Cher has been teaching her sister step aerobics, so she comes to the phone quite out of breath. Yes, it's that Cher, she of the black lipstick and exposed navel, who also happens to be an expert on Gothic Revival.
This quirky ornamental style -- intricate, medieval-looking and romantic -- has been quietly gaining attention again as the 20th century draws to a close. Renewed interest in Gothic Revival antiques started in the '60s and '70s and is at an all-time high. Now elements of the style, the characteristic pointed arches, quatrefoils, elaborate detailing, finials and columnar legs, are showing up in contemporary furnishings and accessories as well.
There's a reason Cher has interrupted her workout to talk to a reporter about an 18th- and 19th-century style inspired by medieval church architecture. She's incorporated much of it into her new business, a catalog shopping company called Sanctuary.
"The home has to be a sanctuary these days," the actress-singer says. "People are frightened. It's become a hideaway. They want comfort, and there's not much comfort in steel and polyester."
Once she's caught her breath, Cher quickly establishes her credentials as an authority on Gothic furniture. "I was a major buyer at [a recent] Pugin sale," she says. (A. W. N. Pugin was an important figure of the movement who designed Gothic-style furniture.) Besides owning Gothic Revival antiques by Pugin and others, Cher has all the books, many of them first editions, of the major writers on the period's architecture and design.
"People are sick and tired of big, square, masculine buildings," she says as she warms to her subject. "[Gothic architecture] points to the sky. The designs are feminine; they have mystery, crevices, vaulted ceilings."
The furniture and accessories from the Sanctuary catalog aren't exact reproductions of Gothic Revival designs. Instead they suggest medieval and neo-Gothic styles. A teakwood chair ($225), for instance, was inspired by an antique Italian Gothic armchair. (Cher has the one shown in the catalog on her own front porch.) A romantic mirror ($250) is framed in a Gothic ball and scroll pattern. Fabrics are opulent velvets and silks, colors are muted. "I hate primary colors," she says. "I love dried-blood red. Wine, prune, raisin, gold, platinum."
Whether by good luck or good business sense, Cher has produced her catalog at a time when interest in Gothic style is high, partly sparked by the current movies "Interview with a Vampire" and "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." (Gothic design, linked with castles and ruined abbeys, is often characterized as spooky and mysterious. "Frankenstein" is, of course, the classic Gothic novel.)
"A reporter from Newsweek asked me if I planned the publication to coincide with the opening of 'Interview with a Vampire,' " she says, indignant because she's been planning the catalog and collecting its contents for years.
Even though this is supposed to be the simplified, pared-down '90s, Gothic's ornate detailing and fantastical elements seem to strike a chord with consumers. Ralph Lauren's Cottages and Castles home collection, particularly the Medieval line, has proved popular with consumers this fall. The designer's reinterpretation of the style includes elaborate carving; lush bedding; baronial, large-scale pieces; and combinations of wood and wrought iron. Call it gothic with a small g. As Linda Jones of Masco, a giant company involved in home furnishings, says, "Designers are using shapes that make you think of Gothic."
Don Erickson, Architectural Digest's arts and antiques editor, attributes the style's current popularity to the fact that this is a point in history when people are looking back, in what one writer called "fin de siecle panic." The December issue of the magazine features a lengthy article on Gothic Revival antiques titled "New Interest in an Age-Old Style."
The current interest sparked the publication last month of two new books worthy of note. Megan Aldrich's "Gothic Revival" (Phaidon) is a handsome, richly illustrated coffee-table book on the subject. And James Massey and Shirley Maxwell have written a charming small-format reference book, "Gothic Revival" (Abbeyville Press).
To some, Gothic Revival design looks too "churchy," not surprising since the shapes -- spires, pointed arches, tracery -- are inspired by the architecture of great cathedrals. But that may also be one of the reasons for its appeal, if it's not too far-fetched to connect it to a reawakened spirituality as the millennium wanes. (Witness the current fascination with angels, gargoyles, celestial motifs and New Age-ism.)
Many modern reinterpretations play down Gothic's ecclesiastical elements, but not Cher's Sanctuary catalog. It's filled with liturgical designs: tiles and chocolate boxes inspired by carved church panels, crosses of all sorts (she collects them), candle and incense holders, angels.
You might not want whole rooms filled with furnishings from Sanctuary. Even Cher admits that. "A little bit [of Gothic] goes a long way," she says. "You have to know what you're doing with it."
Designer Stiles Colwill, former head of the Maryland Historical Society, agrees. "It's a little heavy for a lot of people, but I love the shapes. I love the intricacy [of the detailing]. It's about as intricate as you can get."
In his home he has Gothic molding, an early Gothic Revival mantel, antique Gothic Revival chairs and a Gothic-inspired dressing table. The furniture can blend well with other English period styles but works best, perhaps, when used in "minimal interiors," as Architectural Digest's Don Erickson suggests. "One or two pieces of Gothic furniture can transform a room."
*
Sanctuary is hardly a Pottery Barn clone, but Cher would, she says, "like to bring people things that are mysterious and opulent at a good price." To get a copy of the catalog, call (800) 726-2882.