Last week, I, along with many other people on the internet, spent my lunch hour window-shopping the gallery of Joan Didion’s estate auction on Stair Galleries. The sale features some of the beloved author’s possessions from both her California and New York homes, with prices currently ranging from $175 to $25,000 (and surely increasing as the bidding continues). While some perused with the intent to buy, I think most of us (or maybe just me) gladly took this as an opportunity to press our noses up to our screens to get a glimpse of the real Joan.
The Celine sunglasses. The personally drawn portrait by Les Johnson. The mother-daughter photograph shot by Annie Liebovitz. The elegant dinnerware and flatware. The original pieces of artwork, extensive library of books, and collection of blank notebooks. Not only was it representative of a life I’ve wished I could copy and paste as my own, but it told the story of someone who’d lived to the fullest, and it was bolstering to get just a peek at that.
While I’m not in an income bracket that affords me $400 to spare on a set of four books—much less $8,500 on a Richard Serra painting—I do enjoy the challenge of finding a good dupe. So, here are 11 products pulled from Joan Didion’s auction to help channel your inner literary icon.
Of course, a lot of pieces in the Joan Didion estate sale are either one-of-a-kind items or rare pieces that you’d have a tough time coming by today. But some of the pieces are still currently in retail, like the well-loved cookware from her Le Creuset set. While you unfortunately won’t find anything that shows the same nicks, dings, and wear courtesy of Didion herself, Le Creuset still sells cookware sets like Didion’s and in the same burnt orange color.
Wood goblets don’t just belong in Medieval times—they were also in Joan Didion’s house and they can be in yours too. Plus, they’re a lot sturdier than a typical wine glass.
Crystal glass decanters are a must for any bar cart or dining room tabletop, and sometimes even decanters need their own personalized accessories as well. Take a page out of Didion’s book and add tags to your bottles to help identify which spirits are which, and to add an extra character to your glassware collection.
You can never have too many pastel-hued accent platters, bowls, vases, and trays, and evidently, Didion was inclined to agree.
Didion spent the first 22 years of her life in her native California, then bounced back and forth from each coast for a bit during her adult life. The sunny state informed much of her work and the decor in her chillier Manhattan home. This rattan throne-esque armchair possesses a timeless bohemian-coastal vibe that has just as much of a place in 2022 as it did for Didion when she moved into the apartment in the ’80s.
Everyone needs an intricate gold mirror in their home. Bonus points if it can give the same regal vibe as this one from 1stDibs.
Regular old candleholders are fun, but what about candelabras? Let’s bring those back. I want to wear my flowing white nightgown and walk through the halls of my home holding one of these babies aloft to light my way. (Or you can be normal and use it for Friendsgiving and other nice dinner parties.)
It’s always “minimalist ceramic plates” this, “solid-colored melamine bowls” that. Personally, I want a return to the days when part of your coming of age meant getting gifted a set of insanely intricately patterned dinnerware, and the colors and prints on Didion’s porcelain medallion set are making me yearn for it even more. So, for any family member or friend of mine currently reading this, I’d like to flag these salad plates from Williams-Sonoma for holiday gift consideration.
Similar to dinnerware sets, cloth dinner napkins to me are a marker of sophistication and adulthood. Of course, Didion epitomized both those things and shouldn’t we all aspire to those heights? Sure, they’re a bit high-maintenance and require washing. But Didion has inspired me to destigmatize the frivolousness of cloth napkins, and I’m starting with this damask set from Bloomingdales.
The classic and clean design of this marble table means there are many others that look similar to it, making it an especially accessible Didion-inspired furniture piece. Though this option from Pottery Barn features a different shape, it has the same chic Parisian café vibe.
Hanging Storage Baskets
At least once a spring cleaning season, interior design lovers and organization fanatics share images of Didion’s hanging produce baskets documented by Vogue for a feature in 1972. Though they’re not available for auction, I’d be remiss not to offer an option for recreating the look in your own home. Now these aren’t your average three-tiered hanging baskets. The ones in Didion’s home hung individually from beneath the cabinet and could stack on top of each other using little hooks to help optimize a small space (we love a resourceful queen). They were also made of a clean wire, so the storage tactic didn’t feel like an eyesore. Though these copper wire baskets from Wayfair aren’t stackable and don’t fix directly to your cabinets, they’re compact enough that you can layer them on top of each other when hanging or spread them out.