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For those of us living and traveling frequently to Mediterranean countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Spain, Tunisia), we know from experience that there exists a great range within Mediterranean design that never went mainstream. There is a lot of colorful Yang to all the neutral Yin we see in modern-day Mediterranean-inspired interiors. What we see on the high street was merely reinterpreted – scaled back and simplified – by designers who created a new energy around a very old world charm.
Those designers were clever and took something we all took for granted during our 1995 road trips across southern France, and turned it into a vibe. They used the playbook by Shabby Chic from Rachel Ashwell from the 90s, took away the ruffles, pink, and femininity, and merged it with Japanese wabi-sabi with its handmade and very earthy vibe. Then, French/Italian/Greek and Spanish coastal vibes were scaled back but added with stone floors, cozy seating, and peeling paint on walls straight from the French countryside.
Then in the recipe, there was the waving of the wand where the extraction of color took place and the core vibe became neutral and centered around natural, raw, earthy elements and texture – lots of texture. A bit of Moorish design was tossed into the mix, with wicker baskets and floor tiles and pottery, some Berber carpets (cream-based), black metal, and we saw pottery influenced by Sicilian and Italian design, with head vases and curvy urns.
I can go on and on about how I’ve watched the New Mediterranean style evolve, as I’ve sat in the front row viewing this evolution since I was flea marketing in California, meeting Rachel Ashwell at her then-famous Shabby Chic clearance sales attended by her die-hard fans, which I was back in the 90s, for sure. Rachel Ashwell and Kelly Hoppen, strangely enough, were the two women who introduced my young and curious brain to the world of interior design. Two British women who couldn’t be more opposite in their design language.