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When Brynn Whitfield was living in her cozy one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, getting dressed was sort of like going to one of her Barry’s Bootcamp classes. Anytime she wanted a pair of heels, she’d have to scale up a ladder leading to the lofted storage space over her bedroom door. If she wanted a sweater? She’d probably have to crawl underneath the bed and sift through a few bins (or potentially trek to her Manhattan Mini Storage unit). Those days are gone. Because, in case you missed it, The Real Housewives of New York star recently moved into a much larger space, one outfitted with a walk-in closet that can actually hold her stuff.
But before she could fill up her new closet with her wardrobe, Whitfield had an important upgrade to make: paint. “My journey to get to the color was bumpy, to say the least,” she tells Domino. First, she had the built-ins painted in an orange lacquer finish. The idea was that the space would read as Hermès inspired, but in reality “it looked like a pumpkin patch,” she admits. She quickly pivoted to a Prada-esque mint green, but that turned out to be a hot mess, too. “At this point, I hired a painter off Craigslist and went huffing and puffing to Farrow & Ball on 22nd Street,” she recalls.
Whitfield is no stranger to the British brand’s colors. She painted both the kitchen in her old apartment and the bedroom in her new place Sulking Room Pink. As she browsed the fan deck, she found herself drawn to a color she had seen her friend Jason Saft recently use: Brinjal, a reddish eggplant hue. “I thought I’d give it a shot, too, because his came out beautifully. Also at Starbucks, they usually misspell my name as ‘Brin,’ so I thought it was meant to be,” she says with a laugh.
Brinjal, Farrow & Ball
Shop NowOnce the color was decided, Whitfield was strategic about which finishes she used where. On the wood cabinets, ceiling, and trim, she opted for the company’s Full Gloss treatment. Meanwhile, she had the walls done in a Dead Flat (or matte) finish. “The most surprising and delightful thing about Brinjal is how the color looks so different between the two finishes,” she shares. “It still looks beautiful and matches but [there are] more reddish undertones in Full Gloss and more deep purple on the Dead Flat.”
More Recent Brinjal Sightings
Whitfield isn’t the only one who has become smitten with the moody hue. Lately, we’ve been spotting it in all types of projects. Marie Cloud, the Charlotte, North Carolina–based interior designer behind Indigo Pruitt, drenched a whole home movie theater in Brinjal for the 2023 Southeastern Designer Showhouse in Atlanta. The merlot-tinged color made sense in a space she envisioned people gathering with a glass of wine. Plus “when you use jewel tones, it adds a sense of ease to your body,” she says.
The paint color is also DIY-friendly. Ryia Jose showed us as much when she renovated the bathroom in her Houston home and swathed the chair-rail molding in the color. At first, she was nervous the dark shade would make the tight, windowless space feel smaller, but in reality it added depth.
It only seems like yesterday that Farrow & Ball’s Dead Salmon was everywhere: in laundry rooms, kitchens, playrooms. Oh, how the color wheel has turned.