Glorious Interiors: Needlepoint, Knitting and Decorative Design Projects for Your Home

Many designers have the gift of gab; few can actually write. Kaffe Fassett is a delightful exception. Indeed, the text of Glorious Interiors is something rare in interior design: a down-to-earth account of a complex and sophisticated personal style. Drawing inspiration from circuses, fairgrounds, the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, the liveries of Pakistani trucks, and Slavic peasant costume, Fassett dedicates his book to "all those with a touch of gypsy who share my vision." Going by the vibrant kitsch, the obsessive repetition, and the migrainous, fractal surfaces of his trademark interiors, one suspects that not a few of them have ended up, tragically, in decidedly minimal circumstances, complete with soft white walls and bars on the windows.

Fassett's embroidered flower gardens, frog cushions, trompe l'oeil flower plates, and postage-stamp lampshades teeter spectacularly on the knife's edge separating genius from schizophrenia; his text, meanwhile, really makes the reader think--in a way few other books have ever done--about the emotional power of the richly patterned traditions of eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Fassett contends that Western interiors--the best of them evoking "a sterile beigeness ... that chilled me to the core"--have lost all sense of humor. And he knows just what we need to get it back.

Glorious Interiors is full of lengthy, meticulous instructions for jaw-dropping rag rugs, collage screens, mosaics, and many other pieces. Whether inspiring you or scaring you half to death, Fassett is one interior designer it is impossible to ignore. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk