BELLAS ARTES

Treating architecture, landscape, and interior design as complementary endeavors, Brian Sawyer and John Berson have been ahead of their time and influential in the world of design since the founding of their eponymous partnership in 1999. SawyerBerson’s prodigious use of traditional and modern vocabularies has gained the firm widespread recognition and many notable clients. Meticulous attention to detail and versatility combine to create a wide variety of projects.

India in Fashion explores the beautiful and sophisticated history and aesthetics of traditional Indian fashion, dress, and textiles and their profound impact on European and American fashion from the eighteenth century to today. This intoxicating and visually rich volume—with texts by experts from India, Europe, and North America—is published to accompany a major exhibition that celebrates the long historical contributions that Indian dress, textiles, and embroidery have had on Western fashion. From the introduction of chintz dressmaking fabrics in the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth-century vogue for light Indian fabrics, paisleys, and chikan embroideries to larger realities of empire and cultural appropriation, this volume features paintings, fashion magazine editorials, and portraits of influential people who championed Indian style throughout history.

Cotton presents rooms that mix historical and modern influences, resulting in luxuriously sleek interiors for casual, yet sophisticated, living. The glam-orous spaces—many designed for art-world clients, including Cindy Sherman and Lisa Yuskavage—are anchored in tradition but reflect the relaxed sensibili-ties of our time. Cotton shares his multiscaled approach to design—successful turns with his varied collections, which are often included in his interior projects. Furniture, lighting, wallpaper, tableware, and terra-cotta planters are part of his repertoire. Cotton’s industrial designs—like his interiors—embody an intelligence and under-standing of design history. This book, the designer’s first, documents the groundbreaking work of a rising and notable talent and should be in the libraries of designers and connoisseurs of fine living.