Carolyne Roehm- A Constant Thread

photograph by Victor Skrebneski

The latest book from Carolyne Roehm is a fulsome look at her 45 years in fashion, interior design, entertaining, floral design, and most recently—as artist. An incredible talent—a true polymath, Roehm has found the constant thread to it all in her love for color, nature, quality, and classicism.
In every discipline, Roehm excels.

Color: her floral arrangements often burst with it, and when using a single color she indulges.
Nature: her watercolor botanicals are just incredible, intricate, pristine.
Quality: from her beautiful clothing collections in the 80's & 90's to the simple act of wrapping a package, which for Roehm becomes an art, Quality is unmistakable.
Classicism: just look at her body of work.
In fact, this book is that. With a wealth of photographs documenting her career, Roehm who always considered herself a career woman resisted William Safire's phrase "trophy wife," coined for Roehm in the 80's.
Beauty has defined her life and just over 300 pages are devoted to it all,.

There are many books that focus on entertaining and floral design in Carolyne Roehm's oeuvre. I have most of them. This book unifies those subjects with her career in fashion, and as a backdrop to that—the interiors of her homes in New York, Connecticut, Colorado, and Charleston. Within the book, Victor Skrebneski's portraits of Roehm, some of them just seen for the first time, are breathtaking. Roehm acknowledges him in the last pages of the book writing, "you were the first photographer to make me look pretty in a photo." Indeed, that's an understatement.

Skrebneski photographs

With a wealth of photographs documenting her career, Roehm who always considered herself a career woman resisted William Safire's phrase "trophy wife," coined for Roehm in the 80's. Carolyne Roehm Design & Style A Constant Thread, is proof that the label did not apply. While the book is a keeper, as are her other books, it's certainly not anything remotely like a swan song—rather a debut.

BRAVA!