Talk Shop: Mary McDonald // Mary Mcdonald, Inc.
All photos by Melanie Acevedo
ABOUT MARY
Now a household name, Mary McDonald is an award-winning Los Angeles-based interior designer who started her design career when her friends asked if she would help them design their homes. Slowly but surely she gained traction, and in 2011, Mary skyrocketed to fame when she starred in Bravo’s “Million Dollar Decorators” series, and then "Property Envy." Mary has consistently been named in House Beautiful’s Top 100 Designers, as well as Veranda’s Top 25, and she published her retrospective tome, “Interiors: The Allure of Style”, with Rizzoli in 2010. Mary is devoted to her product lines with brands like Chaddock Home, Schumacher, and Hudson Valley Lighting, and she most recently debuted a new rug collection with Patterson Flynn, which she delves into below! Check out this design icon’s go-to’s and more in our latest Talk Shop.
Congratulations on your new collection with Patterson Flynn! Where did the inspiration for this collection come from?
Some of my favorite places and details of French design such as the hotel L’hotel, Malmaison, and others.
How is this collection different than previous collections you’ve designed?
I would say it is more of an extension of previous collections in both pattern and materials. For the abaca, it was really an early experimental phase when I wanted to make them in colors and more complex patterns. Being an early more experimental phase we were limited to what we knew we could control in color production so we kept it more basic for the launch yet my original intention was to replicate the painted seagrass and sisal patterns I showed in my book. This launch showcases my more layered patterned colorful self.
Out of the three new designs—Masquerade, Polestar, and Compass—which was the hardest to design?
Compass for sure. Putting a circle in a rectangle brings up all sorts of scale issues.
Describe your style in three words or less:
Classic, dramatic and whimsical.
What have been the three biggest influences on your aesthetic in your life:
!980’s House and Garden( magazine), The English Country house and 18th C France on up.
How did you start your company, and/or what is your favorite thing about what you do:
People just started to ask me to help decorate their homes since I had always made mine stylish for myself since I was in my early 20s. I always had a passion for decor since I was a teenager and knew who all the late 80s designers were. I pored over House and Garden since 16 so I took a creative interest in interiors always working on my own spaces since college. It started being a slow-growing business around 30.
Do you have a mentor in your career, and if so, how have they helped to shape your trajectory:
I wish I did. My aunt was a local Brentwood decorator in Los Angeles with great elegant old-school taste but looking back it wasn’t really much of a business. She did, however, take me to the PDC fabric shop which of course exposed me to all these glorious fabrics trims, and furniture. I remember the Brunschwig and Fils showroom with their black and white checked bags and red writing thinking how glamorous all this was. Of course, I was a mere child, and bags of swatches were about all I thought it entailed when that is barely any of it! I really did not have a mentor except a few stylish friends whom I would toss ideas around with and discuss how this all worked for others doing it. There were some blind leading the blind moments to say the least but being a naturally creative person lots of it was just instinctual logic except for the business aspects. No one teaches you that much anyway. Learning a computer program is necessary yet it does not provide the logic for business or put it all together. A mentor would have been great but it was my own willingness to create an environment for myself that showcased my work.
What does your home say about you:
Theatrical, dramatic, creative, colorful, collector, whimsical, eccentric, and humorous.
Where do you find inspiration:
Inspiration to me is so so boundless, especially with the internet.
I love to travel to places much different than my own which really wakes you up to the world and how vast it is. Wherever I go I want to then be that, experience that, design like that, and immerse myself in that. It is not practical but it is inspiring. I love historical design from all over the world. From Pompeii to Versailles there is too much to be inspired by that I never understand how people can not be inspired daily. I can Google any theme and be down a rabbit hole in a second oohing and ahhing over a lost art and the intricacies of pattern scale or execution any time of day.
I must say in just nature alone from animals, flowers, trees, stones, and minerals there are more patterns made by the Universe to ever get bored in just that realm alone before man gets involved. Inspiration is everywhere.
What are your key ingredients for entertaining:
Atmosphere. I feel like atmosphere is more important than fancy food if you are going to ask people to experience an evening. Low lighting is key. Comfortable seating and pretty tablescapes. A simple chicken with low lighting and a pretty table is better than Boeuf Bourguignon and expensive wine in a bright sparse space.
Do you collect anything:
Oh my, I start new collections all the time! I collect portraits, my latest is a Sir Joshua Reynolds I am excited about. I collect Russian furniture, I collect antique fans for some weird room I am planning someday when I was inspired by a World of Interiors room about 30 years ago.. not sure that room will ever come to fruition. I collect vintage Christmas ornaments (actually all ornaments truth be told), Antique Chinese embroidered slippers, Antique blue and white for that matter, light pink murano ashtrays and other ceramics, Jade green vases and dishes, stray weird carved chairs with any animal on them, shells of all sorts, jewelry real and costume, semi-precious beads and baubles of all sorts, vintage velvet quilts, anything Napoleon, vintage toiles, most anything in leopard…need I say more?
Favorite Instagram accounts to follow for inspiration:
Way too many to list in their entirety… @cakeatelieramsterdam, @Schumacher1889, @VAmuseum, @defunctfashion, @Jeremiah_Goodman, @citychic4ever__, @Timothylongfashioncurator, @chateaumalmaison, @thesundaypaper, @hautebohemiansmfv…the list is endless!
What design “rule” do you always follow, and which is made to be broken:
I really don’t have a rule so there is nothing to break. I do ask myself is this pretty or is this ugly? Then toil over that.
What are you working on right now:
I have a handful of projects from the East Coast to the West Coast including a ground-up in Montana, two Hamptons houses, trying to work on photography for another book, a new collection for Chaddock, and my own Hudson Valley house which I see is now going to go on a few years!
Wardrobe staples:
Crispy white shirt, black pants or skirt, leopard shoes, and chunky gold bracelets and earrings.
Favorite fabric/wallpaper:
My new Les Oiseaux wallpaper coming out this summer for Schumacher. I think people will love it as much as I do it is so gorgeous. I am beyond excited about my new Empress Dragon fabric print as well. I am deeply in love with them so stay tuned.
Best interior advice you ever received:
Pretty always sells.
Best career advice you ever received:
Keep it moving.
Types of home purchases you invest in, and save on:
I actually love a high low since it is all about style and how you put something from Ikea or Pottery Barn with an 18th C. table and formal painting. So I find myself more willing to pay for something that there will never be more of such as an old painting, 18thC piece of furniture, or accessory and I am willing to save where there might be a lesser more mass-produced version of a little side table, contemporary lamp or any type of woven natural fiber basic rug. Things like that paired with the unique and unusual are all fine by me.
Your greatest extravagance:
Being bicoastal.
Favorite places to shop for home:
Well, this list is endless! Newell, Liz Obrien, so many more!
Most prized possession and why:
A huge 17th C portrait of a Spanish Aristocrat my mother bought from the Harold Lloyd estate when I was a little girl. I lost her in my 20s and it always reminds me of her since she loved it.
Your interiors motto:
Keep it pretty.
Your life motto:
To quote Alfred Adler, “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.”
Advice for someone looking to define their own interior style:
Study what it is exactly what you love about the rooms you are drawn to and dissect it by layer. You will find that you are drawn to a few certain elements about the floor plan, scale choices, and types of pieces used if you really ask yourself what you like about each layer.
Take Ten: My Favorite…
Food: Steak frites
Drink: Caipirinha
Film: The English Patient
Hotel: Umad Bawain palace or L’hotel in Paris.
City: Paris
Bedding: Gosh there are so many beautiful ones... Pratesi Treccia collection, D. Porthault for flowers, Leontine for color combos and monograms, Julia B Calais and Santorini..E Braun Emanuele, and Parquet. There are some beautiful sheets for many different projects from various top-notch companies. I could never choose just one. These are some of my favorites.
Tea or Coffee (and how do you take it): Coffee with cream - no sugar
Playlist: John Barry “Movieola” It makes any tedious task feel glamorous
Weekend Activity: Gardening, planning gardening and tooling around the Hudson Valley
Design Book: Colefax and Fowler's “Best in English Interior Decoration” and then mine for Rizzoli of course.