The winter holiday season is, according to designer Jonathan Adler, the one moment of the year when good taste can take a tiny vacation of its own. He has always believed in the Diana Vreeland principle that ‘a little bad taste is like a dash of paprika,’ and nowhere is that truer than during the festive period. December is all the permission he needs to embrace excess with open, jazz-handed enthusiasm. He wants sparkles, he wants joy, he wants rooms that wink at you the moment you enter.
For the time after Christmas Day, people often ask how to decorate ‘properly’ – should this be a change from the lead-up to the 25th, or should you keep the seasonality going? For Jonathan Adler, New Year decor is the time to be playful, nostalgic, a little glam, and completely pleasure-seeking. Twinkling lights, glistening ornaments, eye-popping colors, a dash of fun – it’s all part of the magic. The New Year lead-up is not a design problem to solve but a sensorial playground to revel in, and – in his own words – these are his rules for how to lean in wholeheartedly.
