It all started with a chrome chair. To be specific, it was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s cantilever chair. Most people flock to the Barcelona chair, but the corset back on the MR chair makes me drool puddles. Although there are many reasons why the Bauhaus era is so iconic, I get weak in the knees just thinking about the curves of those tubular steel seat frames. Marcel Breuer’s Cesca chair is another hot seat that’s never going out of style, along with the Wassily chair. In the off chance that you disagree, the fashion stylist Mel Reneé Leamon will gladly back me up here!
The dining room in a Mario Buatta-designed apartment in New York City featuring a pair of silver pheasants and roosters as the centerpiece with silver candelabras and a silver urn rest.
Photo: Peter VitaleTruth be told, I had an eye for silver trinkets long before chairs ever occupied my thoughts—I have my mother to thank for that as we spent much of our time together throughout my childhood using antique silvers at tea parties. On the journey to womanhood, most girls will experience that pivotal coming-of-age moment when they watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time and never look at jewelry the same way. Audrey Hepburn certainly made a strong case for sterling silver and clearly influenced me when I was a teenager because all I fantasized about was being dripped out in Tiffany & Co. designs.
As I got older, I became fixated on luxury home goods such as the Tiffany Tea—an exclusive collaboration with Bellocq—and the signature sterling silver paper cup. I’m all for mixing metals, but the sparkle of chrome just hits different. It’s the metallic crossover where minimalist meets maximalist. I could go on and on about this for hours because I’m a Taurus, so without further ado, here are 23 of my silver selects. (For an even more pleasurable reading experience, please listen to Charli XCX’s 2019 banger “Silver Cross” while scrolling.)
