Living rooms top the list of redecorating projects that Americans plan this year, according to a random survey of over 900 consumers conducted by American Express.
How many of those consumers intend to use American Express remains to be seen. But some of those charges will be from e-commerce transactions, if readers follow the advice in Southern Accents and New York magazines’ Web-shopping articles. We’ve rarely come across two pieces that looked more like they were separated at birth.
As a shelter magazine, Southern Accents might be best described as what Architectural Digest pretends to be, but isn’t. Its articles are about gracious homes for gracious people. In the March/April issue, Window Shopping – a section dedicated to the acquisition of tasteful objects – is dedicated to online shopping. Writer Liz Seymour wants to assure her readers that the Internet isn’t, well, for the vulgar.
The article takes the form of a quest for midcentury modernist Eva Zeisel’s Town and Country salt and pepper shakers. The designs look something like Schmoos from the old L’il Abner comic strip by Al Capp. The piece walks readers through the major online auction sites as well as those of private shops and dealers. Although she discusses secure shopping, she actually makes her purchase by phone. And from a Southern dealer yet. Apparently, transmitting your credit card number over phone lines with the spoken word is more gracious than transmitting your credit card number over phone lines using a keyboard.
No one would ever accuse New York magazine of being gracious. Edgy, perhaps, is more like it. The March 27 issue’s cover feature is called “@home design.”
Actually, the article focuses on the homes of people involved with the Internet. The homes are designed and shopped for in the usual fashion. However, each owner is asked about his or her favorite Web sites, most of which prove to be e-commerce-related. Josh Harris of Pseudo.com tells writer Alexandra Lange that he has 25 bids on Herman Miller items on eBay, for example, while Tiffany Dubin of Theauctionchannel.com unloaded her old knickknacks on eBay and bid on Eames and Bertola chairs. (Miller, Eames and Bertola are also midcentury modernist designers.)
The actual shopping for home furnishings online is discussed in a long sidebar. Instead of a gracious lady looking for the perfect salt and peppershakers, we have interior designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz furnishing what is des cribed as a $2.5 million, 3,500-square-foot loft on Crosby Street (in downtown Manhattan). New York gave Noriega-Ortiz three hours to furnish his loft using a PowerBook G3 computer.
Once again, there’s a review of major auction sites and private shops and dealers. And again the focus is midcentury modernism: Nelson, Noguchi, Saarinen and Knoll.
Instead of drawing on themes derived from the old South, Noriega-Ortiz’s choices range the world. Curiously, the article doesn’t include pictures of the results of the three-hour binge. The point seems to be that thanks to e-commerce, now New Yorkers can “order in” an interior much as they would a pizza or a Chinese dinner.
Since both reporters are, after all, writing about the decorative arts, the similar point of departure is perhaps inevitable. However, it does seem odd that both used the Internet to buy designs and objects from midcentury modernists. Somehow that focus on biomorphic plastic seems just, oh, so 20th century.
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