It will come as a bit of really bad news to some of us if what Ruth Shaw says is true.
“Style is something people are born with,” declared Shaw, the straight-talking, 80-year-old retail doyenne whose trendy boutique Ruth Shaw has been a fashion fixture in Cross Keys for 35 years. She just sold it in January.
Whether it is style in clothing or home décor, Shaw says brightly “I don’t think it can be acquired. People can’t dress themselves and they can’t furnish their houses.”
Inspired, Shaw continues: “They say they want to do their own thing but a lot of people don’t have their own thing. The most important thing is for people to recognize when they need help.”
While Shaw has a very definite opinion for the design-challenged at large, she does not exclude herself from her own advice. “I certainly ask for help because I’m not up on the resources.” Professional designers “have access to resources that we don’t, and that’s tremendously important,” she counseled.
Three years ago when she acquired her Roland Park home, Shaw reached out among her designer friends to pull together the look and feel she wanted in the 1920s house.
She has definite ideas. Among them, no tile backsplashes in the usual places.
“With tile,” Shaw explains, “you cook spaghetti and you have the grout and get sauce on it and it’s a bitch to get it off.”
The tile substitute near the sink in the Shaw kitchen is paint, and behind the six-burner gas stove is a thick tempered glass sheet held in place on the wall with four large designer stainless steel hold-down knobs.
The no-wall-tile theme continues upstairs in the master bathroom, where walls are a waxed Venetian plaster finish, “Not fancy but fabulous,” Shaw says.
Worth mentioning in the bathroom is the Toto brand toilet with built-in bidet and motion detector that raises and lowers the seat for hands-free convenience. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Furnishing the two-story, four-bedroom house meant not buying new — which she decries as a wasteful habit among most people — but uniting her beloved Bauhaus pieces from the 1920s and 1960s she’s had most of her life in homes in Washington, New York and Baltimore.
The blend delivers a timeless freshness in the formal living room, where the added presence of twin French decorative lamps from the 1940s, hand-made South African pillow covers and five Hanoi masks she bought on a trip to Asia establish active conversation starters. “I’m not a perfectionist,” Shaw says, “But I have definite ideas about how I want to live.”
Ruth Shaw says she likes having things that have memories. In her home, the South African sofa pillow slipcovers remind her of the women who made them in a shop that provided on-site day care for the workers’ children.
Ruth Shaw’ Style
- STYLE PHILOSOPHY: Comfort is key. I have a modern sensibility. I have been living many years with Bauhaus furniture that developed in the ‘20s and ‘30s — a mid-century modern. Though I changed later on I kept a strong feeling for that period because I like clean lines. I have a lot of old modern furniture from the 1960s. I like mixing things.
- STYLE SECRETS: I buy and live with whatever I like. I believe people waste a lot of money redecorating all the time. Buy good things and stick with them. Rita St. Clair is one of my closest friends. She doesn’t go out and change furniture all the time. If it’s good stuff, it fits in.
- GOT STYLE FROM: My mother. She was a stylish person, especially when it came to dressing. We lived in an apartment in Washington that was nice.
- COMFORT VS. STYLE: There’s no substitute for comfort. Every seat in a place has to be comfortable. Like a chair that you can sit in for hours. A sofa that’s comfortable. There, maybe one comfortable chair, and everyone rushes to get to it.
- COLOR VS. TEXTURE: Both are important. Even a lot of color.
- FAVORITE COLOR: I don’t have a favorite. Whatever color works, although I do have a problem living with grays.
- MUST-HAVES IN YOUR HOUSE: A good kitchen, good bathrooms, plumbing that works. When I turn on a faucet I want it to work like silk.
- MOST BELOVED OBJECT: My bed. I have a Dux mattress. A good night’s sleep is essential.
- WHAT PEOPLE WOULDN’T KNOW ABOUT ME: I’m not a perfectionist where I live. I don’t mind a mess. I don’t care if the dogs come in with wet feet. I’m a relaxed kind of lady. Very little bugs me.
- I WOULD NEVER: Try to match things. I just want things to work.
- FAVORITE DESIGNERS: Eames and Saarinen are two among a few.
- MOST UNUSUAL THING ABOUT ME: I’m a concerned person, and people need to be concerned and be out there fighting for what they feel is important and right.
- HOT TIP: There are a lot of good designers, and people should [seek out] help.
