ABOUT ROBERT DYER
Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal. - Diana Vreeland
“Style is a simple way to say complicated things” – Jean Cocteau
I was fortunate to grow up amongst stylish people and lovely heirlooms, however my design training and career really began with a phone call from famed designer Tony Duquette. Earlier I’d written to Tony what frankly was a fan letter. Tony decided he might have a useful, trainable intern and eventual assistant. And I’d offered to work for free. My connections to Tony’s world remains to this day.
It was a magical time and era. Enriching projects were an education itself while luncheon and dinner guests would include the talented and those with chic. Gloria Vanderbilt, Anita Loos, Loretta Young, Jennifer Jones Simon, the Maharajah of Jaipur, the duc d’Orleans. One particular Blues Brothers themed party was held for Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi.
I spent several years living in the now fabled Tony Duquette Studio, with amazing archives of vintage books and photo albums on design. Beegle Duquette’s enviable collection of gowns by designers Adrian, Norrell and Tassell even included a dress by the near mythical Erté. My favorite items, which I always referred to as my ‘school books,’ were the voluminous scrapbooks of the baroness Catherine d’Erlanger, a brilliant artist and tastemaker.
Fabled night clubs in Los Angeles and New York offered great music and dancing, as well as exposure to brilliant visual designs, whether interiors or fashion. Performer and friend Divine always made entrée at famed clubs such as Palladium or Limelight accessible, with dancing to Oingo Boingo or the Psychedelic Furs with neighbors such as new-wave designer Michele Lamy or German punk singer Nina Hagen.
Another letter, another phone call led to work with London Florist and Event Designer Kenneth Turner, where I found myself gratified by the immediacy of Florals and Events. As actress and writer Carrie Fisher says: “Instant gratification takes too long,” and I’d found a career path that catered to my then need for such instant gratification in design – Event Design and Florals.
Having worked with Kenneth on large installations followed by residing in Amsterdam where I could not only further my familiarization of finer flowers, but indulge my advocated fascination with history and classic architecture, this time with the help of the late Princess Tatiana von Metternich, who with a few simple phone calls opened many doors unavailable to see Schloss and Palais by Neumann or Cuvillies, or families still retaining classic portraits by Holbein or treasures by Faberge, canvases by Turner.
Returning home to Los Angeles, I seized an opportunity to acquire the florist Solarium, in my own ‘back yard’ of Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Specializing more in concierge style services and custom custom floral arrangements, we worked with many Bel Air and Beverly Hills residents. Not surprisingly, our client base included many talented performers who, creative themselves, were so enjoyable to work with. Many working relationships further developed into great friendship. Solarium, and the resulting events branch, Robert Dyer Bel Air, were run as a home to family and friends. Rock
stars and writers gravitated to the koi pond to share anecdotes of their careers.
Closing Solarium in 2005 I’ve returned to my earliest training and first love – interior and events design. With the renewed public interest in Tony Duquette’s work, I felt motivated and even pushed to accept certain projects incorporating so much of what I learned from him, from my extraordinary years in my own luxury retail store, and my rather errant fondness for minimalism and modernism.
With my new venture of Innatestyle, I combine Interior Design, Decorative Arts, with Events Design and coordination, with additional reportage through my affiliated blog.
In addition, InnateStyle will be offering original designs for the home and tabletop, as well as reclaimed retro modern pieces.
Look for Robert Dyer and InnateStyle online at www.innate.style and blogging with regularity.
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time – Marcel Proust