Dara Caponigro
If you could have a second home anywhere, where would you live? Having two homes is such a headache! We have a lake house and, if my family weren’t so attached to it, I’d sell it in a second. Second homes tie you down to going to the same place. I have an adventurous spirit and I LOVE room service!
What are three words to describe your style? 1. Edited 2. Sensual 3. Skews Masculine
Tell us about your childhood bedroom? For my 13th birthday present, my parents let me redecorate my room. I did white glossy walls with white lacquer furniture and added a pop of pink in a painting above a cabinet. My platform bed was centered in the middle of the room at an angle and I put a white mosquito net over it. It was glamorous, romantic and modern all at once!
What’s the first investment piece you ever bought for your house? I had done a shoot for House Beautiful with the designers Ann Holden and Ann Dupuy of Holden & Dupuy in New Orleans. They had designed a custom bed for their clients’ house we were shooting. I fell in love with it and they graciously let me order one. Since my late 20’s, it’s been with me everywhere I’ve lived. It makes a room – it’s got such great presence, you barely need to do any other decorating!
In the history of design, if you could hire any designer other than yourself, who would it be? It would have to be Albert Hadley.
No room is complete without something to throw it off.
People think of me as snobby, but I am really very down to earth.
Things you omit from:
A flower arrangement: Mums, florist roses, anything too stiff
An hors d’oeuvre platter: Crudité. I like to use fresh figs or pears or something else in season.
A bar cabinet: Dare I say I’m over rosé?
A song for:
Dinner at home: John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things
Working at your desk: I can’t listen to music when I’m working
Going for a run: Well, if I were to do this, it would probably be Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar
Biggest Vice? I wish I had more – I’m so boring! I guess antique shopping, coffee and probably worst of all, working too much.
If you were on an Ambien high and internet shopping, what would you buy? I kind of did this but it wasn’t from Ambien. I was pregnant and had terrible insomnia. I bought a 1964 Volvo 122S on ebay in the middle of the night. I loved that car – it made me and everyone who saw it smile. We used to call it the “happy” car.
Do your clothes reflect your design sensibility, if so, how? Definitely. I tend toward simplicity in my clothes. I’m not someone who feels comfortable with “more is more” on the fashion front even though I respect that look immensely. For me, it’s about finding things that are simple, elegant, chic, sometimes a bit edgy, without a lot of fuss. If someone were to say that I look “smart” in that old-fashioned sense of the word, I’d take that as the ultimate compliment.
Who is your star crush? Viggo Mortensen
What is the thing you would never do on a project, but don’t detest when you see others do it? Balloon shades if they are done well. I love the ones in Veere Grenney’s country house living room.
If there were a fire, and you could only keep one design book, what would it be? Norma Skurka’s The New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration AND House & Garden Best of Decoration from the 1980’s
For posterity, what would you like your work to be known for? As a former editor and as a creative director for Schumacher, I’m most proud of bringing great design to the world and hopefully inspiring a love of design and decoration.
Your Favorite:
Movie: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
Book: 100 Years of Solitude
Scent: Au Naturel
The fabric you always come back to: Schumacher’s Kudu stripe, Wentworth Embroidery, and Marguerite Embroidery
Dream project: Working with Johnson Hartig of Libertine to create his new collection for Schumacher
Meal: A whole fresh artichoke followed by spaghetti pomodoro
Drink: Lately, I’m really into Chablis
Hotel: There are two that are distinctly opposite: The Beverly Hills Hotel and Il Capo Faro in Salina, Italy
Travel Destination: Copenhagen
Artist: Lucien Freud
Thing to collect obsessively: Bennington Pottery in white, especially the David Gil pieces, vintage Geoffrey Beene, antique champagne flutes.
Era in the history of design: This is a toughie. French Neoclassicism, Gustavian Swedish, French 1930s, American design in the 1970s.
Museum: The Rodin Museum
Paint Color that always look great: We use Benjamin Moore Simply White and Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron in all of our Schumacher showrooms. Simply White is so neutral (neither too stark or too warm) and Wrought Iron is an almost black that’s a great foil to all of our patterns.
Dogs, Cats, or No Pets? Both! Plus, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits. My dream is to get a pet pig but my husband is putting his foot down.
