How to Dress Your Home Like a J.Crew Catalog (But Better)

A step-by-step Room Recipe

Welcome back to Room Recipe, a column on À La Carte where we stare at an image of a room we love for a very long time, then break down its “ingredients” into specific items and themes. The goal is never to copy, but instead to get to the bottom of why certain rooms just *work* and to understand how we can translate that inspiration into real life.

If you follow any New York-based influencer or fashion enthusiast or even Martha Stewart, you definitely caught glimpses of J.Crew’s activation at 190 Bowery last week. For three days, J.Crew took over two stories in what was once a bank in Nolita and turned it into a fantastical fantasy of prep gone wild. Curtains made of shirting fabric, something called “The Cashmere Room”, a branded billiards table… If Richie Tenenbaum were the president of a fraternity, this would be said fraternity’s house.

Then, on Monday, Allison Bornstein wrote a newsletter about the styling tips she gleaned from Celine’s SS26 ready-to-wear show back in July. The collection was the first under creative director Michael Rider, whose resume includes stints at Polo Ralph Lauren and Céline (during the accent-on-the-E years). The collection really wasn’t on my radar—I had seen a video of the giant scarf suspended above the show space and a couple of looks from the lineup floating around—but reading through Allison’s deconstruction of it all put it back on my desk.

Left: J.Crew at 190 Bowery; right: Celine SS26

Days later, images of striped ties and cashmere cardigans worn askew are still in my head. The J.Crew activation and the Celine collection share some obvious cornerstones of preppy style, but where J.Crew leans collegiate, Celine goes equestrian. They are still a part of the same universe, though—one that looks a lot like a Karen Lyons painting.

Left: Celine SS26; right: J.Crew at 190 Bowery

Left: J.Crew at 190 Bowery; right: Celine SS26

Left: J.Crew at 190 Bowery; right: Celine SS26

So for this Room Recipe, I thought I’d explore prep in interiors my own way—maybe a version that’s not as over-the-top as J.Crew’s, but more in the vein of a Parisian apartment that one of the Celine models would live in. I think a lot of times we think of New England and Gossip Girl and Ivy League schools when prep comes to mind, but I want to try my hand at it from a slightly different, potentially less on-the-nose angle inspired by Rider’s debut.

A recipe (with links to everything!) awaits: