Dial-a-Decorator Offers Callers Instant Advice

Dial-a-decorator has reached Architectural Digest, the self-described “premier international magazine of fine interior design.”

The Los Angeles-based magazine has introduced a 900 telephone number offering callers decorating tips from America’s top-echelon designers for $4 a pop.

What callers will get is a two-minute recording of the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Paige Rense, giving an interpretation of a designer’s ideas.

The first of the weekly messages featured Mark Hampton’s views on decorating a 125-year-old country house in the South.

Through Rense, the listener learned that rooms with no architectural distinction can be improved by using lots of furniture and that people should “have complete faith in a few wonderful fabrics” instead of bunching a lot of different ones together. She also gives an address to contact the designer.

The objective of the phone service is to “bring our reader closer,” said Rense. The number is 1-(900) 230-0000.