Such mashups strike Viñas as “comical,” and she believes that one must possess “a certain amount of audacity” to seek accord among the inherently discordant. Though Viñas never intended for the widespread plaid to convey an iota of, as she calls it, “stuffy library,” she wasn’t opposed to conjuring a cozy, insular feeling suitable for the sylvan setting. So while it appears that you can take the plaid out of the study (after all, the pattern, dubbed the “Mad Plaider,” may qualify as a contemptuous take on tartan), you can’t deny its essential nature. “Most interesting to me is to pull from something historic and look at it through a more contemporary lens,” says Viñas.
In that case, you might consider the entire cottage a kind of 1,600-square-foot “cabinet of curiosities,” an Italian Renaissance–era tradition of collecting objects for purposes of flaunt, delight, or intrigue. Here, such bibelots include a zoo’s worth of animal figures, some even serviceable, like a Seletti white-resin monkey “swinging” in the kitchen with a working light bulb in its grip, or a life-size pig table by Moooi in the entryway, poised to collect keys and mail. To underscore the siren-hued Tom Dixon chairs in the dining room, a wall-mounted assemblage of travel souvenirs is obligingly red, and comprises a fly-swish procured during a trip to Africa, as well as a weathered barber pole that appeals to the designer’s affection for candy striping.
