ART HAS BEEN KNOWN TO ALTER MY PERSONALITY

There are people who buy art because it matches the sofa.

I am not one of those people.

If the sofa cannot rise to the occasion, the sofa may need to leave.

Art does something to me. A good piece can stop me halfway across a room and make me forget what I went in there for. It can make an otherwise respectable wall suddenly look underdressed. It can convince me that a chair needs to be moved six inches to the left, the lamp is offensive, and somebody has been lying about that rug for years.

This is why I don't particularly care for the phrase wall décor. It sounds like something you pick up while you're already at the store buying paper towels.

Art is different.

Art establishes jurisdiction.

I LIKE A ROOM WITH A LITTLE AUTHORITY

My taste has never required a room to scream. In fact, I become suspicious when everything in a room is trying to introduce itself at once.

Hello, velvet sofa.

Hello, enormous chandelier.

Hello, seventeen decorative pillows nobody is permitted to touch.

Ma'am, please. We have met.

Give me restraint. Give me black against cream. Give me a line that knows exactly where it's going. Give me something feminine without requiring it to be covered in pink flowers and inspirational declarations about being fabulous.

And, occasionally, give me a high heel with roses growing through it because subtlety has its limits.

That is the spirit behind this first little collection for Urban LuxTiques.

I wanted to begin with pieces that feel like things I would actually live with. Not because they're trendy. Not because some algorithm has announced that beige is having a spiritual awakening. I chose them because each one carries a different kind of feminine energy, and together they feel like women I would happily invite over for cocktails.

Well.

Most of them.

THE ROSE HEEL

We begin with the one that started the trouble.

A sharply drawn heel surrounded by black roses is exactly the sort of unnecessary elegance I support wholeheartedly. It is feminine without being delicate, romantic without becoming sugary, and dramatic without needing to throw itself down a staircase.

And this one is personal.

I have the physical piece myself.

That matters to me because I don't want Urban LuxTiques to become a parade of pretty digital pictures floating around the Internet pretending they have ever encountered a wall. I wanted to see this piece. Hold it. Live with it.

It passed inspection.

The heel may stay.

THE PERFUME BOTTLE

Perfume is one of civilization's more successful inventions.

You take a beautiful little bottle, fill it with something completely invisible, charge an unreasonable amount of money for it, and suddenly a woman has a signature.

Marvelous business model.

The perfume bottle piece has that same quiet glamour. The lines are loose, the bottle is structured, and the black-and-white treatment keeps it from becoming precious. It feels like the last thing sitting on a dressing table after everything unnecessary has been removed.

I like that.

It doesn't need to tell you what fragrance is inside.

If you need to know everything immediately, perhaps art and dating are both going to be difficult for you.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

She isn't explaining herself.

Naturally, I adore her.

There is something about a woman rendered with just enough line to suggest who she is without giving you her entire biography. No cheerful little expression. No desperate attempt to appear approachable.

Just posture, shape and attitude.

She looks like she knows something.

More importantly, she looks like she has absolutely no intention of telling us.

Every room needs at least one woman like that.

THE TWO WOMEN

These two amuse me because they appear to have arrived together and already discussed everybody else in the room.

I recognize the energy.

The exaggerated silhouettes, circular forms and unapologetic black-and-white geometry make this piece feel fashionable without turning it into a fashion illustration. They're companions, but they're distinct. Standing together without disappearing into one another.

And the glasses?

Necessary.

There are certain conversations one should never enter without eyewear.

THE MARTINI

A martini is architecture with olives.

I will not be accepting questions.

The glass is elegant because somebody figured out long ago that alcohol apparently tastes better when placed inside an object designed specifically to spill it on your clothes.

Still, visually? Perfection.

The martini piece belongs here because Urban LuxTiques isn't supposed to separate art from living. This is The Proper Pour wandering down the hallway and finding itself inside the art collection. It connects the worlds naturally: cocktails, conversation, interiors and the occasional decision that seemed perfectly reasonable at 7:15 p.m.

AND THEN THERE WERE SEVEN?

There will be one more.

I'm not filling the seventh position simply because seven sounds lovely and an empty space makes people nervous. The final piece has to belong with the others.

That's the point of Urban LuxTiques.

This isn't going to be a warehouse disguised as a lifestyle brand. I'm not interested in presenting 147 pieces of art and asking you to filter them by price, color, astrological sign and whether your living room faces northeast.

I want small collections.

Things chosen deliberately.

Art. Books. Interiors. Style. Accessories. Antiques when something wonderful wanders across my path and refuses to mind its business.

Some things may be limited. Some may disappear. Some may return in another form. And occasionally I may simply show you something beautiful because commerce does not need to tackle every object it encounters.

These first pieces tell you where we're beginning.

Black. Cream. Line. Form. Femininity. A little mystery. A good shoe. A proper drink.

Nothing shouting.

Nothing begging to coordinate with the curtains.

Just enough beauty to make you look at your wall and realize that perhaps the wall has been getting away with entirely too much.

Welcome to Urban LuxTiques.

Do look around.

But if you purchase the art before deciding where you're going to hang it, I completely understand.

That's how furniture ends up getting moved.

—-PSC