Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/504939
BY REBECCA SHERMAN. PHOTOGRAPHY JENNY ANTILL CLIFTON. ART DIRECTION MICHELLE AVIÑA. MAKEUP TONYA RINER. DESIGNER BAILEY McCARTHY'S WORLD POPS WITH QUIRKY COLOR. B ailey McCarthy has spent most of her young career battling beige. In November, when Farrow & Ball crowned the 29-year-old owner of Biscuit Home bedding and retail store as Texas Color Ambassador for its #CityPalette campaign, she pounded out her exhilaration on her blog, Peppermint Bliss: "I have long considered myself a diplomatic asset to the color cause, and it's about time somebody bestowed a title upon me recognizing my work fighting the beige lunatics of the world — one prismatic room at a time." The rant was all in fun, of course, but Bailey takes her colors seriously. For the campaign, she pulled hues from Texas icons, including Pink Ground for the pale pink stone of the Presidio County Courthouse in Marfa; Babouche, an ode to the yellow glow of Houston's James Turrell Skyspace; and Pitch Blue for our state flower, the bluebonnet. In the past five months, Bailey's passion for making a colorful "biscuit" — the term her family has always used to describe the bed — has garnered her plenty of other attention, including the Cotton Council, which featured Bailey and Biscuit Home in a video for their cotton maker's campaign. Southern Living has tapped her for its list of 50 designers changing the look of the South — she's the only woman in Texas chosen, she notes. Her farm in Belleville is featured in the current issue of Country Living, and Garden & Gun and HGTV will both have mentions this spring about Biscuit Home, whose new spring collection launched in January. Two new bedding looks, Bloomsbury and Boone, took a full year to design and produce, says Bailey, who creates the collections with textile designer Isabel Wilson. "We spent a lot of time talking to our customers to find out what they wanted," which was more florals and colors that balance between masculine and feminine. "Boone is our edgiest pattern yet. All of our prints start with hand-drawn and -painted patterns, then are uploaded to the printer. We re-engineered the screens to get even more Family dogs Bella and Bernie in the living room of Bailey and Pete McCarthy's 1930s-era River Oaks home. Vintage chair upholstered in Lee Jofa floral velvet. The piano was inherited from Pete's great aunt. Farrow & Ball Orangerie on walls. BLISS