Monumental Style

Holiday home décor can come in many surprising, exotic and chic forms this season — if you dare to open your mind to the beautiful possibilities.

“Always experiment. I love to design without boundaries,” says Ohara Davies-Gaetano, head of design at Bliss in Corona del Mar.

“I’ve designed everything from an entire tree filled with seashells and Swarovski crystals to a monochromatic black-and-white tree to silver trees with lavenders and lilacs,” shares Davies-Gaetano, who strives for unexpected beauty by mixing natural elements with antiques and more modern pieces. “The whole layered effect is really what makes design interesting and special,” she says.

“Try not to color within the lines, and focus on really beautiful elements,” she recommends. Examples of her seasonal surprises: statues poised amid floral settings, including white poinsettias and unexpected touches like all-natural linen stockings with embroidered names. You might even top a tree with a beautiful, wood-carved crown.

Davies-Gaetano sees beauty in the authentic. Such as fabrics that haven’t been heavily dyed. A more European sensibility. And a sense of freedom versus everything perfectly matching.

Be sure to mix-match fragrances and colors too. “I love mixing fragrances like eucalyptus with evergreens. And you can mix green and white with another color, say a French gray-blue,” she notes. As far as lighting? “It’s very important. We have beautiful old reproduction candlesticks that look like 18th Century altar sticks. I like doing a whole table of candlesticks in different heights with a very simple centerpiece.”

A savvy, streamlined Bliss holiday tip to take the clutter out of the season is to create a Memory Tree — a smaller tree with some of the things you’ve collected over time, and do it on a smaller scale in a family room. You then can do a more formal tree in a dining room, perhaps an all-white tree, with white lights and Mercury glass ornaments.

If you’re going to go grand, go big in extravagant style. “If it’s done well, it’s fabulous and amazing,” she believes. “It can be the most stunning thing that’s ethereal, like a dream. It takes amazing flowers, vases of different heights, flowers draping, the right fragrance and music.”

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