I’m going to see that bookshelf in my nightmares tonight! A librarian I worked with told me about a similar thing on one of those HGTV shows, where the designer covered every book in the same white fake-vellum-like paper. We agreed that was the most soul-sucking decorating scheme ever. (She was nearly frothing at the mouth when she told me.)
I think it depends whether you’re going for wealthy-pretentious, or 20-something hipster-pretentious. Original fine art might over well in some circles, and in others you want framed ironic posters, like my hipster friend’s collection of film noir-style posters for recent TV shows, or the Keep Calm and Carry On poster linked to above. I’m not stylish enough to ever be really pretentious, but I like to call my home’s style “Early Look-I-Went-to-Europe” and have to admit that the framed black and white postcards of communist Germany might be pushing it a bit on the pretentious front.
As a recovering pretentious person, I can share a couple of simple yet enabling tips. J. Peterman catalogs are the go-to accessories for this (I know that they were a theme in Seinfeld but they were real well before that). You don’t need to buy anything, the catalogs themselves are plenty pretentious but beautiful and make for entertaining reading. Just leave them lying around for visitors to find. Request them at this site:
You can also buy a duplicate passport book cover (empty) and leave it on top of a list of random exotic places in the world. People will notice but they won’t want to seem like they are snooping so they won’t say anything to you directly. If they do, just be mysterious and evasive.
I am male but I once went into a Polo store and shirt the clerk to get me a Polo shirt in every color with just a few exceptions. When they are all displayed neatly together in my closet, the effect was quite striking. You could do something like that. It wasn’t a waste though. I wore them for years.
Have an obscure philisophical saying of some sort (your choice, but the older and the more ‘foreign’, the better; in the original foreign language is even better) framed and on the wall. Empty out your refrigerator and pantry of any edible foods you actually eat and stock expensive bottled water and beer, maybe some leftover sushi or edemame pods. Any candy or snacks must be expensive and organic. No Twizzlers or Doritos - dark 90% cocoa chocolate and a tiny bag of baked sweet potato slices, please!
I have to say that I haven’t looked at J. Peterman much in the past few years but they are still as hysterical as ever. I almost peed myself reading some of their ads. I suspect that most of the people that buy from them don’t know it is backwards comedy which makes it all the more funny. I requested a new set of catalogs that I will also display prominently in my decor.
Keep only foreign groceries. Why have a can of tuna fish on the shelf when you can have a can of Thon Albacore a l’Huile?
And make sure that none of the toiletries in your bathroom could be purchased at the local Walgreens. Extra points for a natural-hair toothbrush.
Put a battered copy of something by Jacques Derrida open face-down on your nightstand as if you had laid it down just before you went to sleep last night.
Make sure you include no visible side tables, coffee tables, throw pillows, places to put your keys and your mail, dish drainers, wastebaskets, or really anything that you’d need for convenience or comfort in the mundane day-to-day tasks of life. When people inquire about this, pointedly inform them that “a house is a machine for living.”
Don’t have any drinking glasses larger than 6 oz. If someone asks for something larger, sarcastically say “a Big Gulp, perhaps?” and roll your eyes. (You can hide your 32 oz. Fribble cup from Friendly’s in a cabinet or something.)
For the sake of economicality, though, you should not actually purchase expensive wines. Root around behind exclusive restaurants and steal the empty bottles of THEIR expensive wines and then fill them with cheap shit from the nearest store, stuff that comes in boxes or tetra packs. Even cheaper is to take half-consumed bottles of wine from parties and mix them all together if need be. Most of your guests will never know the difference and will just assume you know what you’re talking about. When the wine tastes like turpentine and french fries they’ll just assume the problem is on their end.
For maximum pretentiousness, however, there’s nothing better than **pulling out a wine from your own private label. ** And while actually having your own vineyard is expensive, Photoshop and a good printer are cheap. Make your own labels and claim the wine is from your family’s estate in either France or Italy, depending on the swarthiness of your complexion (if you’re African or Asian or something like that, claim it’s a Sonoma winery.) Make sure you come up with an elaborate backstory about your family’s winery, with a lot of name-dropping. Always include Ernest Hemingway in the backstory. The label should look like something that was originally typeset in 1842 and hasn’t changed since. If anyone says they’re never heard of it explain that the vineyard produces wine solely for your extended family’s use. Again, it is sufficient to put $12/gallon wine into the bottles you’ve glued your phony labels onto.
The right food is also necessary. Never serve your guests food that people actually enjoy, like roast beef, chicken, hamburgers, turkey, or tasty snacks like potato chips or veggies and dip.
Go black and white. One of my friends actually did this with his room in high school - walls were white, all the furniture was black, and the entire place was kept spotless. He even had a fishtank with black and white pebbles (but no fish), just because he liked the way light went through it.
Whenever anyone comes over, offer to give them a tour of the place. Bonus points if it’s a studio/efficiency and if you discuss specific details of each of the four walls.
Ah, but if you just say this, you miss a chance at extra pretentiousness. Say the vineyard produces wine solely for your family’s use except for <insert name of famous person here> who just must have his case every year, and you’re willing to humor him/her.
(I can’t think of a really good famous person for this, though. Anyone?)
The trick is to claim they are keen satires of the human condition, and that anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand the art of film like you do.
If you call it an expresso machine, you’ll totally blow your cover.
And sorry, Shag honey, but claiming to know Kelsey Grammer or Emeril Lagasse will lose you pretentiousness points faster than wearing jeans from Wal-Mart.
Keep a bottle of Absinthe on the sideboard, complete with the spoon. Also, a bottle of Yeni Raki, and a bottle of something that is regarded as Bottom Shelf in its home country but no-one else outside it has ever heard of (say, Bundaberg Rum from Australia ;)) and you are thus free to make up outrageous lies about the quality or strength thereof.
Asterix books in Latin and Tintin adventures “in the original French” would be useful for Chez Pretentious, along with a 1930s style Valve Radio (You get a “warmer” sound from it, as you’ll explain to your guests), Ottomans made from a beer (or milk) crate (“The latest thing in Vladivostok, you know”) and some conveniently placed Full Colour Glossy Travel Brochures for places like Burma or Afghanistan or The Sudan- to which you can wistfully comment “Well, I’d been planning a trip before the current… unpleasantness. They’ll have to stop shooting at each other eventually.”
Oh, and don’t forget at least one item of clothing hand-made on the Indian Subcontinent. That’s very important.
All your furniture can’t just be modern. It must be vintage mid-century modern. Bonus points if you claim to buy the pieces from Craigslist or yard sales for bargain prices because the plebeians who owned the furniture couldn’t appreciate the the beauty of a 1952 danish modern sofa in blond wood and olive tweed. Throw in a few more dressy pieces with peeling paint for contrast.
All wall art should be black and white photos you took yourself with a 50mm lens at f1.8 or larger. The smallest amount of subject possible should be crisply focused. The rest should look like Mr. Magoo’s eyesight at 2 am after a drunken party.
