Globe-trotting designer shows countries’ true colors

Sibella Court is an interior stylist, product designer, historian, globe-trotter, creative director and shop owner. She’s also an author, most recently of the book “Gypsy: A World of Colour & Interiors” ($45; Harper Design).

Court has spent time exploring backstreets, markets and street fairs in many a country, looking for ideas, artists, designers and products for her ventures.

She believes, according to the book’s intro, that places can reveal themselves through color palettes. So she has created a palette for each country that she has visited based on its architecture, crafts, textiles, nature, art, food and even transport.

Typically, she spots a vignette or two and creates her palette based on the colors in them. The book begins with Galapagos and Ecuador, where she pulls together pinks, salmons and corals as well as vivid aqua blues. Her inspiration: working boats, prickly pears, flamingos, pink sand beaches and coral fragments.

In Scotland, the color selection came from a falconry lesson (the browns and soft caramels found in feathers, claw-proof suede gloves and leather hoods). She found similar colors in the country’s shaggy Highland cattle that grazed in impossibly green fields. Hence, the browns and caramels are complemented by gem-like greens.

Other countries include Turkey, Transylvania, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The latter three countries were once part of Indochina, so she groups them into the same palette.

The pages are filled with gorgeous photographs of colorful and textured interiors, all with a warm, bohemian feel that drives home the beauty and power of simple, often rustic, items and ethnic color combinations.

This story was originally published May 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM with the headline "Globe-trotting designer shows countries’ true colors."