ARCHIVE 2001 | Fawn Gehweiler

My Melody Lives in Brooklyn By Mandana Towhidy (2001)

When comic book illustrator/Undergirl designer Fawn Gehweiler moved into her spacious Brooklyn warehouse room, she fell in love with it. "It's super exciting because my room alone is twice as big as some of the average studio apartments in New York City," she says, "but, it also needed a serious makeover, and of course, a great color scheme." What she says it needed most was a theme!

At first, Fawn thought she'd stick to the room's 'original roots' as a Chinese restaurant (which it had been) with high-gloss red paint on the floor and ceiling, a sea of paper lanterns, and fortune cookie fortunes everywhere. "'Cause I'm obsessed with fortune cookie fortunes!" she gleefully admits.

But the slender, aqua-eyed illustrator moved onto her Swiss-Miss Manor, which was inspired by the "crazy-chocolate-brown-faux-woodgrain paneling on all four walls" that she wouldn't even think of tearing down. Fawn imagined a 1970s ski lodge, including white shag rugs, modern Danish furniture, and even a hot cocoa machine. The idea sounded tasty, but something even sweeter was about to come to mind.

"I would decorate it so it looked like Strawberry Shortcake's house with lots of pink and red and gingham, felt tulips on the walls and giant strawberry shaped beanbags...lime green trim and strings and strings of fairy lights!" she says.

Fawn was off to the paint store where she looked for colors that would match the color scheme she craved: apple tart, citronella, candy lime, in-the-pink, cherry splash, cotton candy, strawberry crush, and pink tiger. "These were the best names I've ever heard in my life, so I knew it was meant to be!" she says.

First, she applied a super high-gloss pink on the floor. Next, Fawn brushed the ceiling with a pastel cotton candy pink and lime green trim. But, the lime left a nasty taste on her pallet. "No sooner than I started to hang up the strawberry-shaped Christmas lights and deciding whether or not I should amass a collection of overpriced Strawberry Shortcake dolls on eBay, I decided I hated it," she says. Really, she just hated the bright green trim. Even though it had looked great in a kitchen she had done a while back, it stuck out like a nasty thorn in her strawberry patch.

So one day Fawn, bespectacled and bobbed, made one slight change and fell instantly into another theme. With one creamy coat of fresh white paint over the green trim, it looked delicious. Except now it didn't look as much like Strawberry Shortcake's house. She thought, "At least it could be Strawberry Shortcake's neighbor's house, or home to a small furry woodland creature, or better yet, My Melody's house!" Which is how Fawn refers to it today. The theme still holds - the strawberry beanbags, the gingham, the pink, pink, pink. And, Fawn is a hyper-obsessed collector of the Sanrio bunny.

But, with the coming New York winter, the Swiss lodge might be cozy. Anyone for cocoa with mini marshmallows?

Recipe for "Chez My Melody"

lots of pink candy-colored paint

lots of strawberry anything

lots of gingham

fabric (especially on the bed and the windows)

little white bunnies that wear red or pink hoods

fake green vines

The graphics are some of Fawn's new design work! Check out her website, link below.

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Mandana Towhidy was a freelance writer at withitgirl who wishes she lived in Fawn's house. She is the author of the novel ARCADIA (2013) is populated by rockers, Deadheads, misfits, skinheads, Goths, surfers, preppies, cheerleaders, and jocks, is a Fast Times at Ridgemont High for the Metal years. Article in Vice Magazine

Fawn's Current Website and Insta

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