Sibella Court is a self-confessed gypsy.
Sibella Court has worn only white and cream for the last 20 years. The interior designer and self-described "part pirate, part gypsy" finds sartorial colours a distraction.
"It started when I was working on really big sets at Milk studios in New York," she explains. "The photo assistants had a uniform of a coloured T-shirt with a logo – meanwhile I'm trying to work with all these palettes, so I kept saying, 'Can you get off my set in your orange T-shirt!' "
Laughing, she adds, "I ended up telling them all to wear either white or black. When you're working with different palettes, it's nice to keep it neutral. I don't wear colour but I love that my world is very colourful."
Court’s new book takes readers on a journey via photos from her past 25 years.
It's Sibella's vibrant surrounds that feature in her latest tome, Imaginarium: A Compendium of Inspiration. The reader (note: it's a book of few words) is taken on a journey through the colour spectrum in an collection of images that span her 25-year career.
Each picture in the book has a story.
The book delves deep into her romantic spirit.
Each of the more than 300 photographs in the book has a story. "I can't remember what I did last week, but I can go through 10 years of photographs and see a picture of a tree and know where I photographed it," the Sydney-born designer (pictured opposite page, top left) says. "Every one of these pictures is a memory of a travel experience, or of putting together a hospitality space."
Delving deep into her romantic spirit, the book would be the perfect addition to any aspiring designer's coffee table. But Sibella hopes it can be more than inspiration for interiors. With influence so often coming from social media nowadays, Sibella wants her book to show there's another way.
Relics from Court’s travels.
"You don't need to make 'the house that Pinterest built' as Diane Keaton said," she laughs. "I want people to think, 'Oh, she's shot that pebble' and then see it reflected in a shot of my interior work. I want to show people that you can look at a bird's feathers and see a colour palette right there."
“When you’re working with different palettes, it’s nice to keep it neutral.”
– Genevieve Quigley
Imaginarium: A Compendium of Inspiration (ABC Books) is on sale now.
Photography by Sibella Court; William Meppem; Steve Baccon; Anson Smart.
This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale August 26.
Source: Read Full Article