Until about seven months ago I hadn’t been all that domestic. I’ve moved a zillion times in this city and never really got in the habit of unpacking all those cardboard boxes. Each of the few times I tried to paint it turned out hideously garish, and all the furniture I owned came from my parents or Ikea.
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Adler started his career as a campy gay potter and later branched out into squishier things like linens and rugs. His love of pop and op art, psychedelic Victoriana, Palm Beach, Hollywood, and country-club chic is obvious. “Minimalism is a bummer: be immoderate and be happy,” he writes in his new lime green book, My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living. He’s not cautious with patterns and contrast and he puts stuff, stuff, stuff everywhere. Though I admire his grandiosity, looking at the book too fast made me so dizzy I almost threw up.
Exactly, I thought as I entered the store. I brought my younger sister, Maggie, another Domino enthusiast, along. Right away she noticed fancy-pants LA store owner and interior decorator Ruthie Sommers decked out in a red diamond-print blouse that matched the sofa she posed in front of on the magazine’s very first cover. Only we Domino devotees would delight in such a tragically nerdy touch.
“Because of your hair.” It was styled in two pigtail braids.
Later he said that he hadn’t really meant it. “I actually wholeheartedly endorse age-inappropriate style,” he said. “However, though I believe in boldness and inappropriateness, I also have a bit of a yenta streak. I want to see all cute girls married off and happy and movin’ on up. . . . I’m half bohemian and half bourgeois. I hope that isn’t too weird–it’s the truth.”
No one hates looking at sexy models, but don’t call it a fashion show. With barely any clothes and even fewer original ideas, this was just an excuse for people to ogle girls in fancy undies.
