Every room needs a touch of black.” Wednesday Addams shares a dorm room at Nevermore Academy in the Netflix series Wednesday. Her half of the room is a classic example of the ‘touch of black” design principle. “Touch of black” isn’t one of Wednesday’s many notable quotes (although it could be), but rather it was a design principle of legendary 20th century British interior designer John Fowler, who like Wednesday, relied on antique oriental rugs to ground the design of his rooms.
Wednesday’s half of the dorm room is a lesson in how to create a “black” atmosphere through shadow-inspired moody lighting, antique “brown furniture”, and a large oriental rug as a focal point. Wednesday’s traditional kneehole desk with wooden spindle-back swivel chair holds the only “touch of black” in the room: a typewriter and a desk lamp. A spindly-legged antique “brown” Georgian chest-on-stand is matched by a similar square side table that holds her gramophone with its brass trumpet speaker. These few, but select, rich yet analog, objects are joined by her cello and her Black Cats oar tucked behind an upholstered leather club chair. (Her bed is never seen in full). All of these are satellites to an over-sized oriental rug in rich shades of roasted chestnuts.
John Fowler lived in a gothic revival 1740 hunting lodge in England that had leaded glass arched gothic windows similar to the windows in Wednesday’s dorm room. He didn’t decorate his home so it was dark like Wednesday’s room, but he did believe in adding a pinch or two of black to wall paint to create an instant lived-in patina. His “touch of black” principle meant that every room he designed for clients had something black like an inky lacquer cabinet or an antique Persian rug with dark design elements.
As we enter the spooky month of Halloween, why not merge magic and Wednesday Addams’s eye for design with John Fowler’s classic English style? Our rug suggestions are dark, not stark, moody yet magical, and two feature the diamond-shaped rhombus – a symbol often found on magical amulets. A rhombus even features on the cover of the soon-to-be-published first English edition of the classic Italian cookbook The Talisman of Happiness.
Our rug choices come alive in the spooky month of October, but they are perfect year-round because classic oriental rugs are always in style. Up first is our Phantom Black Kashan revival hand-knotted wool rug. Four dark ovals can be imagined as scrying mirrors similar to the crystal ball on Wednesday’s desk. The magical rhombus features in our antique Persian Bakhtiari hand-knotted wool runner with rows of rhombuses that enclose botanical plants ready to inspire spooky apothecary spells. Our autumn brown antique Persian Bidjar hand knotted wool rug features a field of rhombuses. Each rhombus encloses botanical motifs.
Cast a magical spell on your home with one of our classic oriental rugs. Wednesday and John Fowler would approve. Happy Halloween!
