Behind the scenes
Dream Weaver
Bedding designer Ann Gish is known for her elegant yet practical linens. “A lot can go right into the wash,” says Gish, who was one of the first designers to bring silk bedding to the general public with her Ready-To-Bed washable silk line, sold at Crate & Barrel. Her trademarks are couture sewing techniques and sensuous fabrics, such as quilted silks and satins, and duvets in brown velvet that reverse to amber charmeuse. Pillows are covered in leopard velvet with double-top stitching and a faux fur band. Her favorite fabric is silk canvas. “It’s woven like canvas, but the warp thread and the fill thread are different colors. It creates an iridescence.”
Gish successfully experimented with Dupioni silk before designing her line of machine-washable silk place mats and napkins. “It shrinks a little so we pre-wash it before cutting,” says Gish, who washes her own silk duvet once a week. “Silks were here long before dry cleaners.” Her sophisticated linens grace the beds of a starry clientele and frequently appear in films and on TV. An entire episode of “Sex and the City” revolved around buying a bed that featured Gish’s linens and upholstered headboard. “I sometimes don’t know when set decorators pull our things, but it’s always fun to see them on the big screen.” One night at the movies, for example, she spied her linens in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
Designers’ increasing attention to detail extends to contemporary bedding. “We get orders indicating a mix of elegant, soothing fabrics. Customers will even specify the color of the French knot in the pillow,” Gish says. “People today are counteracting stress by surrounding themselves with really nice things-whatever makes them feel good.” The designer, who manufactures her line in Newbury Park, says custom work is difficult and expensive to make in Southern California, but she doesn’t see an alternative. “If I want to make all the same bedding with no choices, I could do it offshore, but if I want to make exactly what I want and d decisions all day long, and it’s easier to do here than in the middle of China.”
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Theatrical Threads
Catherine Carson’s maxim is “You can never have too many tassels.” And fashioning these ornamental tufts of thread is her passion.
Owner of the Venice-based company Catherine the Great, the designer embellishes everything from Las Vegas costumes to priest’s cassocks. She began her career as an accessories designer when a search for the perfect tassel for a belt brought her to the discovery that “they all look pretty much the same.” Inspired, she began to make her own. Her small Venice canal home is alive with the dancing, dangling threads that adorn everything from pillows, throws, mirrors, frames, armoires and lamp switches to drapery tiebacks, known in industry speak as “embraces.” Her creations range from a traditional rayon boucle version with a finial top, ruched neck and skirt of layered threads and fancy yarns, to a more whimsical and modern caterpillar-legged tassel of wool, mohair and cashmere yarns with lemon-jade beads.
She also likes to make tassels out of semiprecious stones such as peridot, black onyx, jade and amethyst. “You can make tassels out of almost anything,” she says. When “The Tonight Show” contacted her to create a tassel with a “Christmas feel,” she concocted a six-foot version with a giant pine cone head, a Dupioni silk bow for the neck and a green crystal beaded skirt. The designer, who also buys materials for F & S Fabrics in West Los Angeles, says she gets a lot of requests to replace tassels chewed by pets. “Animals are always attracted to the playfulness of fringe.”
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Robyn Murgio
“Pillows and duvet covers are my canvas.”
textiles: Handmade piece-work duvets, bed skirts, pillow shams and throw pillows.
motif: Geometric shapes-squares and circles, lines and grids. “My bedding centers on one large design. I have applied a classic Danish Modern aesthetic and brought it into the bedroom.”
inspirations: ‘50s Modernism. “I love how straight and sleek and clean lined it all is, yet warm-walnut woods and all those great color combinations such as chocolate browns with mustards, oranges and tomato reds, avocado and limey-greens. I like to enliven my bedding with unexpected color combinations.”
materials: 100% pima cotton, cotton sateens and Dupioni silk. “I love the warmth of cotton and the crisp, soft way it feels next to your skin, which is perfect for bedding. I love silk’s knubby texture and deep rich coloring and the way it catches the light.”
why l.a.?: “L.A. gives you space to do your own thing, which makes for really innovative artwork and design.”
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Gregory Evans
“There’s less of an individual look around as the world market becomes more and more globalized. People are beginning to crave things with more personality.”
textiles: Hand-printed fabrics.
motif: Freehand geometrics. “I’m obsessed with the repetition of pattern-crosses and squares, dots and dashes, X’s and O’s. They’re fundamental human marks that have been with us since the beginning of time.”
inspirations: David Hockney, “for turning me on to color,” and Celia Birtwell’s freehand geometrics done in a European Bloomsbury style.
materials: Pure linen, hemp and cotton-linen blends. “For my first collection in ‘89, I used all primary colors. Today I’m attracted to the subtlety of complex, muted neutrals such as grays and beiges, browns and light green-grays.”
why l.a.? “The process is more hands-on. Two people looking, touching and talking about product in a workroom personalizes the process and gives me more control than talking on the phone to someone in India.”
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RESOURCE GUIDE
Ann Gish Inc., custom bedding, Newbury Park, (805) 498-4447. Ann Gish queen-size steel canopy bed in bronze, copper or pewter, $3,825; canopy deck, $655; amber charmeuse sheet set, $1,110; pleated skirt, $720; 30-by-30 silk pillow, $630; 36-by-20 French mattress, $450; Ultrasuede blanket cover, $1,690, at International Down & Linen, Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, (310) 657-8243, and through special order at Grace Home Furnishings, Brentwood, (310) 476-7176. Ann Gish Ready-To-Bed washable silk sheets, at Crate & Barrel stores, and Statements, Los Angeles, (323) 655-4521.
Catherine Carson custom tassels, from $125 to $1,200, at Catherine the Great, Venice, (310) 306-7790. F & S Fabrics, Los Angeles, (310) 441-2477.
Robyn Murgio, Murge Designs, Santa Monica, (310) 664-080 cotton, $80, and silk, $99, and queen- size duvets in cotton, $350, and silk, $400, at Ashland & Hill, Santa Monica, (310) 399-7900.
Gregory Evans’ hand-printed textiles, $100 to $120 per yard, at Thomas Lavin, Los Angeles, (310) 278-2456.
