I love EtCetera by Sibella Court

I had a quick work trip to Canberra just before flying overseas and while there dropped into (ie wandered around for more than an hour) the wonderful Paperchain Manuka bookshop.  Even though I was on a pre-holiday money diet I could not resist purchasing stylist Sibella Court’s exquisite book, EtCetera: Creating Beautiful Interiors. The moment I opened the old-school brown paper cover and began pawing (literally) the soft, uncoated pages, I was in love. I have long been an admirer of Sibella’s work – she is a stylist with a very special, sensory eye for aesthetics and everything she does creates a beautiful visual story, like a pop-up book sprung larger than life. EtCetera achieves a very rare thing for a book – it captures the essence, lusciousness, and tactile, sensual qualities of Sibella’s style and design ideologies in a way which retains the freshness and texture of her work as it appears in situ. I often flick through this book before bed, while on my balcony with a cup of tea (or a chardonnay on a sunny Sunday) and it never fails to inspire. Sibella’s unusual yet just right combinations of objects and colours and textures seems to tap directly into my own creative and personal subconscious, prompting my own thoughts and perceptions to alter and become fresher, more unique. It never occurred to me that the inky violet of mussel shells was a perfect match to dark bird feathers. Or that the textured, rocky surfaces of oyster shells would sit so perfectly with the subdued grey silver of antique cutlery. Beautiful.

You can buy EtCetera from Paperchain if you happen to be in Canberra, or directly from Sibella’s own store in Sydney, The Society Inc.

This is my beloved copy of EtCetera on my balcony, enjoyed on this particular Sunday with a bowl of salted pistachios. Photo property of The Beauty Philosopher.

By the way a couple of my favourite blogs have previously featured interviews with the stunning Sibella so do check them out: Daily Imprint and The Design Files.