For someone with very little going on, I still wake in the hours just before dawn with a mind racing with a hundred niggling things to do, to see to, to settle and to clean. Most recently the names of Dark Academia color palettes have jostled me from my sleep–Turkish Coffee, Essex Green, Urbane Bronze, Vintage Vogue.

Dark Academia is the antidote to all that white/grey/is it some kind of blue/phase we are coming out of. For ten solid years I couldn’t buy furniture, could barely purchase pillows and the like because everything on offer was cool and gray and, to my eye, antiseptic–and none of it went with anything I already owned.

When Laura Ruth first came to my house to see about what we might do with the addition she uttered, maybe to herself but I heard it, “Well you aren’t afraid of color…”and I took it as a compliment, whether intended or not. Even with the addition, which is all scandi-like, the whites are warm, the oak floor stained nice and toasty, and beiges and tans and pale wheats are punctuated with black and white, and capped with dark bronzy ceilings and warm burnished brass.

And right now, I am sick to death of my bedroom, and so enter Dark Academia. Think of any study in any English manor house on any Masterpiece Theatre you have seen. Think of riding to the hounds, the inner sanctum of an Oxford don’s office. Think of rich browns, greens so green they are black, and jewel tones so revved up they are no longer jewel tones, but something deeper, sootier, darker.

Tweeds, velvets, elbow patches, Wellies by the door sitting next to the Irish Setter.

And yet, a quick search for Dark Academia colors will also include some warm whites, one of which I am happy to say is the wall color of my sitting room and pantralarium. And let me recommend it to you now, as I have to everyone I know — Shoji White, thank you, Sherwin-Williams. A white that is warm, but not yellow, working in all lights and on lots of walls, no matter your decor.

But back to my bedroom. Mostly what I want is a new bed. And that will mean some rearranging, and its been awhile since I last painted, and, having a fear of missing out, I have been wracking my brains to figure out a way to use some of the dark colors I have been seeing. I have already made the commitment to do a black and white bathroom, but it just simply isn’t going to be enough.

Some of that moodiness is gonna have to spill over into that bedroom.
I can’t go full-throttle, with dark woodwork, dark ceiling. I have some restraint. But as it stands today, I am thinking a Turkish Coffee for the walls, and working some velvet in there somewhere. It is a fine line to walk, the one between masculine smoking room and bordello. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?

Much can be accomplished with unlacquered brass and those warm gold picture frames. Apparently, there are even rules to live by for those who wish to live the Dark Academia lifestyle. I ran across this gem of a list:

Wear vintage clothes, elegant accessories, emphasize sharp features with purely dark or light colors and jewel tones

Listen to jazz or classical music

Light candles

Stay ahead in school

Make ancient Roman or Greek food (?)

Have routines

Hang stuff up on your walls

READ.

Okay. Now, we can imagine the author of this list, and I see her, for surely I think it is an early adolescent girl, and my heart swells a little with her earnestness. The colors, the clothes, the attention to scholarly pursuits in her personal version of academia. But is there anything here to offend, to censure? I think not. Parents may have some rules about those candles, but if the advice is to make a warm and cozy place to burrow into and dream and think, and especially the all caps, READ, she pretty much nails it.

I write this on the rainy morning after the harvest moon, and I am an autumn and winter girl at heart. So, bring on that Dark Academia. I have jazz stations on my phone, and candles, and ton of books I need to READ.