If you could have a room of your own, how would you set about decorating it? Chinoiserie? Japonaiserie?

Although my class presentation AND final project were on the topic of Chinoiserie, if I could have a room of my own, I’d probably decorate it in the Japonaiserie style. Why? Purely because Chinoiserie does not resonate with my personal aesthetic. Despite the elaborately feminine details that Chinoiserie possesses, I find that the line between beauty and tackiness is often blurred when it comes to this decorative style. The Georgians may have found it elegant and appealing to their eyes, coming off the Rococo trend, but I think that the lush design elements look too busy when arranged together. I would not be comfortable in such a room that constantly calls attention to itself, and it would be difficult to style the room so that it appears modern and classy, rather than outdated or gaudy.

In my mind, my perfect Japonaiserie room would have my favourite ukiyo-e images arranged artfully on taupe or pale brown walls. Hokusai’s Great Wave Off Kanagawa would sit next to Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Haunted Old Palace at Soma and Cats Suggested as the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. A large Byōbu or decorative screen in the style of Rakuchu-Rakugai would be placed in a corner of the room as a private changing area, and my bed would be low, filled with white bedsheets and dark duvets and pillows. While sleeping on a tatami mat might be more authentic, I’d take advantage of the comfort that Europeans bring to Japonaiserie with the traditional mattress bed.

Furniture in my room would be sparse, on the comfortable side of spartan, mostly adhering to a rich chocolate brown colour palette. A tiny bonsai might accompany a little maneki neko (fortune cat) statue on a dresser, and the maneki neko might reappear on my noren, or traditional Japanese curtains. Can you sense an overall theme here? (Haha, I love cats.)