Is the recession cramping your style? Wish you could afford some new home decor accessories for spring, but instead are stuck with the old stuff in the closet?
Well, San Jose floral designer Jose Ibarra says don’t sweat it. The latest trend in home decor embraces the old — and it has a hip, international name: “wabi sabi”. It’s the Japanese art of “appreciating the imperfect, the primitive, the incomplete”. And it’s a design philosophy Ibarra celebrated when he decorated his dining room table for an Easter brunch.
Wabi means humble. Sabi means beauty in the natural progression of time. And for Ibarra, it means gluing together that broken urn and setting it on the buffet table with a spray of fresh lilacs. It means turning a ceramic pot upside, instead of buying a shimmery cake stand, to act as a riser for old-fashioned juice glasses. It means pulling out a broken scale to elevate your scones. It means using a cardboard egg carton as a vessel for hostess gifts.
“I don’t like all the extra tchotchkes, all the glitter,” said Ibarra, who decorates homes for parties and holidays. “I like simple.”
And that’s what wabi sabi is all about. In the book, “The Wabi-Sabi House,” author Robyn Griggs Lawrence describes wabi-sabi as appreciating the “unaffected beauty of things as they are”.
And it is not to be confused with shabby chic, which one writer says “often fills spaces with a lot of interesting finds, which can end up with too much to care for and eye clutter”. Wabi Sabi “is a way of life that starts with simplicity”. It means wildflowers and flea markets and weathered wood.
It’s easy on the pocket book. And, well, it’s fun to say.
You might also enjoy these stories:
Wisteria: Rustic and Refined
Carmel Valley Cabin-Back to Nature
Jose Goes Green for St. Patrick’s Day
Valentine’s Day Simple Paper Flower
Here’s the complete slideshow:
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