The Book

Sister Parish Design On Decorating

St. Martin’s Press | 175 Fifth Avenue | New York, NY 10010
by Libby Cameron and Susan Bartlett Crater
will be available October 10, 2009

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Advanced Praise

Sister Parish Design is a treasure trove of conversational tidbits, priceless decorating tips, and equally priceless tales.

I loved learning about how Sister hit on “Taxi Cab Yellow” for Bill Paley’s drawing room, how Mario Buatta ended up eating tuna casserole off Rose Cumming’s floor! The charming remembrances of Sister by those she knew and those she inspired-from Albert Hadley and Bunny Williams to Jane Churchill and Miles Redd-are matched by the enchantingly beautiful watercolors by Mita Bland. The most useful and seductive design book I’ve ever picked up-and one I did not want to put down.
—Julia Reed

This is a book all decorating habitués would like. Libby Cameron and Susan Crater are as indefatigable as was Sister Parish, mentor and grandmother respectively. They take us inside the rarified world of decorating to show how you can achieve a range of fresh looks that have never gone out of style, full of color, charm, and lasting comfort.
—Mario Buatta

A delightful tribute to the timeless style of Sister Parish seen through the eyes of many of today’s influential decorators.
—John Derian, John Derian Company

The happy discovery of this book is that hiring a decorator isn’t about your ability to pay bills-it’s about your capacity to trust. Good decorators tell you how to be happy with what you’re buying; great decorators show you how to be at home with who you are. In this surprisingly candid volume, which is fun to read and astonishingly hard to put down, the greatest designers of our day offer practical advice, amusing anecdotes, sometimes poignant reminiscence, forceful opinion, and even a little vitriol, but without ever leaving claw marks in the furniture and telling far better stories on themselves than on the clients…Marvelous!
—David Michaelis, author of Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography

Mita’s extraordinary drawings are reminiscent of Mark Hampton’s in his sought after book Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century or the beautiful drawings Alexandre Serebriakoff did in the 40s and 50s for such luminaries as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They give amazing atmosphere and detail to a book that stands above the fray.
—Peter Dunham, Peter Dunham Design

Imagine the pure bliss: eavesdropping on thirty of the best American and English decorators sitting around a table, candidly sharing ideas and secrets and dreams, talking about what they love most…….each new subject is introduced by a disarmingly personal family anecdote from the authors, who each possess Design Royalty DNA:Susan Crater, granddaughter of Sister Parish, and Libby Cameron, great niece of Rory Cameron and a thirteen year veteran of Parish-Hadley. These chapters are illustrated by Mita Corsini Bland’s beautiful Mark Hampton inspired watercolors.
—William Ivey Long, Broadway set designer and winner of five Tony awards for Hairspray, The Producers, Grey Gardens, and Nine among others