About Janette Ewen
Veteran stylist and trend reporter, Janette Ewen’s love of the finer things has always shaped her life. Now she’s spilling industry secrets to help you make life at home sweet. From chic décor to decadent dinner parties—living with style isn’t as expensive as you think.
Every year without fail I always end up wanting to redecorate after the holidays. I figure New Year, new space! This year I embarked on a massive cleaning first and then headed to my storage closet and gathered some “props.” While I’m not quite finished the makeover, I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at my new styling obsession…corner vignettes.
Normally odd room corners (you know, the ones that just don’t fit anything properly) go unused. Often I’ll see people stuffing plants and/or randomly shaped accent tables into these corners, not a great or inspiring look. I decided this year my unusable corners (I have three in 475 square feet) were going to be come stylish, focal point vignettes. I wanted the vignettes to tell a story and be adjustable so I can swap elements out depending on my mood or the season.
For my most prominent odd corner (lets actually call it a vignette corner now) I decided to purchase a vintage dress form (Merry Christmas to me!) and accessorize it with items I already owned and a little DIY art.
The look I was going for was rustic-meets-Toronto Queen West-glam. I adorned my dress form with two of my new favourite purchases (shirt from BCBG and shrug from The Room) and piled on the necklaces. What I like about this look is that it’s chic and keeps my necklaces on display. (I tend to forget about jewelry when it’s tucked in boxes, finding items only when I am scouring for styling accents…or looking for something to pay my Amex with).
For added glamour I stacked a few shoeboxes and topped with another recent purchase, a pair of Mui Mui pumps (hence the oversized Amex bill). You can do this look in any corner just pull out a favourite outfit and all those gorgeous shoe boxes. If you don’t want to buy a vintage dress form (mine was around $290), you can purchase used-newer looking dress forms for about $90 at store fixture shops in major cities. To get a vintage look try staining the dress form fabric with tea.
Finally, to finish the vignette corner, I crafted a hip (super easy) DIY art project. I begged the owners of my favourite bar in the entire world, The Cascade Room located in Vancouver, for some coasters. Then I simply placed the coasters in an old frame and hung with my trusty 3-M strips. I am so happy with the look and next week, if I’m bored, I can swap up my gal’s outfit (I’ve name her Sofia) and I’ll give my vignette corner and the entire room a totally different feel.
Stay tuned, in a few weeks I’ll show you my newly decorated space…all done on a budget of course, because I need to pay off those shoes…and that dress…and then there was the purse…