer to farm equipment and tires. Early designs were stenciled, but American designers switched to silkscreens and started using a steel base instead of iron. Later, when porcelain enamel became too costly, tin bases were used instead of steel.

Now it is difficult to find antique porcelain enamel signs in excellent condition. Collectors pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for each addition to their collections. Many of the signs were vandalized, discarded due to etching or crazing in the finish or melted down for the metal during World War II. After the war, the signs were too expensive to manufacture, so we are left with only the dazzling pieces that remain from the era.

Signs were later made of tin and other materials and painted with enamel paint. More of these types of signs remain, but they are often rusted, scratched and distressed. After WWII, “enamel” signs were simply enamel paint on a metal, usually tin, base.

There is a huge market for vintage signs and collectors must be wary of distressed reproductions. Often vintage signs are stamped with the date they were manufactured, while other times research and knowledge about antique signs may be required to discern a real antique from a knockoff.

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