|
|
|
The new neutral colors, which can be used in combination with many textures and accents, are anything but bland and boring
by Louis Postel
photography by Jim Raycroft
03/01/2005
|
| Beyond Beige |  |
When we last saw U.K.-based designer
Donald Starkey, he was wearing
a yellow shirt. Nevertheless, Starkey is
all for beige. Is it boring? “No,” he
insists. “If we mixed up all the
colors of the spectrum, we’d get a neutral.”
His latest neutral-scheme
yachts include the teak-paneled Feadship Dream, the
blue-hulled Sarah
from Amels and Abeking & Rasmussen’s Excellence III. But
Starkey
warns against going overboard with beiges. “Rather than the basis of a
design,” he says, “beige is a help along the way. Clients may have
favorite
colors you can’t use as the basis for the color scheme, but
with a neutral
background, they work as accents.
Every trend has
its countertrend. Some
people tend to lose their bearings when
navigating an interior of monochromatic
textures and patterns. Fort
Lauderdale-based designer Claudette Bonville thinks
that most designers
who use beige do so because “it’s safe.” Bonville says, “If
you are
building on spec, you figure that more people like vanilla than
raspberry sherbet. So you give them vanilla.” Bonville’s favorite
anti-beige
combo is aubergine paired with lime green.
But for
those who believe their
interior décor should be the backdrop to life
at sea rather than a dramatic
performance all its own, neutrals
certainly set the stage.
|
|
|
|
|
Email This
Printer Friendly Version
Reprints & Permissions
Most Popular Searches