This was a headline I saw online, which made me tremendously excited. But when I read the attached article, while it was interesting and featured many lovely photos, it was still pretty much a tease: the designers in question had been reprimanded for calling themselves Interior Designers, a title which in certain states requires four years of study and a license. These people would, however, have been legally allowed to call themselves Interior Decoraters. But this all got me thinking, about other, and perhaps more dramatic reasons why an interior designer would, or should be arrested, at least according to other designers:
1. Matching bedside table lamps. In 2014? Really? Like at the Holiday Inn, no, I’m sorry the more upscale Holiday Inn Express?
2. A cashmere throw improperly angled across a top-stitched elk-hide ottoman. It’s called the DIAGONAL, people!
3. A boldly patterned, seventies-inspired, foil wallpaper on an accent wall. AGAIN?
4. A row of twelve neatly arranged throw pillows, in coordinated earth-tones, each allotted the infamous decorater’s chop, along a built-in adobe sectional in a Sante Fe home. And on the very first night, the owner HANGED HIMSELF.
5. An amusing take on a mounted animal head, executed in wrought iron or bamboo or beadwork. Even if it cost $125,000, it’s still a CRAFTS PROJECT.
6. A mirrored bathroom. Unless it’s for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, NO ONE NEEDS TO SEE THAT. FROM BEHIND.
7. A kitchen with poured-concrete countertops. Stop kidding yourself, concrete is the GRANITE OF TRIBECA.
8. A flat-screen TV which rises from a custom-made chest at the foot of the bed. You’re not fooling anyone, WE ALL KNOW THERE’S A TV IN THERE.