“Color is, of course, the easiest way to make a bold statement. There are no bad colors, but it is a lot easier to create an exuberant interior with red than it is with beige. Nancy Lancaster’s butter yellow room at Colefax and Fowler, David Hicks’s drawing room using ten shades of red, Billy Baldwin’s sublime blue room at the Villa Fiorentina, and Mark Hampton’s chocolate brown room in a Kips Bay showhouse will always be a huge influence, because although each room is unique, they all share a clarity and sense of purpose expressed through a strong color statement.”

“Love of strong color is a personality trait, and like an MGM musical, I choose to decorate in Technicolor. There are no rules when using color to foster exuberance, but I like using a classic combination like blue and white as a jumping-off point and then adding in the spice—such as orange.”