Editing Interior design (section)

===Transition to professional interior design===
[[File:Design for a room by John Dibblee Crace.jpg|thumb|300px|This interior was designed by [[John Dibblee Crace]], President of the Institute of British Decorators, established in 1899.]]
By the turn of the 20th century, amateur advisors and publications were increasingly challenging the monopoly that the large retail companies had on interior design. English [[feminism|feminist]] author [[Mary Haweis]] wrote a series of widely read essays in the 1880s in which she derided the eagerness with which aspiring middle-class people furnished their houses according to the rigid models offered to them by the retailers.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LIARJjg8w_gC|title=Gender and Art|author=Gillian Perry|year=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|access-date=2013-02-07|isbn=978-0300077605}}</ref> She advocated the individual adoption of a particular style, tailor-made to the individual needs and preferences of the customer:<blockquote>One of my strongest convictions, and one of the first canons of good taste, is that our houses, like the fish's shell and the bird's nest, ought to represent our individual taste and habits.</blockquote>
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The move toward decoration as a separate artistic profession, unrelated to the manufacturers and retailers, received an impetus with the 1899 formation of the Institute of British Decorators; with [[John Dibblee Crace]] as its president, it represented almost 200 decorators around the country.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.facultyofdecoration.org/history.htm|title=History|access-date=2012-12-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908194942/http://facultyofdecoration.org/history.htm|archive-date=2013-09-08|url-status=dead}}</ref> By 1915, the London Directory listed 127 individuals trading as interior decorators, of which 10 were women. [[Rhoda Garrett]] and [[Agnes Garrett]] were the first women to train professionally as home decorators in 1874. The importance of their work on design was regarded at the time as on a par with that of [[William Morris]]. In 1876, their work – ''Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting, Woodwork and Furniture'' – spread their ideas on artistic interior design to a wide middle-class audience.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=53628&back=|title=Garrett sisters|publisher=DNB}}</ref>

By 1900, the situation was described by ''The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder'':<ref>The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder, December 7 (1900): Suppl. 2</ref><blockquote>Until recently when a man wanted to furnish he would visit all the dealers and select piece by piece of furniture ....Today he sends for a dealer in art furnishings and fittings who surveys all the rooms in the house and he brings his artistic mind to bear on the subject.</blockquote>In America, [[Candace Wheeler]] was one of the first woman [[interior designers]] and helped encourage a new style of American design. She was instrumental in the development of art courses for women in a number of major American cities and was considered a national authority on home design. An important influence on the new profession was ''[[The Decoration of Houses]]'', a manual of interior design written by [[Edith Wharton]] with architect [[Ogden Codman]] in 1897 in America. In the book, the authors denounced Victorian-style [[interior decoration]] and interior design, especially those rooms that were decorated with heavy window curtains, [[Victorian decorative arts|Victorian bric-a-brac]], and overstuffed furniture. They argued that such rooms emphasized upholstery at the expense of proper space planning and architectural design and were, therefore, uncomfortable and rarely used. The book is considered a seminal work, and its success led to the emergence of professional decorators working in the manner advocated by its authors, most notably [[Elsie de Wolfe]].<ref>[http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm "Edith Wharton's World"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415125626/http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm |date=2012-04-15 }} National Portrait Gallery</ref>

[[Image:Elsiedewolfe.jpg|thumb|left|[[Elsie de Wolfe]], taken from ''The House in Good Taste'', 1913]]
[[Elsie De Wolfe]] was one of the first interior designers. Rejecting the Victorian style she grew up with, she chose a more vibrant scheme, along with more comfortable furniture in the home. Her designs were light, with fresh colors and delicate [[Chinoiserie]] furnishings, as opposed to the Victorian preference of heavy, red drapes and upholstery, dark wood and intensely patterned wallpapers. Her designs were also more practical;<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Flanner |first=J. |year=2009 |magazine=The New Yorker |title= Archive, Handsprings Across the Sea |access-date=August 10, 2011 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1938/01/15/1938_01_15_025_TNY_CARDS_000170753 }}</ref> she eliminated the clutter that occupied the Victorian home, enabling people to entertain more guests comfortably. In 1905, de Wolfe was commissioned for the interior design of the [[Colony Club]] on [[Madison Avenue]]; its interiors garnered her recognition almost over night.<ref>{{cite web|last=Munhall|first=Edward|title=Elsie de Wolf: The American pioneer who vanquished Victorian gloom|date=January 2000|url=http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/archive/dewolfe_article_012000|publisher=Architectural Digest|access-date=27 October 2011|archive-date=15 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915102018/http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/archive/dewolfe_article_012000|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Gray, Christopher (2003), "Streetscapes/Former Colony Club at 120 Madison Avenue; Stanford White Design, Elsie de Wolfe Interior," ''The New York Times'', 28 September 2003 [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D6143DF93BA1575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&pagewanted=print] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221230152137/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/realestate/streetscapes-former-colony-club-120-madison-avenue-stanford-white-design-elsie.html?sec=&pagewanted=print|date=2022-12-30}}</ref> She compiled her ideas into her widely read 1913 book, ''The House in Good Taste''.<ref name="professionalization1">Lees-Maffei, G, 2008, Introduction: Professionalization as a focus in Interior Design History, Journal of Design History, Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring.</ref>

In England, [[Syrie Maugham]] became a legendary interior designer credited with designing the first all-white room. Starting her career in the early 1910s, her international reputation soon grew; she later expanded her business to [[New York City]] and [[Chicago]].<ref>Plunket, Robert. "Syrie's Turn: Once, everyone read W. Somerset Maugham. But now his late ex-wife is the one selling books", ''Sarasota Magazine'', 2006, v. 10.</ref> Born during the [[Victorian Era]], a time characterized by dark colors and small spaces, she instead designed rooms filled with light and furnished in multiple shades of white and mirrored screens. In addition to mirrored screens, her trademark pieces included: books covered in white vellum, cutlery with white porcelain handles, console tables with plaster palm-frond, shell, or dolphin bases, upholstered and fringed sleigh beds, fur carpets, dining chairs covered in white leather, and lamps of graduated glass balls, and wreaths.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5wYRQAACAAJ|title=Syrie Maugham: Staging the Glamorous Interiors|author=Pauline C. Metcalf|year=2010|publisher=Acanthus PressLlc|access-date=2013-02-07|isbn=9780926494077}}</ref>