While a room dressed head to toe in stripes might sound like a one-way ticket to dizzyville, when deployed with a decorator’s deft hand, the result can be anything but garish—not to mention an indispensable strategy for camouflaging awkward architecture or making the most of a small footprint. So what’s the secret to making it work? First, create cohesion by sticking to a strict palette (but feel free to vary the scale and orientation of your chosen stripe). Second, consider placement: Align striped walls and upholstery with military precision to establish a sense of order, or place them intentionally off-kilter for a tossed-off effect. And finally, cut back on clutter to avoid chaos and really let your stripes shine.
Everybody Loves Stripes, $55, shopschumacher.com
To see how designers get the look just right, we’re diving into our latest book, Everybody Loves Stripes, by FREDERIC content director Emma Bazilian and contributing editor Alexandra Flint.
Candy Striper
A pillow-filled bed nook wrapped in carnival stripes beckons visitors at the home of Pierre Frey chairman Patrick Frey and his wife, Lorraine.
Seeing Red
Red and white stripes feel simultaneously rustic and refined in the guest room of Emma Jane Pilkington’s Greenwich, Connecticut, home.
Neutral State
Mark D. Sikes traded his signature blues and greens for quiet beige in his stripe-covered Los Angeles library-slash-guest-room.
History Lesson
Stripes extend from floor to ceiling—and even over crown molding—in Tom Scheerer’s take on a tented Venetian palazzo bedroom.
French Dressing
Antique textiles expert Christopher Moore used his Pompadour floral stripe—based on an 18th-century design—to fashion a period-perfect bedroom in a French chateau.
Sunny Disposition
Sarah Sherman Samuel used her own Painterly Stripe fabric and matching wallpaper for a bedroom that exudes warmth even on the coldest Michigan days.
Scaling Up
It’s hard to pick a focal point in this striped fantasy of a space devised by stylists Gabby Deeming and Ruth Sleightholme, but the slipcovered heart-shaped chairs—complete with pleated skirts—might take the cake.
Bold Moves
Wide cabana stripes in pool blue and tangerine ooze summertime style in a scheme dreamed up by table linens brand Summerill & Bishop.
Cozy Corner
Ashley Hicks and Martina Mondadori used Mark D. Sikes’s Ojai Stripe fabric for Schumacher to create a cozy twin bedroom for the Cabana Bungalow at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach.
Blue Period
A bedroom at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the “tent room” at Charlottenhof Palace were the inspiration for this bedroom in the Millbrook, New York, home of Peter Pennoyer and Katie Ridder.
Everybody Loves Stripes by Emma Bazilian and Alexandra Flint (Monacelli) is available now!
