Out with the maxim \u201cless is more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMore is more is more\u201d is what\u2019s in fashion now.<\/p>\n
You read that right. Visual va-va-voom is having more than a moment \u2014 it\u2019s a new way of life. <\/p>\n
Just take a look at the recently unveiled maximalist renovation of actor\u00a0Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott<\/a>\u2018s Manhattan pad by renowned interior designer\u00a0Young Huh<\/a>. It went from \u201craw and stripped down,\u201d according to Deschanel, to bold, brassy and \u201cbrilliant,\u201d not to mention floral and frankly flamboyant.<\/p>\n Or check out ex-couple Lilly Allen and David Harbour\u2019s \u201cweird and wonderful\u201d (if you ask Allen<\/a>) brownstone in Carroll Gardens, which\u00a0has hit the market<\/a>\u00a0for just under $8 million. Witness the tiger-print carpet and a matching couch in the media room; walls covered in pricey, eye-popping Zuber & Cie wallpaper; boldly patterned, contrasting carpeting from Pierre Frey (including in the bathroom); and what could politely be summed up as a proliferation of pink in the main bedroom.<\/p>\n But why be, you know, polite?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just extra as f\u2013k, and very unapologetic, and whoever buys this house, I just hope they don\u2019t tear it out,\u201d New York design guru Nancy Cavaliere<\/a> raved to The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n David Harbour and Lily Allen\u2019s Carroll Gardens brownstone is a study in startling that includes a tiger-print sofa to match carpeting. Compass<\/p>\n Allen and Harbour mixed bold carpeting and wallpaper. Compass<\/p>\n The bedroom is pink-centric. Compass<\/p>\n The pink-haired, stuff-loving 39-year-old is a maven of nouveau-chic maximalism, and her own mantra is simple, if startling<\/a>: Always make sure every room has at least three patterns, four period styles \u2014 think 1970s, mid-Century or Rococo \u2014 plus five colors or textures.<\/p>\n Her so-called \u201c3 4 5 method\u201d aligns well with Allen and Harbour\u2019s viper\u2019s lovenest \u2014 and, apparently, many others\u2019 palettes, too. <\/p>\n Just think of it as more is more is more.<\/p>\n \u201cMaximalism is basically about being yourself,\u201d she said of the brassy boom. \u201cWe\u2019ve been overexposed to this clean girl, conservative aesthetic, all this minimalist beige. At this point in time, people want their own stories.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Nancy Cavaliere\u2019s Jackson Heights home features a delightfully mixed palette. EMMY PARK<\/p>\n \u201cMaximalism is basically about being yourself,\u201d Cavaliere told The Post \u2014 and her vibrant living space embraces that. EMMY PARK<\/p>\n They also crave Cavaliere-approved interiors like that brownstone.<\/p>\n Move aside, Marie Kondo, and forget those stark black-and-white spaces that were once the Holy Grail of home style. New York\u2019s in a moment right now where it\u2019s cool to be over-the-top.<\/p>\n Take Printemps, the ultraluxe department store whose\u00a0encrusted, multicolored interiors<\/a>\u00a0are Aladdin\u2019s cave on acid. Or look to the recent\u00a0Kips Bay Decorator Show House<\/a> \u2014 the annual orgy of design excess, this year held in a 9,000-square-foot townhouse in Greenwich Village \u2014 which featured a mashup of rosettes, friezes and more in an\u00a0\u201cAlice Through the Looking Glass\u201d\u00a0dining room from Corey Damen Jenkins, plus a busy Victoriana-inspired drawing room by Ben Pentreath.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, \u201cMoulin Rouge\u201d director Baz Luhrmann, the patron saint of \u201ctoo much is never enough,\u201d\u00a0opened the visually helter-skelter East Village bar Monsieur,<\/a>\u00a0complete with custom Mokum textiles. Alan Faena\u2019s newest namesake hotel in Chelsea is as unapologetically lavish as any of his sites, while Casa Cruz founder Juan Santa Cruz\u2019s latest disco-inflected, scarlet-bathed bo\u00eete, Obvio<\/a>, even has bright red bathrooms.<\/p>\n The Red Room Bar at the Financial District retailer Printemps is a dazzling example of maximalism. Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n The interior of Printemps features coral-colored walls, gold accents and pink glass chandeliers. Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York.<\/p>\n Another plus, peppy scene inside Printemps. Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all a swing back to swaggering interiors that the chartreuse- and pink-loving Cavaliere relishes.<\/p>\n \u201cMinimalism? It doesn\u2019t invite me to sit down and have a cup of coffee,\u201d she explained of her penchant for clutter. \u201cMaximalism does, and I feel right at home.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts, though, prefer a different term for decorating akin to the late Iris Apfel: \u201clayered.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaximalism sounds like you\u2019ve overdressed something, or that you\u2019ve done too much,\u201d Deschanel and Scott\u2019s designer Huh told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s very colorful and very layered,\u201d the New York-based creator said.<\/p>\n Martin Brudnizki agrees. He\u2019s another glam-skewing interior decorator who just published the aptly named\u00a0\u201cMy Life in Colors\u201d<\/a> and likes his projects to fire all five senses at once; there\u2019s always a scented candle burning in a maximalist home. <\/p>\n But he told The Post he \u201cseldom\u201d uses the \u201cm\u201d word: \u201cI prefer hyper-layered.\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s Kips Bay Decorator Show House included this extraordinary dining room by Corey Damen Jenkins. Marco Ricca<\/p>\n This Victorian-inspired drawing room has a maximalist visual appeal. Marco Ricca<\/p>\n What\u2019s triggered this return to rococo-level exuberance in New Yorkers right now?<\/p>\n Melissa Marra-Alvarez, a curator at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology who worked on its 2019\u00a0\u201cMinimalism\/Maximalism\u201d<\/a> show, has charted when and how our love of \u201cmore is more\u201d elbows aside an urge to purge; just look at the 1970s, for example, with its psychedelic patterns and economic crises.<\/p>\n \u201cMaximalism today, this idea of maximalist romanticism, it\u2019s maybe a form of fantasy and escape,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n It can be the ideal antidote to a fractious, uncertain outside world, experts say \u2014 now more than ever, we want to feel happiness.<\/p>\n Designer Huh\u2019s clients repeatedly brief her to bring out that feeling via her decorating. <\/p>\n \u201cThey want to feel joyful and happy in their homes,\u201d she told The Post, pointing to a 30-something exec and his family who had a private elevator in their house: she covered it in deep purple wood paneling. <\/p>\n \u201cHe loves Prince and he loves purple, and thought it was a great place to take a big leap.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Real Housewives of New Jersey\u201d star Margaret Josephs showcased her eye-catching, $2 million home for Page Six last year<\/a>. Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n Josephs has a penchant for pink<\/a>, as evidenced by this splashy room. Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n Italy-born Cavaliere \u2014 who moved to New York at age 7 and \u201cwanted to be a nun, surrounded by all that architecture and frescoes\u201d \u2014 said the eclectic, melting pot-style is especially a natural for New York. <\/p>\n \u201cThings from every culture are central to this style, mixing them,\u201d she said, \u201cand that\u2019s something I love about New York: its diversity. I\u2019d never buy a house in the suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n Small city apartments also make ideal blank canvases. Normal New Yorkers might not be able to afford more than an alcove studio, but almost anyone can stretch to covering every surface there is with charming, secondhand doodads.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so many creative, passionate weirdos in New York, and maximalism is really inclusive,\u201d\u00a0author and design expert Sophie Donelson<\/a> explained to The Post. \u201cIf you only have a certain amount of space to live in, you might as well eke out the most interest in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n Minimalism, on the other hand, takes money, whether to buy that perfect loft with vintage casement windows, or to splurge on more than veneered furniture so it oozes understated opulence \u2014 or both. Compare how thrift-based decorating, a mainstay of most middle-class maximalists, is not only more affordable but more sustainable, too. <\/p>\n \u201cMost New Yorkers don\u2019t have an apartment with amazing bones to strip down and paint the right color,\u201d Donelson says, \u201cMaximalism embraces the imperfect.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a generational shift at play, too.<\/p>\n Generation X may boast of Kondo converts, but millennial and younger New Yorkers relish interiors primed for the Instagram feed that filled their imaginations as teens. \u201cThey\u2019re interested in dressmaker details, wallpaper, patterns plus fringes, tassels and trims,\u201d she explained. (Steal the look:\u00a0Samuel & Sons<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Houl\u00e8s<\/a>\u00a0are Huh\u2019s faves.)<\/p>\n Though maximalists relish bucking rigid rules of how to design, there is one key thing to remember, per experts. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not clutter or hoarding \u2014 you can do a layered apartment and not feel stressed about it,\u201d Donelson maintains, suggesting a trick that decorators deploy to keep a jampacked space still visually streamlined: group objects or paintings by theme, and they\u2019ll read as a single moment.<\/p>\n Brudnizki is even more matter-of-fact, insisting that every object crammed into a space should still have a tale to tell, a reason it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you say your house is maximalist because it\u2019s messy, that\u2019s absolutely wrong,\u201d he said with a laugh. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has to be considered. You can\u2019t just chuck everything in and call it maximalist because you\u2019re lazy.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t