You can call it Santa Fe. Or you can call it Frontier. You can call it Southwest or West or even Salsa, as some have. Forget the label. Consider the elements of the style that has become one of the hottest decorating themes today. Signs of it everywhere, from mail-order catalogues to department stores.
Pine that has been scrubbed or washed with subtle-colored stains, furniture that is painted in pale pastels or bright hues as spicy as New Mexican cuisine, upholstery fabrics whose woven zigzag designs are reminiscent of traditional Indian motifs, terra cotta pottery, handcrafted folksy art:
They`ve begun to season homes all over the country, well beyond the regions where such ingredients are an integral part of the lifestyle, and where some of the prize pieces may have a history besides a look.
Southwest mixes easily, especially with contemporary design, which it serves to soften. Another reason for the appeal is good old-fashioned made-in- the-U.S.A. pride. The movement echoes a growing preference for something of our roots.
Labeled ”Southwest style” several years ago, the look began to pop up in the early `80s in dozens of magazine features.
Often dubbed ”the Santa Fe look,” it was partially an extension of women`s fashion influences of the time, particularly Ralph Lauren`s Santa Fe collection: flounced prairie skirts, Western shirts, concha belts, Indian jewelry, colorful Navaho-inspired geometric sweaters, cowboy boots, fringed suede jackets.
Lauren probably was ahead of his time when he brought some of this fashion to his first home-furnishings collection with flatware reminiscent of sterling and turquoise jewelry.
Santa Fe became the Southwest`s fashionable destination, and in magazine and newspaper articles writers rhapsodized over its charms. But going there wasn`t enough. Next came the natural desire to emulate the beauty of the interiors inside adobe houses set in that incredible landscape characterized by shades of blue, terra cotta and sage.
Thomasville was the first furniture manufacturer to pick up on the trend in the spring of 1984. Its Santa Fe collection was described as ”the essence of American country West . . . casual country rather than literal Spanish, English, Mexican or Pueblo Indian style.”
The furniture, constructed of rustic pecan with a gently distressed rich grain, employed such design details as heavy overlays, sun- and sagebrush-motif carvings, tile inlays, heavy aprons pierced to suggest Southwest tinwork. Some painted pieces also were introduced.
DEMAND FOR HANDCRAFTS
Six months later, Drexel Heritage followed suit with its Mesa Collection, described as American country, ”with symbolism found in primitive decorative arts and architecture of Indian, Spanish and Mexican origin.” It featured weathered oak, adobe-look faux stone, metalwork in gunmetal gray, woven rush, leather and brass.
There was a growing demand for handcrafted pottery, glassware, handwoven fabrics and natural materials. And dhurries (flat woven rugs generally with geometric patterns) became ubiquitous. What`s fascinating is that perhaps all of us in some way bought a little bit of the so-called Southwest look. What much of it really amounted to, after all, was eclecticism, not unlike what Santa Fe transplants had achieved when they first settled there.
According to Landt Dennis, author of ”Santa Fe” (Herring Press), that style, which originated in the `20s, `30s and `40s, had more to do with freedom of expression and individuality than with interior design.
Those settlers, largely artists and intellectuals from the East Coast, set their European antiques in their adobe houses and blended their furnishings with such regional symbols as Navajo weavings, Indian pottery, kachina dolls, beaded moccasins, Spanish colonial tin sconces and colorful Santos, or carved religious figures.
”Today,” Dennis writes, ”newcomers rely on interior designers and regional craftsmen to create for them the so-called Santa Fe style.”
The result, he implies, is somewhat cliche: the same palate of fabrics and a monotonous assortment of contemporary Southwest paintings in primary colors, folk art coyotes and bears, slinky wooden snakes, Indian drum tables and equipale chairs (clay-colored pigskin stretched over a crosshatched wooden frame, found in traditional Mexican haciendas).
Some New Mexican artisans have gone beyond their turf with collections that are being marketed in designer showrooms. Sombraje (som-BRA-hay), a firm based in Dixon, N.M., is one of those. Its artists create colorful panels that can be used as shutters, free-standing folding screens, cabinets or closet doors and even vent covers.
Crafted of peeled willow branches that have been hand-colored, each branch is cut individually and placed by hand horizontally, vertically or diagonally within the panel to create a stunning decorative effect. The pine frames are available in smooth or rough-sawn and sanded surfaces.
Prices start at $30 a panel plus square-foot costs that range from about $30 to $60, depending on the intricacy of the work.
Spiegel, which does big business in home furnishings, leads a large spread in its current catalogue with the headline ”How the Southwest won us over” and demonstrates how to put together the furniture and decorative accessories.
MIX AND MATCH
Unless you`re packing up and heading for the land of the adobes, it`s not necessary to get swept away by outfitting your digs in the manner of the Zunis or the Plains Indians, complete with feathers and leathers. After all, the broadening Southwest style is eminently cohabitable with a variety of home fashions. That`s the idea of most of the furniture manufacturers who are offering the look.
Comfort Design`s American Spirit Collection, for example, constructed of Honduras pine and painted in pastel finishes, was designed to mingle with metal, wicker and real or faux stone.
”The pieces would fit into a Southwest environment just as they would with a leather sofa in a Boston townhouse,” says John Graham, the firm`s president. ”The idea came because we have the sense that people are looking to mix products in a room.”
Midrange pricing also is attractive: A coffee table retails for $499; a dining table, $995; chairs, $399 each; a queen-size bed, $699; a buffet, $999; and an armoire, $1,499.
Some of the freshest designs have sprung from contemporary craftsmen working with traditional materials. A Provo, Utah, man who made fences out of lodgepoles (logs American Indians used for teepees) launched an entire furniture company.
”My son thought a lodgepole bed would look super when he saw the fences,” said Jon Clark, who now is president of the 4-year-old firm called the Naturalist. ”We had one made, then took photos to some designer friends. They all loved it.”
More than 50 pieces in four collections now are in the line. The Rocky Mountain Woods group is crafted of Western lodgepole pine in natural finish and a variety of colored washes.
Two showpieces in the American Frontier group are a Wild West bed, fashioned of oak branches and weathered planks with decorative turquoise stone inlay, and Ranch House, a weathered wood bed available with inlaid Indian stone patterns.
A third group, the Trading Post Collection, combines polished galvanized tin with rustic wood posts that have been naturally weathered or washed in light gray. Even such an unorthodox marriage as pine and ”city slick Formica,” available in stucco white, sunset pink and pale turquoise, has been pulled off successfully in the Gary Clark collection. While some of these combinations may sound a bit hokey, they are extremely handsome and quite sophisticated in style.
ETHNIC REPRODUCTIONS
Over at the Lane Co.`s Pearson division, in cooperation with the Museum of American Folk Art, Southwest recently was added to a series of
reproductions that began about six years ago. The earlier line, American West, was inspired in color by Southwest canyons, Northwest forests and Midwest plains, and in design from the furnishings of the 18th and 19th Centuries. It debuted in 1985.
Ruth Clark, Pearson`s vice president of design and styling, said:
”Rather than go to the stereotype of Spanish Southwest, we realized that many different ethnic groups moved there. There`s Biedermeier from the Germans, a major influence in Texas; French from New Orleans; country French from Canada; Spanish along the Santa Fe trail.”
The Pearson pieces are upholstered in fabrics designed from Rio Grande documents. Originals were made by Spanish settlers as they entered what later became New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. A particularly charming pattern is that of a horse and rider, the original of which may have been inspired by serapes from a late 19th Century trading post. The cotton-and-rayon tapestry fabric is produced by Valdese Weavers.
In the Lane-Pearson collection are 25 upholstered pieces and 75 case goods, all in pine, with finishes emphasizing the natural wood or with a grayish wash. Chairs range from $500 to $800.
Even manufacturers known more for contemporary designs have gone West. Casa Bique`s Jacinto, derived from 16th Century Spanish styles, incorporates such design elements as turned spiral legs, bas reliefs and hand carving on table edges and door fronts; the finish is whitewash on pine.
As the look evolves, it appears to be pushing even more Westward.
Late last year Marshall Field`s in Chicago pioneered a new concept: a 1,200-square-foot boutique that showcases authentic arts and craft merchandise from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.
An Indian headdress, to be mounted as a wallhanging or displayed as a piece of sculpture, couldn`t be kept in stock-at $175. Reproductions of Remingtons sold briskly. Pottery of the Santa Clara Indians proved as irresistible as silver and turquoise jewelry.
The Buffalo Bill Shop since has been relocated to the store`s gift court, now nearly double its original size. Items ranging from a set of four Buffalo Bill coasters ($7) to a beaded papoose carrier ($2,500) still are selling well. –
