#DecoratingWithAnimalPrints | Valentina Expressions

Cheetah and Yellow | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

A few days ago, I was wearing cheetah print pants with funky yellow shoes. I was waiting for someone to come to the appointment.
As usual, when I get bored waiting, I take a photo of my shoes or what I am wearing, I am not much of a selfie person. I find my selfie feet don’t have that frozen look all faces have in selfies.

Later, I posted the picture on my Pinterest board “So Chic, So Stylish“ and made a comment that, in my fantasy, I see an interior with that combination.
Good enough, I caught someone’s attention. The comment intrigued a person who asked me how I would see yellow and cheetah combined in a room.
We started to talk and pretty soon I had a solution for her.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Cheetah and Yellow Shoes

Cheetah Yellow Dream Board

(In this dream board, the lanterns and wood shell photos come from rajeesoodhome on Instagram)

In my dream board, I see a yellow love seat, and various rustic, wood type elements: bamboo floor lamp, a chiseled edge coffee table, wood accessories, a stack of colorful pillows and many different shapes of lanterns gathered in one same corner. The cheetah wall I think it’s impressive as an accent wall.
Animal prints require natural and organic material. After all, cheetahs live in the wild nature.

I researched on how to get the cheetah effect on the wall. It’s an easy DIY paint project. Jennifer at Etsy sells all kinds of decorative paint rollers. In this video, she explains so easily how to do it, mix paint with glaze and roll over the desired pattern. https://www.youtube.com/artisticpaintingstudio

I shall be waiting for the photos of the interior I conceived for this new Pinterest client, I am so glad she found me. Technology is just great when it works. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer since 1990, specializing in interior and exterior, color analysis, kitchen, bath, wine cellar, and outdoor kitchen designs. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. RAI–Italian National TV invited her to appear in “Cara Francesca Show” and she has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of four published books, one of which is on the subject of colors
©RED – A Voyage Into Colors.
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The newly published book is ©The Road to Top Of The World
Paperback and Kindle – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Animal Attraction | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

Year after year, I am fascinating with the “animalier” look, even when animal prints were not so much the vogue, I have always worn at least one item in those prints. I believe my attraction comes from the visual rhythm in the movement an animal pattern can imprint in my mind, more than the animal magnetism I might feel.

Animal prints can stir feelings of vulgarity, just as much as feelings of elegance. In the ‘50s the elevated elegance was to wear one or two strings of pearls around the neck and only one small garment in animal print, perhaps a bill box hat, a pair of gloves, or a pair of ballerina shoes and never all together.

Today, animal prints are over used and produced in all colors. Being aware of how to use or wear them will put us on the path of elegance. Animal prints when paired up with a sober look, will give an extra touch of highly seductive femininity. In fact, today the animalier prints are a symbol of high-class fashion, no longer for sexy bombshells that want to make a lasting impression. Ethno-chic and retro styles are the rage in this year 2011 fashion, just as much they have been in past collections.

Pop animal prints spotted in blue, green, or red (confess it, you have one of those too), are fun to wear, but bordering vulgarity is easy to do when the pop colored animal patterns are matched with sequins, bright shiny stuff, or with the wrong colors.

It is not good to mix or match all the prints together, just because they are the same theme or color.

As an interior designer it happens often that I am attracted to animal prints in home décor.

It is good to provoke and create some strong emotions, when designing an interior. This zebra ottoman is not zebra skin, it is a printed leather and it looks so real!
(Photo found on catalog.sourcecollection.com https://www.pinterest.se/pin/196469602468482265)

In this interior, the client is a young woman with a super traditional taste. It took a lot of convincing to mix a racamier seat dressed in animal print (foreground in the photo) in her very traditional living room furnishing. I wanted to lift the heaviness of the rest of the room by adding a new dimension with one contemporary piece and a contemporary throw rug. An extravagant piece, as she called it was too scary for her, but it turned out her favorite piece in the entire décor. I am glad she saw what I saw.

Animalier prints have conquered thousand of women because it is young, transgressive, elegant or….less pretentious; it is a good fit for any age, or in any décor and above all it is fun for any occasion.

I am here to help if you need to lift the image of an area in your home with animal magnetism. Ciao.
Valentina

http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer since 1990 and a former Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe. She blends fashion and interior well in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and turn unattractive spaces into castles. Fashion designing has been her first career choice that made her happy in her own fashion company for fifteen years before settling in the interior designing business. Find her books on