20 May Deborah Main Pillow Fight Not Just for Sleepovers

Get your throw pillows ready….it’s time for a Pillow Fight!!

And we really had one ya’ll!!  In 2011, Deborah Main Designs pulled out all the stops at our last Austin Fashion Week event at 1020 Glass Art & Decor, called a “Pillow Party at The Pillow Glass Lounge”.  It was very cool, I must say so myself! With such great memories, well, I thought this photo above was very apprepro for this week’s upcoming #PillowFight.

Now tell me honestly, do you ever get frustrated trying to arrange your decorative pillows? Do you sometimes feel like throwing a pillow at your husband because he said the wrong thing, or, as found of D’ Coop Media, Brandon Smith, reminded me, re-enact the hilarious stabbing scene from “Along Comes Polly”?  Well don’t worry, as we have all been there. Here’s your chance to literally throw your grievances on the bed and take it out on your pillows. Just please leave the knife in the kitchen.

Come help us duke it out this Thursday, May 22^nd, at 3 PM CST (1 PM PST, 4 PM EST) on Twitter, as I partake as guest host, on Brandon Smith’s #DesignLux chat’s “Pillow Fight”. 

That’s right, the Pillow Goddess, moi, is in the hot seat!

Brandon Smith, chief guru of all things luxury and CEO of D’Coop Media, works with luxury brands and their representatives to bring the online and offline worlds together in inspiring and creative ways.  I love his #DesignLUX chat as he always has great topics and guests! His most recent venture is the fabulous, new  D’Lux Quarterly, The Twenty Six, a brilliant online luxury magazine. Remember reading about my pillows in the back seat of the Rolls Royce Wraith HERE on his first #D’Lux road trip? Boy, was that ever fun…and he’s got more road trips in the works, so stay tuned.

But back to our #DesignLUX Pillow Fight.  As Brandon said:

“…everyone, especially designers, has an opinion on the throw pillow, so we’ve invited Pillow Goddess Deborah Main to chat with us Thursday, May 15th at 1pmPT/3pmCT/4pmET to help answer the essential questions. To Chop or Not to Chop? How many is too many? how much should you be spending? Join in with your comments and inspiration.”

So pease join me on this Twitter chat Thursday 3:00 PM CST (1 PM PST, 4 PM EST) by following hashtag #DesignLux.

Special for this chat, I’ve created this post with photographs and some helpful tips to ignite your creative juices (or pet peeves) when it comes to pillows. After all, being visual as most designers and artists are, photos to accompany #DesignLux #PillowFight chat, is the best way for me to share with you my inspiration.

Below is a variety of luxury decorative pillows that demonstrate how we at Deborah Main Designs display pillows in living rooms and master bedroom suites, and how our clients use them in their home. Through display photography, I’ve gathered eight important factors for you to consider when arranging pillows in your own home, no matter what your individual style is.

Do you have a pillow fetish? Can’t wait to see you on Thursday’s #DesignLUX chat on Twitter to answer any questions you might have, hear your comments and dish about decorative pillows.  Besides who doesn’t love a little #PillowFight? XOPG

• Incorporate Color and Texture

We at Deborah Main Designs love color and texture so much that it is an integral part of our brand message. These pillows above are handcrafted with colorful vintage and textural fabrics; photo taken at Modern Home Tour Austin. When it comes to designing rooms with decorative accent or throw pillows, we like to use a variety of textures and color that we incorporate directly into our luxury pillow designs.

In fact, one of Deborah Main Designs’ signature looks is to have a very different back on our pillows so that our customers can feel that texture and have multiple uses for the pillow, like two pillows in one. 

Decorative pillows are meant to be touched and held, so mixing them up in style and size, and even flipping them around will give you many options for your home.

• Group Together Different Sizes & Shapes
  

The above pillows are handcrafted from new silk brocade with a very textural pleated silk back.  We like groups of three or five, with a few smaller accent pillows in front, particularly on beds. Photo taken at Parade of Homes; room designed by interior designer, Kelle Contine, formerly of PPDS interior design firm.

 

• Have a Focal Point

Now it would be REALLY hard for me to stab any of my pillows (like in the movie “Along Comes Polly”, but particularly some of our favorites like the center one above from our Designer Classics Collection. This photo, taken at Modern Home Tour Austin, features a knockout vintage silk scarf, by 1950’s designer Vera Neumann, handcrafted into one of our pillows. We love the contrasting colors and textures of these luxury decorative pillows with the smooth silk playing against the front pair of fuzzy silk and cashmere pillows. The aqua wave pillows add a nice contrasting backdrop to set the stage.

Heads up interior designers and retailers:  Did you know you can now custom order multiples of our silk wave pillows, in many different colorways, when you open up a “Trade Account” with Deborah Main Designs HERE?(Note:  As a thank you for reading our blog, please tell us you heard about our new “Trade Account” registration on this post and you’ll get 15% off your opening order).

•  Select Centerpieces to Show Off Your Bedding

The above pillow arrangement is one of our absolute favorites!  In fact, it helped sell the entire bedding at one of our long-time Dallas retailers, Casa di Lino.  A lot of times luxury bedding comes with a whole kit and kaboodle of pillows.  Just like we do,  Casa di Lino likes to mix it up by adding unique pillows to their bedding. The gorgeous luxury linens above are by Fino Lino, just one of the many bedding lines in different colorways that Casa di Lino carries. The coverlet is aqua diamond charmeuse; leaf pattern pillows are aqua primavera. We complemented this lovely light aqua bedding ensemble with a gorgeous coral vintage satin pair of pillows (with the exact shade of aqua in the fabric) and crowned it with a centerpiece luxury pillow from our Les Bijoux de Luxe Collection . The Deborah Main centerpiece is handcrafted from a raspberry 1930’s vintage lace dress, bordered with vintage French trim and features a dazzling vintage raspberry rhinestone brooch. Truly a showstopper!

• Keep it Simple

Now to select pillows for your sofa, let’s start with a stack of different size pillows (above) in a variety of shades of aqua, all handcrafted with vintage textiles. You can either use all the pillows in two different areas of a large sectional sofa, or just one pair in the center of the sofa like below.  Both photos in this photo shoot were taken at NEST Modern, Austin, Texas.

But too often one can get carried away and use too many pillows as we’ll discuss on Thursday’s #DesignLUX chat #PillowFight.  Sofas are often guilty of that, having so many pillows you can’t even sit down.  But if you select some really unique pillows, like the ones above, a simple handcrafted pair with tie-dye vintage, one-of-a-kind silk, you can keep the quantity of pillows to a minimum and still make a bold statement. Sometimes the old adage “Less is More” is very, very true.

As much as I love ALL these Deborah Main pillows above on this Casa di Lino bed (arranged for display at a trunk show), if I were arranging the pillows in a client’s home, I would pare it down. I’d use the three layers of larger pillows (which include the ones that come with the fine linens), then I’d select just one of the three smaller pillows in front to accent the grouping. That way the look is not overwhelming and will be more in scale with the size of the bed.  Now on a King size bed, this many pillows can work just fine.

By the way, if you don’t know it already, many of Deborah Main Designs‘ luxury decorative pillows are one-of-a-kind, so if you see it online, or in a fine linen & gift store like Dallas’ Casa di Lino, snap it up quickly because there probably won’t be another one.

That’s what I love about creating one-of-a-kind luxury decorative pillows! The 2nd layer of Deborah Main pillows in above photo are handcrafted from 1940’s curtains and have this gorgeous gold scroll design painted over a modern 3-diamond pattern. Truly a one-of-a-kind textile, of which I wish I had more!

Now here is a couch full! I love all these pillows above, particularly as they are the perfect complement to Pantone’s Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid.  But in this image, taken at Interior Design Gallery for display at one of Deborah Main Designs’ events, THIS is a great example of too many pillows on one single sofa.  (Even though it looked so puurty for the display).

In your own home, when you have this many pillows, you simply can’t sit down and relax on the sofa. Frankly, there’s just no room to sit down…period! Plus our Les Bijoux de Luxe pillows really belong as centerpieces on a bed or a special chair that doesn’t get sat in by your guest. Ouch, that would hurt to sit up against a gorgeous vintage rhinestone brooch, now wouldn’t it!

The above chaise lounge with a pair of vintage Bark Cloth pillows, is an excellent example of “keeping it simple”. Photo taken at NEST Modern, Austin, Texas.

• Size & Shape Matter

Below, this photo of a blue silk brocade pair from our Redbrick Modern Collection is a great example in your home of needing to be sure you factor in the size and shape of pillows for your furniture.  Again, this photo was taken during a trunk show Deborah Main Designs did in Dallas, but it clearly demonstrates how size and proportion really matter when you’re selecting pillows for your home decor. A simple lumbar pillow, 12  x 16, or a small square or round pillow, would work perfectly on a single chair.

Below, probably just one of this wonderful masculine pair of pillows, handcrafted from re-purposed designer fabric, would do fine for this cozy chair. Photo taken for event at Kreiss Home, Austin, Texas.

 

One single, tasseled pillow from our sexy UnZipped Collection is all this chair at Interior Design Gallery needs.

Both photos above, on a modern bed at Modern Home Tour Austin, and below, on a modern bed at Bo Concept, are great examples of different sizes and quantities of pillows that make sense for your bedroom home furnishings. They are in scale with the size of the bed and the colors coordinate beautifully.

•  Use Feather & Down

We at Deborah Main Designs use 95/10 feather and down pillow forms made in the U.S.A.  As you’ll hear me bitch tomorrow on #DesignLUX #PillowFight, foam and poly tend to flatten out and pull away from the fabric design of the pillow, leaving large gaps between the pillow itself and the edge of the fabric. I do understand that some customers need hypo-allergenic pillow forms and we offer that option to our clients, but my preference is feather and down.

Also, at our Austin studio Deborah Main Designs, we like to make our pillows “plump”, so that they’re full and can stand up on their own and add real comfort to the person whose leaning against it. Nothing worse then trying to get comfortable on a sofa and the pillow is so flimsy or too tiny that you don’t get any support and fall back on the couch. (I don’t know about you, but I’ve had that happen to me at a cocktail party once!) I love sitting on a sofa and having a real firm but downy experience leaning against a decorative pillow. There’s just something so wonderful about a feather and down pillow form that I love! Below are examples of firm 95/10 feather and down pillows on a bed and sofa; both photos taken in award-winning Triton Home at Parade of Homes Austin. Bedroom and study designed by award-winning interior designer, Kelle Contine.

• Appearance Matters

To chop or not? Well, you’ll just have to find out what stance I take on that issue at Thursday’s #DesignLux chat.  Below are great examples of both.  Some Karate chops work in most settings, some settings clearly call for a smooth clean line in your decorative pillows, like in this sleek media room.  Either way, how you display your pillows, whether it’s in the master suite, or a child’s play room, appearance does matter and makes the pillows inviting.

Above is a modern media room in the Award-winning Triton Home at Parade of Homes Austin.

At Kreiss Home, Deborah Main pillows give you a little bit of both, chopped and unchopped, so you can have your cake and eat it too!

 Above, someone really enjoyed karate chopping these two Deborah Main Redbrick Modern pillows. Was it me?

And below, our final photo in this “Pillow Fight” series: A gorgeous room, designed for a client by the expert interior designers at Alyson Jon Interiors Beaumont, that incorporates our red & gold silk brocade “Wave” pillows.  The finished room, to me, is such a stunning example of classic elegance, in an absolutely perfect-proportioned living area, with striking wall art and luxury decorative pillows that pull the entire room together. I just love this dramatic look!

Hope you enjoyed the visual tour! Be sure to join the conversation Thursday, May 22^nd, at 3 PM CST (1 PM PST, 4 PM EST) on Twitter, with Brandon Smith and I duking it out on  #DesignLux chat’s “Pillow Fight”.  We’d love to hear your opinions about throw, accent, and decorative pillows! XO PG

Note: All photos and opinions my own, except where noted.