White parchment sleigh bed attributed to Jean Michel Frank.

I get really emotional over the work of mid-century French designer and decorator Jean Michel Frank. He is the one visual stylist who managed to conclusively solve the conflict between modern design's fetish for reduction and the very human need for comfort and luxury in a room. Here's a man who could make a masterpiece out of varying tones of beige and his use of unconventional materials like straw marquetry and shagreen in unmatched in its perverse sense of what was and what was not luxury. What Coco Chanel did to women's clothing Frank did to rooms..that is..pared them down to chicest proposition of silhouette and finish possible.
As Eve M Kahn once wrote , "Frank would wrap spindly, minimalist tables or chairs in rarefied materials—goatskin, vellum, glittery mica—to look modern, but not icily clinical. Or he’d update demure traditional forms, fashioning turned legs and flared arms out of peasanty sandblasted oak or iron with upholstery as rough as dishtowels."
Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier has written an amazing book on this icon titled, "Jean-Michel Frank: L’étrange Luxe du Rien "(The Strange Luxury of Nothingness). This expression is one I absolutely love , though it sounds far more expensive in French.
The most exciting news is Frank's work still occasionally comes up for auction, since he tended to custom design pieces of furniture for the rooms his clients commissioned. Of course because he would use Hermes for his leather covered tables and upholstery and did lamps with the likes of Giacometti, let's just say prices are prohibitive. With Frank in mind I will endeavor to embrace the beige. It was the only tonality he could accept as a color.

"Jean-Michel Frank: The Strange and Subtle Luxury of the Parisian Haute-Monde in the Art Deco Period" by Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-

P.S Martin Vivier's book surfaced today March 28th at amazon.com as a pre-order under the title : "Jean-Michel Frank: The Strange and Subtle Luxury of the Parisian Haute-Monde in the Art Deco Period" by Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier . Must buy! Must buy! Must buy!