From the category archives:

Press Releases

Ferer is Appointed to Port Authority Board

by admin on June 2, 2004

I am honored to be chosen by Governor Pataki to serve on the Board and look forward to working with Port Authority Vice Chairman Charles Gargano, Executive Director Joe Seymour and the entire Board and having the privilege of executing on the vision Neil had for this unique institution. The Port Authority staff has become a second family.

Whenever I have turned to anyone at the Port Authority on behalf of the September 11th families, they have been there. It was the Port Authority that provided two tons of remnant WTC steel to ensure each family member would have a remembrance from this site many regard as sacred.

In addition, the Port Authority found a home for the art work of parentless children of September 11th who immortalized their lost loved ones in canvas. Most importantly, this is an invaluable opportunity to participate as a September 11th family voice in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.

You can read more on Christy’s appointment here.

Breaking The Rules: Home Style for How We Live Today

by sue on May 16, 2001

“You don’t get to be a decorating diva by following the rules. Christy Ferer knows which ones you can get away with breaking and come out smelling like a rose.”

- Bette Midler

BREAKING THE RULES

Home Style For The Way We Live Today

By Christy Ferer

Gone are the days of matching furniture sets and Grandma’s dining room table and chairs. Life has changed. Today, we work in our dining rooms, eat in our bedrooms, and actually live in our living rooms. Just about anything goes, and modern homes reflect a new 21st century home decorating style that accentuates lifestyle and personality. But, even as the old rules are thrown out the window, this new expression isn’t without it’s own rules of good taste. Style-maker and television personality, Christy Ferer, shows what works, what doesn’t, and how to decorate a home with flair in her second book, BREAKING THE RULES (Simon & Schuster; May 16, 2001; $40).

Christy Ferer, a long time contributor for segments on national programs such as the Today Show, Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee and Oprah, and a regular on NBC Early Today, The Early Show on CBS, and ABC Network Radio, gives her insider view of the new home decorating style. In BREAKING THE RULES, Christy shakes up the old ideas of design (like that every living room needs a coffee table, bedrooms should be painted in soothing colors, or tableside lamps should match) and then thoroughly explores design basics, devoting chapters to color, texture and pattern, walls, floors, light, accessories, display, space and much more - including 175 full-color dazzling photographs. Some of savvy decorating tips from BREAKING THE RULES include:

  • Cover your walls and doors in identically colored frames to make the door disappear when it’s closed
  • Felt squares whipstitched together are soft underfoot and become a wall-to-wall carpet
  • Add a flat of grass inside the fireplace during non-winter months
  • Display your costume jewelry in a beautiful bowl as an accessory
    Hang inexpensive cheesecloth or cotton all around a room from rods hung at ceiling level for a sumptuous, soft look
  • Place multiple lanterns in a small space for dramatic lighting

At the forefront of design, Christy is a frequent guest in fashionable homes and in BREAKING THE RULES she also reveals various celebrity-decorating ideas with intimate photographs of their private homes. See how Bette Midler salvages her favorite china plate by imbedding it as title in her shower… how Calvin Klein transforms his headboard into a hidden bookcase… or how a Paris fashion maven turns her bathroom into a plush dining room.

Paint a tiny room red, cover a wall with linen, create a lamp from a large conch shell – Christy will show how to “break the rules” with confidence and success. With clear-cut liberating advice, gorgeous photographs, and a resource list, Christy has made it a breeze to redecorate your home with a style that reflects your tastes, passions, and idiosyncrasies. Rules were made to be broken, and Christy Ferer will show you the way.

    # # #

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For the past 18 years, Christy Ferer has been contributing style segments for the Today Show, Good Morning America, ABC’s The View and Oprah, among other national programs. Currently, she appears regularly on NBC Early Today, The Early Show on CBS, and ABC Network Radio.

Christy is owner and President of Vidicom, a video production company that produces lifestyle and fashion programming for television news broadcasts. Her latest venture, “Stylewiz”, a convergent media company, offers both online and offline style content.

A variety of factors have influenced Christy’s unique style of home decorating. An inveterate “junker” since her college days, Christy regularly cruises flea markets, tag sales, outlet stores, and friends’ attics to find the bargains and rejects that she transforms into major styling elements. She has spent years combing through Paris, Milan, and New York, and drawn inspiration from New York window dressers to Parisian museum curators, even a Peruvian witch doctor.

Decorating on a Dime: Trade Secrets from a Style Maker, Christy’s first book, revealed her low-cost/high-concept decorating tips and timesaving shortcuts. The book is filled with innovative ideas for using inexpensive, often overlooked materials (such as pipes, tomato paste cans, and rope) as well as fun-to-do projects that don’t require you to become a glue- gun genius.

Ms. Ferer received a French language degree from the University of Bordeaux in 1971, a B.A. in French and Journalism from the University of Colorado, and a Master of Urban Affairs from Boston University. She serves on the board of the Jacob Javits Center, the Museum of the City of New York, the 92nd Street Y, the Special Projects Committee of Sloan Kettering, and The New York Restoration Project.

Christy Ferer has two teenage daughters and lives in New York City.

BREAKING THE RULES

Home Style For The Way We Live Today

By Christy Ferer

May 16, 2001 • Simon & Schuster

ISBN 0-684-86609-9 • $35.00

191 pages, with 140 pages of full-color photographs throughout