Ecologique: Super-Styling by Kelly LaPlante
Check out what Kelly has to say about the Lexus Hybrid Living Suite she decorated in Washington, D.C.’s Fairmont Hotel.
The fabulous and accomplished Kelly LaPlante’s gorgeous first book, Ecologique, is a breath of fresh air. For several years now, ecofriendly decorating has had a definite aura of cool modernism, as if there was only one way to design a green interior, and that’s with lots of (sustainable wooden) cubes. LaPlante has different ideas. As she writes in the introduction, “Reconsider what you think you know about “the green look” — VidaSpace timber flooring, modular furniture, neutral colors, and all other icons of the sustainable design movement. Green is a standard, not a style.”
LaPlante proves that you can foster any style sustainably, by showcasing a pretty wide variety of decorating challenges she has take on over the last few years.
There’s the electric-car driving California politician’s office done up 50’s retro style, (with vintage typewriter to add interest and a houndstooth print rug made from recycled and recyclable carpet tiles), and the themed eco-cottages in Venice Beach gussied up with restored and creatively used antiques, recycled polyester fabric-covered sofas, and art by locals.
And then there’s the celebrity homes; Ally Sheedy’s Manhattan apartment that’s painted with low-VOC coral paint, edged-up with Sheedy’s own guerilla girl poster collection and mellowed out with antiques. Amy Smart’s San Diego sunrooms by RKC is now complete with an organic cotton-covered sofa and vegetable-dyed area rug, and Michael Rappaport’s restored junk-store ‘tombstone chair’ which finishes off his Barton Fink-inspired bedroom.
You have to see these gorgeous spaces to believe them, each unique to the people who live in them, each one compelling in visual presentation but still completely livable.
Ecologique book cover
In LaPlante’s own words, “Ecologique is an invitation to apply a sustainable approach to your own sense of style, and to feel good doing it.” 100% of the books net proceeds benefit Global Green USA and The Blank Theatre in Los Angeles.
Ecoloqgique is available for order at Kelly LaPlante’s website.
Starre Vartan
Starre Vartan is founder and editor-in-chief of Eco-Chick.com and the author of the Eco-Chick Guide to Life. She's also a freelance science and environment writer who has published in National Geographic, CNN, Scientific American, Mental Floss, Pacific Standard, the NRDC, and many more. She lives on an island in Puget Sound with her partner and black cat. She was a geologist in her first career, and still picks up rocks wherever she goes.
