To Grandmother’s House We Go

The right wall immediately upon entering my grandma’s house — not the sharp turn into the ivory painted living room but the bear-right lean of the off-center staircase, that wall — is covered in a mirrored silver wallpaper with twisting, looping swirls, and when you walk up the steps with your palm pressed flush against the paper’s warped reflection you can make a dragging noise that squeaks, leaving behind a satisfying hand print from the friction-caused heat.

There are a few different camps of grandmothers and their respective papers. There are those (like mine) who keep entire walls intact from the heydays of their interior decorator circa 1970-groovy. There are those in Palm Beach who’ve absorbed the local color palette, those who were inspired by The Birdcage, those who studied at the house of chintz – the common bond being that their eccentricities allow for absolutely zero creative stifling when it comes to patterned real estate.

There’s no such thing as too loud, no fear of shrinking the appearance of space. If these walls could talk they’d be thanking the women who dressed them, and then would ask if perhaps someone could set that nice young chair up with the cute velvet fabric.

Prints on the Spring 2015 runway seemed to pay homage to these grandmas in what’s perhaps a rebellion against their shuffle board partner, Norm. There were Asian-influenced cherry reds that backed pale roses at Simone Rocha, lotus flowers at Prada, tall reeds and bursting blue somethings over an orange fabric at Marni (where textured coats were inspired by the kind of wallpaper that also matches the couch). At Thakoon it was navy palms, at Sophie it was fanned ferns — these grandmothers live somewhere tropical, or prefer for their houseplants to blend into the background. At Honor and Yigal the prints were more like fine china (wallpaper better suited for the bedroom, as opposed to Karen Walker’s yellow variety, which appeared stripped from a bold dining room on Philadelphia’s mainline).

These prints are a commitment. They can swallow a room in one gulp; they speak boldly over a large crowd. But when considered against the contrast of minimalism or its athletic cousin jogging somewhere in between, they’re the burst of necessary air that comes when your grandma finally opens the window despite “a terrible chill outside,” making you nostalgic for the wallpaper that you used to high five.

Images via Style.com