In my childhood, upon my four to five annual watches of BBC’s entire Pride and Prejudice, I coveted—of course—the dresses, the suitors, the four sisters, the long walks across the moors. But mostly I craved the bedrooms, specifically the four-poster beds, where I would brush out the braids of my many sisters after the Netherfield ball. There was such a sense of dignity to the four-poster bed, such elegance. It was a world of its own, in which you could pile on and gossip and sleep beautifully, long locks stretched across a pillow.
My dream of a Regency-themed bedroom died with adulthood, which was, instead, ushered in by university-supplied twin mattresses coated in blue vinyl, and the age of minimalism: white-washed renos, ash wood, open floor plans. To this modern era, velvet drapery was far too formal for a humble bedroom. The canopy bed was a relic reserved for The Met’s Decorative Arts exhibits. Until recently, when designers began flirting again with romantic details and more-is-more sleeping setups.
Take November’s AD cover, which spotlights a Tuscan farmhouse tackled by the Paris-based duo of Crosby Studios. Its centerpiece: a four-poster canopy bed pieced together with 120 recycled shirts sewn together, logos like FILA and Levi’s peeking out between the folds.
“I bring in things from different environments that don’t belong to interior design and try to place them in a decorative way,” explains Crosby Studios’ Harry Nuriev, who credits Marcel Duchamp, the leader of the Dada movement, as his biggest teacher. Duchamp’s most infamous work was the Fountain in 1917, a urinal posed as art, representing concept over craftsmanship.
Crosby Studio’s cheeky subversion of the typically ornate canopy bed makes a political statement by riffing on a classical trend with the discarded objects of fast fashion and global capitalism. Logo-ridden detritus is crafted into a symbol of wealth, decadence, luxury. It’s a mockery of itself.
“In a way, this is very traditional,” says Nuriev, “But it’s probably the last thing you’d expect in a farmhouse in Tuscany.” It’s a far cry from the elegance of Elizabeth Bennett’s quarters, though its drapery still embodies a certain richness, especially in its striking, regal crimson hue.
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Similarly, more and more modern, mass-market iterations of the canopy bed are appearing in stores, often stripped down to a skeleton of their formal selves, sans drapery—providing the illusion of grandeur minus the pomp and frills. If you’re feeling nostalgic, though, you can still emulate the original excesses of the regal sleep setup in your own way, whether a whimsical cottagecore rendition like this gingham-print four-poster bed in a Montana home, a cabana-like canopy overhead as in this 16th-century Spanish manor, or Rhett McLaughin’s many approaches to the four-poster style in his log cabin home.
Or if crafting your own feels too DIY for your taste, a quick jaunt to Audrey Gelman’s country-inspired Six Bells Inn will satisfy the royal craving, or the Mayflower Inn in Connecticut, where the beds enclose you in printed fabrics, ruffles, and trim. “There’s something about a four-poster bed that says ‘This is where I belong,’” says the Mayflower’s designer, Celerie Kemble. “It relates a sense of mine-ness. Like this is my most special place—this is my lily pad.”
My Four-Poster Faves
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