TJ Fisher; Skip Bolen photographer
1st edition
390 pp. 10.25 x 10.25 in
Total weight of 5.3 lbs
Hardcover; elegant 3-piece case
Gloss-varnished photo covers w/black cloth trim
370 color illustrations
Front cover design: Skip Bolen
Editor: Ron Kenner
EAN/ISBN-10: 0-9773514-5-9
EAN/ISBN-13: 978-0-9773514-3-5
Morgana Press (February 13, 2009)

Vieux Carré Chic: The Art of Overindulgent Home Décor
A fascinating interior décor and sensuous stylebook by — TJ Fisher

THE TIMELESS PATINA OF AN INTANGIBLE AURA, ATTITUDE, ATMOSPHERE

Vieux Carré Chic is the trendsetting catch phrase TJ Fisher coined for her remarkably inventive, audacious and splashy style of home décor. This bold approach to interior design stuns the imagination and staggers the senses. Inspired and influenced by a collection of original "wild-born" ideas spawned in the French Quarter, the trademark style celebrates the uncustomary excesses and eccentricities of living large and colorful, even in small spaces, with ultimate flamboyance and flair.

Paying tribute and homage to the French Quarter’s compelling clash-of-culture imagery — its swirling collage of irresistible images and visions, vestiges and imaginings of things remembered, of past and present — Vieux Carré Chic remains fiercely loyal to its roots. To describe the French Quarter is to in essence describe Vieux Carré Chic: Bold. Startling. Paradoxical. Surreal. Excessive. Luxuriant. Dramatic. Complex. Unorthodox. Overripe. Passionate. Heartfelt. Overwrought. Unfettered. Unrestrained. Captivating. Spellbinding. Grandiose. Enigmatic. Whimsy, sophistication, glamour, charm and humor collide — as Old World connoisseur-level collectibles hold court with kitschy keepsakes.

AN ELEMENT OF ESCAPISM

Unquestionably, the unconventional design-style of Vieux Carré Chic is based on the unusual, the impossible, the improbable. Hundreds of color photographs reveal a mad hatter’s mesmerizing jumble of exquisitely-controlled chaos. Subscribing to the age-old axiom of "excess is best" and "too much is never enough," the style enchants the mind and the eye with a hypnotic blend of African, Parisian and Equestrian-inspired themes and motifs threaded throughout every room.

The passionate style creates irresistible yet livable over-the-top drama and enthralling rooms of distinction. Through a ceiling-to-floor over embellishment of layers upon layers of exquisite and peculiar accessories, ornamentation and colors — an exceptionally entertaining design mix of opulently cheap to chi-chi and colossal as furnishings, artifacts, antiques, accessories, collectibles, curios and other fine objets d’art crowd each room, everywhere. The eye-popping style dismisses and defies all preconceived notions and perceptions of predictable, anemic interior decorating ideas.

IMBUED WITH ENCHANTMENT

The creative objective: no nook, cranny, or wall is left blank or bare, anywhere. Fisher’s policy: there’s always room, somewhere, for a superabundance of beloved treasures, paintings, photos and mementos of a life well lived; always a space for anything else simply unforgettable, strikingly vivid and intoxicating to the eye. Details, details, and drenched with more details.

Ravishing, uncanny and confounding design applications, never before previewed, spill from every page, coupled with astonishing how-to design philosophy and real-life applications. Take heed. Vieux Carré Chic is not for the faint of heart. It is the antithesis, the nemesis, of all things and design schemes spar, bland, nondescript, boring; beige, white or minimalist. Here the amount of furnishings and artwork typically utilized in traditional space planning is doubled or quadrupled in volume, and sometimes more.

Want to buy, hunt for, keep, collect, squeeze and display more stuff, art, furniture, junk and keepsakes — Voilà, the answer, the antidote, is Vieux Carré Chic.

For those born to defy decorum and convention, to embrace what is taboo, the end result is tantalizing rooms alive with sway and splendor, filled with animal magnetism — seductive spaces that move, dazzle and confound people, invariably leaving an indelible impression like no style of decorating ever before encountered.

THEATRICAL MIXING OF PERIODS AND STYLES