Book: Perfect Imperfect, Karen McCartney

If you have read The House that Pinterest Built, Smart Spaces, The Alchemy of Things, or Elements of Style you’re going to love Perfect Imperfect. Wabi-sabi and new creative interior design expressions: Perfect Imperfect is a stunning collection of homes and studios of creatives from all over the world, with thought-provoking text by Karen McCartney and stunning visuals by Sharyn Cairns and Glen Proebstel. Perfect Imperfect takes as its founding principle the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. Wabi-Sabi advocates the beauty to be found in imperfection, impermanence and the authentic. Importantly this is done without losing sight of the benefits of living in the 21st century; where designers are merging digital technology with the handmade, rethinking how to use space and accommodating the natural world. Creating a new interior design vocabulary: As the collaborative process for creating Perfect Imperfect involved working across continents, the authors created a list of words and phrases that define how to curate the work they include in their stunning book. Their new interior design and interior decorating vocabulary includes terms such as mutability, irregularity, unfinished and incomplete, void, the effects of accident, unpretentious, simplicity, contrasts, and Leonard Koren’s idea that ‘beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness’. The new words and phrases introduced by the authors define the book’s visual sections: – Spirit of Nature – Strange Beauty – Mark of Hand – Deep Shadow – Weathering & Decay – And, Incomplete and Irregular A beautiful, inspirational decorative book: Perfect Imperfect is a celebration of accident, curation, collection, hesitation, collaboration, reuse, reimagining and true originality. It explores an established aesthetic in a new way and embraces current design objects alongside well-worn ones; featuring interior settings that mix comfort, design and an off-beat beauty.