Garnish: micro-decorating move #25

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Why garnish? The maraschino cherry on your ice cream sundae might be set aside uneaten. The wedge of lime on the rim of your cocktail might be briskly removed unsqueezed. Still, these extras add visual tastiness. They say that a bit more effort is absolutely worth it.

Although associated with food and drink, garnishing is something we do in many places and many rooms. Think of the extra pillows that make a bed look inviting:

They'll be subtracted when it comes to actual sleeping, but in the meantime they succinctly convey the pleasures of rest.

Garnishing means turning the purely functional into a moment of artistry – like replacing nondescript shoelaces with look-at-me strands of colour. This item in the Acne Studios shop takes it up a notch by turning such shoes into garnish for a sweater:

The fact that one lace is tied and the other isn't adds another level of embellishment.

December is when garnishing peaks, as this Mutts comic strip from this past weekend reminds us:

In a world of the hasty and the haphazard...

...adding a sign of care, however small, commands attention:

Living a few blocks from Holt Renfrew, I'm fortunate to witness garnishing in its haute couture version. In recent weeks, I saw decorative planters come to life element by element. Once the assembly crews added sprays of wavy white branches, I was convinced they were done. Then, a follow-up treatment involved attaching clusters of red ornaments to those branches:

These ornaments are quintessential garnishing – surplus and somehow necessary at the same time:

And like all holiday trappings, they look best at night:

Garnishing is a quick way to make a corner of your home go from seemingly random to intentional. Place a colourful object on top of a teetering stack of books, and all at once it feels considered:

The magic of garnish is that you can take it from being a half-noticed movie extra to having a starring role. Gypsophila, better known as baby's breath, usually appears as filler in bouquets, but give it centre stage and it shines:

So this holiday season, see how garnishing can make your environment feel festive. Small touches will do, but the garnishing-gone-wild approach of this New Yorker cover is always an option:

As you hear the usual entreaties to "deck the halls" and "hang a shining star upon the highest bough," you can translate them into the bluntest of commands: Go garnish.

In case you missed it

Two weeks ago, we toured an exhibition of vintage shopping bags at the Toronto Reference Library, on until January 11. Check out the show if you can, it's delightful. And if you do, revel in how retailers once garnished our purchases with such verve:

Thank you for reading.