recent Missoni nuptials: a heels off  feel good factor.

I love the ample ceremony of it, the feeling of ancient  rites weaving their way down through the generations as we tear the bread and pass the butter wine.  Food is something that can be transformed from fuel into the sublime, etched into our memories.

So ‘sharing the love’ from BC to New Age, via rural idylls, cosy fireside and urban trough.  Let’s eat.

well maybe let’s start with an aperitif…

after that there’s the table

I might consider changing my name to Mary to dine with John Derian …

during these summer evenings, fresh and vibrant feels good, in fact, think I might have to get that tiered-wotsit –  for sharing, sharing, sharing.

table-wise

wood feels good

lots of it, feels even better (thank you Pinterest)

Indoors,  ancient polished farm house tables whisper of carved ham and orchard apples…

or maybe  artichokes? Shared… the thrill of reaching the heart, the glorious mess, the finger licking.

I have never attempted oysters, but I should:

or maybe  just slice and share the view

the point is an idyllic setting, an inviting table, raises the spirits even before you take your seat.

I would suffice with talking to my neighbour here.

walk through that arch.

make daisy chains…

join the cricket team, 

oh I can’t join Reg and the boys, alright MAKE the tea.  To be at the table.

At home, I must admit I love that twilight moment before guests arrive, when the work is done, and you lay the table.

 whatever you choose

vintage charm

or pared back simplicity

be it  breakfast

treats

or a candlelit feast (complete)

I will invite  friends, make time for loved ones (if only Vogue Living did catering)

And relax, because that’s the thing, it should feel effortless and son no. 1 looks happy enough

and I like the idea that as the plate is finished, the love is spread.

Invites in the post.

Images from William Yeoward’s  perfectly  Perfect Tables, Pinterest, Vogue Living  and Your All Invited  by Margot Henderson.

Shall we open a bottle?

Oh just a glass…

Oooh Champagne!

or champagne cocktail in this case

However you arrive at the big reveal, having a bar at home is pretty slick – and they used to be pretty naff.  Remember? endless trophy pictures of the man of the house and bar stools you might slide off.  These  days inspiration for the home bar comes less from the local pub and more from the glamorous associations of the luxury hotel, 20′s cocktails and/or Mad Men: Eras of Elegance.  Well I love a drinks table, they convey conviviality - Miles Redd’s in particular (as we know), but a bar, hmm.  While I don’t fancy a ‘bar’ (complete with stools) a drinks cabinet which opens up to reveal a surprise inside, I could deffinitely do.  The mid century ones are my favourites:

This one is currently on 1st Dibs a multi faceted sphere designed by Ico Parisi

You’d be keeping good company an identical one was sold as part of the Bill Blass collection at Sothebys in 2003. Also a sphere adds another dimension to an interior, breaking up all those straight lines and right angles.

I nearly bought this one before Christmas, 1930′s Paolo Buffa, but felt it might be a little O.T.T. chez Cotswolds…

Of course it’s always the one that got away that stays with you, I fell in love with an ebony one, where the glass was etched with cocktail motifs and inside fish swam playfully, I wish I had got it…

Apologies as I wasn’t really photographing with this in mind at the time, but you get the picture – It was good.

But with country life beckoning I have changed my aesthetic to something a tad rougher, more elemental:

It really looks like it’s landed right?

The reveal.  Courtesy of  Restoration Hardware.

So where was I…

Fancy a beer?

Shall we open a bottle?

Oh just a glass… go on then.

Image credits from 1st Dibs,  me and Restoration Hardware you know the one’s who only deliver Stateside, back to the drawing board.

is best friend with Min Hogg, legendary founder of WOI

was getting down with Tallulah Bankhead age 15 (in between Eton College term times)

was a stalwart companion of Diana Cooper née Manners

had reclusive star Greta Garbo over for breakfast

personally delivered  the last EVER photo shoot proofs to  a troubled Marilyn Monroe

absorbed hi-art in the fading light of the painters’ swirling brushes on an idyllic Cote d’Azur

lived in London as it started to swing (in fact started the swing)

moved to New York to really swing and worked at Vogue for Diana Vreeland

Lived in a ranch amongst cowboys and indians in Arizona

returned to London to become Decorator extraordinaire to the A list

oh and naturally ranks in GQ’s and Vanity Fair’s best dressed lists

whose life is it, that charges through the whose-who of the 20th century…

who? well the man who has it…. Haslam.  Lucky to be born gay in the right half of the century, lucky to be born beautiful, lucky to be supremely talented and extremely well connected. Charged by a childhood illness:  polio and  a 3 year paralysis, Haslan emerged to lived voraciously.  He’s a one off and pretty legendary himself at this stage.

Haslam looking dapper via ‘zimbio’

It seems appropriate then that his heart belongs to ‘quite simply the prettiest small house in the world‘ (his words).  The hunting lodge, equally beloved by its previous occupant John Fowler, has a worthy custodian. Fowler wrote: What I wanted here was something utterly unpretentious, very comfortable, with a veneer of elegance and informality, it could equally describe Haslam’s current atmosphere.

Fowler through an upstairs window

In London last week, copies of this book were everywhere and on the internet there’s been a steady flow of glowing reports for ‘Folly de Grandeur’. as the Foreward says: ‘not many small houses could live up to this level of forensic examination’ but Haslan’s can.  Min Hogg reviewed the book for WOI and explains: in many ways today’s resident is the epitome of fashionable, but in decoration he has long eschewed the latest fads; his style, his taste, his rooms evolve.  Haslam’s aesthetic is consummate, finely honed and confidently asserted.

Born in 1939 he grew up in a gloriously proportioned Baroque house, with appropriately beautiful interiors. He subsequently absorbed all the major decorative styles first hand: including  the vibrant fizz of Billy Baldwin and David Hicks.  He soaked up graphic design under Vreeland’s legendary eye  whilst prowling the Met studying imported European rooms: their scale, proportions and architectural details.  Free time –  well he hung out in the finest high society interiors Babe Paley, the Mellons, the Harlechs and the Agnellis. All the time observing, learning, absorbing.  All this is distilled and poured into his home, Folly de Grandeur invites you in for a full tour.

the romantic facade from 1720-40 which  evoked loved at first sight

Open up and the book is dedicated to Colette:

His right hand and creative director, Colette met Nicky through the house which she made the subject of her Masters theses  in 2003.  A shared passion for the building forged into friendship and working partnership: the power of walls.

The book presents the house in intimate detail, right down to illustrated floor plans.

A miniature house with a flower room, pantry and library ….gotta love it.

Haslam describes his style as hotchpotch, but only an individual of exquisite taste and knowledge could pull this off, everything goes because it passses through his super-refined lens.  It’s a glorious confidence aligned with sensitive sensibility: happily getting out the copydex and marker pen – whilst carefully respectful of walls that talk!

a false door which he added because he felt the  facade needed it, later research showed there had in fact previously been a door here.

the tiny staircase where Nicky ‘stuck down’ Fowler’s Mauny wallpaer  for years until faithfully replacing it, why? it works. Nicky advises: beef up the scale of wall coverings in small spaces.  The size creates an coup d’oiel pulling everything together whereas small patterns tend to simply trail away.  

I find it touching that several aspects of Fowler’s interior schemes remain.  Unlike many incoming residents, Haslam does not need to assert his ownership and taste, he has nothing to prove.

Fowler’s sitting room

Nicky’s sitting room, the walls in the sitting room were painted in oxblood with distemper
(‘research’ led Nicky to conclude this was exactly the same colour as 70′s fabric elastoplasts).

the entrance hall which also echoes Fowlers original design

Nicky cites the architectural elements as the source of his inspiration, ‘giving the rooms a structural form on which to base decorative forms‘.  What makes his decoration sing is his humour and charm projected into the decor, he constantly makes you look again –  strong visual harmony is consistently teased into something more exciting.

The heron’s  head disappearing, complemented by the facing heron’s on the mantlepiece. Go closer and…

the handwritten lampshades appear, while the panelled walls behind are actually a trompe l’oiel illusion.

It’s all in the details… as an English house should be, layered and sifted, casually and artfully arranged.

miniature fireside chair (with standout silk leopard skin velvet) under a gothic cupboard with an oak leaf fastening ‘exactly the kind of detail I find iressistable‘

the butterflies ‘appear to be attracted to the toile lamp shades‘.

the bowls precariously aligned over a chair, safe to sit? the bird taking off overhead advises you to possibly remain standing.

I love tôle, (french imitation lacquerware painted on tin) and this dahlia lamp is as impressive as it gets, indeed Haslam calls them ‘aggressive‘.

look closer and you can see where Haslam marbleised it up  one day with marker pen.  He also marbleises walls and ceiling to hide the cracks… cheap-chic.

his bedroom where Mauny strips applied in vertical stripes, visually heighten the room, curtain pelmets echo the ogee shape windows and a bed where ‘edging chintz in a solid colour is an essential touch‘.’

through the landing Haslam leads you with visually gay abandon…

 to a tiny uber-striped room, completed with saddler’s horse blanket as rug.

stripes of different size abound off set by solid red curtains

 a lone chair’s organic red foliage leading into the stripe

back downstairs and Haslam visual feast continues from surprising one-off pieces to collages of pattern and colour.

the  library has a ‘book’ table for newspaper clippings

‘I don’t believe in the accepted view that all materials have to match. I prefer to jumble up several different patterns, like a kaleidoscope.  The eye soon sorts out the various motifs and vivacity is replaced by calm.’

And of course Haslam decorates with friends:

from his mother’s portrait presiding over the drinks table offering ‘silent approval’ of evening drinks.

from dog to dog  and man to man …

to the crammed mantelpiece

friends’ paintings of the lodge

pencils ready by the ‘gifted’ phone.

.

joke lobster from an event beside Min Hogg’s sequinned card

oh and watch out as you turn the light off and leave the lodge

Because Haslam’s book really invites you to stay, to look again and listen.  Haslam’s style may not be yours but his knowledge and insight which light up this book transcend  styles and genres, Haslam has it.

All photos from ‘Folly de Grandeur‘, photography by Simon Upton, except images of John Fowler from ‘The Prince of Decorators’.

It’s been most distracting, I keep on encouraging the children to roll in the grass, you know, get down and  really roll, because it’s emerald green and  covered in daisies.  This is obviously followed by afternoon tea, in this case Moroccan Mint and my new spring treat, chocolate snaps.

I saw these on a TV show a while back,  scattered with pink peppercorns,  sugared rose petals and other mouth watering ingredients, they showed them snazzily wrapped in grease proof paper with grosgrain ribbon for gifting – but who can resist eating:

The recipe arrived properly (you know on printed matter, ready to go) via a Sunday Paper insert from Hugh whatsit-something.   He also suggests them as gifts but after we had scattered poppy seeds, cranberries, coconut and waited for the allotted (are they ready time) they were, you know, all gone. Spring treat. Highly recommended.

Spring images from Mount Usher Gardens.

Recipe in the link above, but really it is this easy… melt 200 gm Lindt-type chocolate, spread over parchment paper, scatter the dark with coconut and apricot or the white with poppy seeds and cranberries. Refrigerate and wait.

Possibly aided by random tea pot purchase .

So no worries then – this is not turning into a cooking column, Haslam next and his fantastic Folly ….

WOI descirbes it thus: Idealised scenes of Chinese rural life: tea and rice growing, the manufacture of porcelain and silk. Its populous panorama unfolds over four freshly coloured walls –  lobster-pink, bottle-glass green, the liquid blues of Ceylonese and Burmese sapphires, lavender and amethyst, and the soft recessive shades of warm toast.  Its surface has a tactile, chalky quality, occasionally scored by age.  But the overall impression is of pristineness. (that would be the Sleeping Beauty effect combined with fact it was painted to using costly mineral pigments).

It’s quite a find this wall paper with an incredible provenance, commissioned during a re-decoration overseen by Robert Adam with Thomas Chippendale supplying furniture and furnishings.  The present owners have re-united this scheme with the help of historic wallpaper expert Allyson McDermott who extended the paper by 20cm so it would fit its new location.  I like that  it was known as  the ‘India paper’, after the ‘shippers’,  the East India Company, the East being a loosely held geographical and cultural concept for the 18th Century Englishman.

Here it is re-united with the green japanned pieces created by Chippendale. Authentic Chinese design with European Chinoiserie.

The ho-ho bird (pheonix) stands guard over the commode

also beside the original ledger showing the hours taken to hang the wallpaper by Chippendale in 1769

What a view from the bed…

towards the green lacquer press

a little closer… I might even get out of bed …

But maybe I’d be too mesmerised by the panorama gently unfolding all around

the colours, the costumes, the rituals of daily life –  the ordinary – that is now so remote and was then so exotic.

So there it is in Leeds, West Yorkshire, freshly woken, invigorated even and ready to entertain.

Original article World of Interiors.

Written by MaMattew Dennison and photographed by Christopher Simon-Sykes.

Alexander McQueen

Swans, they are rather elegant aren’t they? beautiful in fact, as every girl whose read the Ugly Duckling knows.  The stuff of fairy tales and ancient myths.  Swans are devoted, mating for life.   One of Venus’s symbols is the swan, representing love, purity, grace and a duality: water and air, masculine and feminine.  There’s a lot  to draw on….and  from Ancient Rome to now ‘the swan’ has only become increasingly  multi-layered, her flight path echoing down the decorative time line.

In 1965 they found the Dunstable Swan Jewel:

A  livery badge from 1400 asserting the wearer’s loyalty to his liege, look closely and you can just see the crown collar.

In Medieval England several noble families claimed they were descendants of a legendary swan knight, who arrived (sword in hand)  naturally in a swan-drawn boat to rescue ‘the fair lady’.  An era when the Duchess of Gloucester’s  Westminster tomb was engraved with a swan and her will contained a treasured, precious book:  a so-called ‘swan romance’.

Fast forward to the Baroque when ‘berocca pearls’ were popular and here is a ‘swan’ jewel made in 1490 and now at the hermitage museum.

I am rather taken by the silver swan, an automata produced in the 18th century.  

As the music begins the swan glances about,  preens and then catching sight of a silver fish appears to bend, catch and swallow it.

But swans really came into thier own ‘decoratively’ in an era that was all about establishing power though symbolism.  ’Empire’ when parvenu Napoleon sought to assert his position through visual references to the powerful Roman emperors  and who chose the ‘bee’ as his personal insignia: a symbol of immortality and resurrection, specifically chosen by Napoleon to link his new Empire to the very origins of France.

Josephine: stylish, cultured, consort, wife, Empress, divorced, regime survivor made the swan her emblem.

Malmaison was her private home, its interiors remain intact with their  ever-present swan  motif: symbolic of her enduring love and grace. Josephine was laid aside by Napoleon in his quest for an heir and a dynasty, however after his fall from power she continued to represent France as a hostess for state occasions.  Enduring grace.

Josephine’s bedroom with swan motif at the centre of the circular rug and with wings raised on her bed post.

I am very taken with the Swan’s realistically produced in porcelain, and now sought after in 1st Dibs land.

Meissen and Sévres: tureens and/or lamps.

The 20th century has continued to celebrate swans from Art Nouveau through to Mid century design heroes, fairy tale fashion shoots  and beyond.

The Swans seem both to guard and invite you into: Old Swan House. Once inside, choose your seating:

a step forward into art deco elegance or a step  back to turn of the century charm:

I would take any seat under this Empire chandelier:

Upstairs, I don’t think many of us could make like Mae West in a swan bed:

but I would happily swivel on the mid century classic, the swan chair…

updated in playful 21st century pattern power.

 where I’d daydream over  Tim Walker’s ebullient imagination, recently the subject of an exhibition at Somerset House where the swan almost swam gracefully along…

Can’t quite see the water for the reeds? why not don a pair of swan glasses à la Man Ray’s widow- naturally a gift from Peggy Guggenheim:

and I would certainly enjoy sharing tea with  Nonagerian Mrs Hitchcock who lives in considerable style with her swan planters:

In fact after that I might rush home and  buy one from Rockett St George …

To keep ‘Delilah’ company who currently  glides over an ikat river.   (I think she should be a Christmas centre piece one year, but  let’s not get distracted)

No swan ode would be complete without the black swan?

Swan Lake’s powerful story transcends time and artistic re-invention: from Pavlova to Portman, beauty, darkness, tragedy in grace.

Pavlova’s costume

Portman in costume.

Let our Swan-Song return us to the beginning,  a duality the ancient myths encourage…

Alexander McQueen

 Swans immortal in their grace and beauty, inspiring man’s creativity and wonder. Ode complete.

Images: Tim Walker photographs, final shot Laetitia Casté by Mario Testino. Pinterest boards ‘Swan’, ‘Cygnet’ and ‘Automata’. World of Interiors. Fox pictures.

 *occasionally swans that have built a next are unable to proceed off spring, only then do they separate, nature’s way

Derian’s 1789  ship captain’s house in Cape Cod

John Derian is very particular, very precise and very creative.  The unerring path he has charted through vintage lands, paper worlds and crumbling houses feels enchanted: seemingly removed from the compromises and aspirations of modern culture whilst becoming both commercially successful and highly sought after.  Inspired by Victoriana through to, yes – you know it, curio cabinets and beyond. His découpage (produced by hand from his New York studio) is a cottage business gone global, his stores a curio treasure trove and place of pilgrimage for many …

Curio-wall in store

He has a true collector’s passion for 19th Century printed matter, images are chosen and ‘couped’ (cut) so they work all ways: mismatched collusion(above) en masse profusion (below).

Derian collaborates in store with a group of like minded creatives, including  Hugo Guinness whose pared back images draw the eye.  I love the  The Green Vase’s chic paper florals and Leanne Shapton’s  wooden ‘book’ boxes and books inspired by classic editions, which might sound familiar?

a profusion of paper flowers, porcelain, books and Hugo Guinness in store

His most famous partnership is with Astier de Villatte whose delicate white porcelain is in the chicest homes and which he transformed with a marbleised effect for their first collaboration.

Can’t reach his stores? go online, John Derian, once seen it’s just as it should be and impossibly quirky to dream up before.

humble utility goods to whimsical paper fancies

pouffess to ceramics and furniture enticing you in

Elle Decor featured his latest découpage concept this month, sure to cheer many a utility room or chic boudoir, the humble switch plate transformed:

I wonder if they’ll make it into John’s famously ‘made-under’ homes? Both Cape Cod and his East Side apartment are spaces where time has stood still,  barely changed since their original construction in 1780 and 1850 respectively.  He defines his approach thus: I wish I had spray dust or spray dirt in a can,. “I don’t want to lose the look of the place — I want that patina.”    The Cape Cod house has retained its peeling paint and faded wall papers whilst being re-wired and plumbed, quite an operation I imagine.

Loose arrangements of natural elements and books rest easy beside the wallpapers, painted boards, peeling paint and brickwork, all is soft harmony.

He left the 2 separate doors ‘dually’ leading into the dining room, which gives a trompe l’oeil effect to the  experience:

inside soft red toile du jouy and wallpaper whisper to each other.

An upstairs sitting room unpainted … untouched? no rewired etc…

vintage finds 

a sweet ‘Green Vase’ paper peony adding modern colour above a mass of foraged tumbleweed

complete with:

 ship’s captain.

the entrance –  well, you get it don’t know you –  he worked very hard with that spray dust can and twisted his contractor’s arm ‘DON’T touch the paintwork’.

Even in the kitchen… where a 19th century white wicker table holds accoutrements

the sleek splash of stainless steel his only 21st Century intrusion

Otherwise all is ‘as-was’, albeit in Derian’s inimitable style:

front bedroom

Hugo Guinness on the right next to a Cocteau-esque arrangement.

spare bedroom with a strikingly over-scaled crustacean statement

another one of 6 guest bedrooms

The portrait over sink, also spotted in his New York apartment.

for the nieces and nephews one assumes?  Who must run in and out from the beach with never a harsh word, this place is intended to be used –  for sandy feet, lazy lunches and happy sundowners, bags I get a sofa seat:

Watching John Derian being interviewed (below) he is humble, charming and obsessive.  Almost all of us yearn to stamp our personality, aspirations, ‘lifestyle’ upon our home.  In seeking to enable a house to talk, to stay true to it’s heritage and identity Derian creates a home aesthetic that is uniquely his and rather humbling. His particular path is one that I would like to walk along and when I get to NYC I will make the pilgrimage.

Images from ‘Annie Kelly’s Rooms to inspire by the Sea‘, you might also like ‘In Praise of the Pineapple II‘ for seaside houses.

Shop images from Bart Boehlert

marbleised product image from Astier de  Villatte

when I get to New York, this is a long time coming.

Walking around my eye is caught by all the details, the layers of love, the years of collecting, the patina of time –  that all make an English home.

These are the words on Jean Cocteau’s grave stone.  He makes a confident statement in death.

A contradiction? a truth? a creative legacy? a philosophical statement? a denial? an assertion? definitely a riddle .  Cocteau defies categorisation, the more I read about him the MORE  difficult he is to identify.  There are as many Cocteaus as there are biographies of him, writes one (of many) biographers.

A cultural polymath: poet, portraitist, painter, novelist, playwright, impresario, muralist, designer and pioneering film maker, he was a comet illuminating the 20th century beau monde of Paris, an enfant terrible  - toujours. His legacy is protected by 2 museums and a committee chaired by Pierre Bergé.

Cocteau asserts his place in the world: I am very French— Very, very French, his avant garde vision: He who sees further renders less of what he sees, however much he renders and his idiosyncracity, If my house were on fire what one thing would I rescue? the fire . 

He’s been floating in my my peripheral ’20th century’ vision, then last month’s WOI arrived, it’s cover stirred a visual memory.

I love tromp l’oiel, Olympia le Tan’s illustrator  father Pierre,  has helped decorate her bijou showroom-apartment.  Olympia’s clutch-books are highly sought after limited editions, inspired by  her passion for collecting rare books, and imaginative use of the embroidery techniques her granny taught her.

This season her ‘pin-up‘ inspired fashion collection bagged the centre window of Parisian store Colette.  Next AW13′s collection is inspired by Austrian Alpine Chic:  ‘Schnitzel with Noodles’, here leiderhosen meets Sound of Music via Betty Blue (mais oui!) presented at Paris’s Musée de la Chasse, which I have been fantasising about ever since I got Curio fever:

Anyway I digress, such are the myriad paths of the internet.  When really I should be sat down going through the back issues of WOI, which I have been… as it was here that I found the remembered image: Olympia’s big brother’s flat, well decoratively anyway, Jean Cocteau encore…

WOI featured Cocteau’s ‘entresol’ apartment in the Palais Royal,  its current owner a loving custodian who commissioned Pierre le Tan to create an homage to Cocteau.  A perfect choice: Pierre’s style  gracefully combining clean lines, a wry charm  and  subtle sophistication is strongly reminiscent of  Cocteau’s era of design.

close up: a section of the scheme.

an overcoat and key  outside Cocteau’s office.

Jean Desbordes, loved and lover of Cocteau.

Below the stairs is a TV area where a Dupré-Lafon bookcase and globe rest beneath Pierre le Tan’s night sky:

Here planets, stars and milky way are all named after Cocteau’s numerous works and artistic partners.

Jean Coctaeu’s former bedroom is now guarded by a Provencal caryatid:

While the new owner sleeps above the entresol, but beneath Cocteau in a padded silk bedroom on an André Arbus bed.

Facing him are a pair of bronzes by Vadim Androusov on a Marc du Plantier chest of drawers.

Appropriately the black-board door which guarded the entrance to Cocteau’s creative refuge is still waiting for his ghost to write down his appointments.

The Cocteau entresol and upper apartment are ‘star’ quality: the greatest ebénistes of the Ancien Regime rest easy beside the sophisticated elegance of the best mid century designers: from André Boulle to André Arbus.  The owner sounds their equal: visiting France as child prodigy aged 15 he devoured Balzac and gastronomy,  attended Yale, made a fortune on the stock exchange then returned to his first love: the Arts, reading History of Architecture  at Columbia and staying on as a teaching assistant, but with apartments in New York and of course …Paris.

The dining room contains Serge Roche’s  monumental ‘lion foot’ table which always astonishes me:

A white hen by George Jouves rests on it, lyre backed Louis XVI chairs surround it.

here it is in profile: it’s baroque form reminiscent of Cocteau’s  famous sets for le Belle and le Bête.

The owner’s research turned him into a collector of Cocteau’s possessions: a Victor Hugo drawing, collages,  portraits and most intimately a ‘lucky’ cardboard dice given to him by Picasso in 1917 which remained by Cocteau’s bedside all his life:

the die now rests against a mirror  created by Gilbert Poillerat in conjunction with André Arbus:

Which is apporpriate as Arbus created several mirrors for Cocteau’s films, where they served as the portals from which the living and dead could move between worlds.

Cocteau famously transposed the Greek tragedies, transforming them from classroom fodder back into timeless moral tales with avant garde pânache and mesmerising cinematic effects.

Orphee was filmed at Santo Sospir which Cocteau and Picasso decorated and Cocteau  later filmed.

But it is la Belle et la Bete which I love to watch:

those hands that famously lead you on (and inspired Beaton among so many others).

Encore? Well Olympia le Tan’s pitch-perfect pink confection feels appropriate. It’s kitsch heart stylishly spliced by  Pierre Le Tan skill this time in honour of Olympia and her creative vision.

Here the mirrors aren’t meant to offer a true reflection.

The wall a surreal canvas of Olympia’s inspiration, creations and brand imagery.

Olympia herself forms the wall sconce holder and the wall behind is patterned in her trademark.

Olympia Caryatid-style supporting the clothing rails.

Victoriana chartreuse chair, Pierre Le Tan mirror and Olympia’s SS13 collection.

SS13 fabrics complete with Cocteau dice?

Bookshelves filled with Olympia’s ‘book’ collection.

Who knows if Olympia is inspired by Cocteau, but all 21st century creatives owe him a debt, he looked beyond the present, transformed the past and held aloft an arc light to illuminate the path we tread. I think he would be both amused and impressed by Olympia’s latest project, a short film  (which took 5 painstaking months to complete) … Mourir auprès de toi – To Die with you by my side. Or maybe, why not? Je reste avec vous.

Credits:

Apartment images: The World of Interiors.

Olympia le Tan AW13 images  ’La Parisienne’

Olympia clutch book montage, It’s a Style Fix, blog.

Cocteau –  various.

Film: Pierre le Tan plays the book shop owner  shutting up shop, FYI.

Printed in 1934 by Parsons and Sons ‘Colour and Varnish makers since 1802‘ it offers ‘the notable colours of the past‘ with tantalising brief descriptions for each of its notable…

‘Colours of Eygpt’

Pompeian Colours’

‘Du Barry Colurs’

‘Treillage green’

and of course ‘Oriental Colours’….

I love a colour card! they remind me of textile development in India: pages of subtly graduated silk strands, myriad options. Colour cards are the world of possibility, arranged to tempt you. The World of Interiors featured another exhibition I wish I’d seen on exactly this subject…

The American Textile Association’s mid-century colour card,

A porcelain ‘hand painting’ colour-wheel:

or what about marbleised paper?

Tailor of Gloucester buttons:

lace trims to complement:

Seeing these individual components brings home how many choices the creative process involves: from the chosen inspirational starting point to a finished product and the marketing beyond. A room through to an entire home. Choices.

Collections and schemes weave themes and colours, with unexpected ‘stand out’ moments.

Anya Hindmarch caught my eye this week. Hand bag queen and mistress of witty -Brit- style, she’s taken inspiration from 18th Century England in her SS13 Pomp and Pleasure Collection.

Anya references aristocratic trend setters of the day from the fabled Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire to the Earl of Bathurst and their fashionable pleasures: trinket boxes, cartography, damask, passemementerie, cameos, Gainsborough, moiré silk, Gilray’s satire, Wedgewood and of course...Chinoiserie. Quite a cocktail when shaken with her 20th century fizz.

Georgiana painted by Gainsborough

Decoratively Georgian Britain is a spinning top going faster and faster, holding all the strands and influences of the baroque, rococo and classical design together, culminating in a final ‘Regency’ hurrah, before finally spinning out of control … into Victoriana.

Anya cherry picks her references and colour palette for 21st century fashion-fun. Her accompanying catalogue is beautiful. It creates extraordinary ‘through the looking glass’ vignettes of 18th Century style: motifs, curios and collectables in highly curated alignment.

It reminded me of notable oriental colours of the past. It brought home how this colour palette has been become absorbed into our national style, we forget how exotic they were, how precious, how fashionable.

So the Colours of the Orient via Pomp and Ceremony.

Chinoiserie boxes, boxed butterflies, delicate marquetry work, exotic woods, Chinese crackle glazed porcelain, courting lovers and strolling country gents – a feast for the eyes.

Yellow was the colour of the Imperial family in china, a light shade, which they describe as the colour of ‘dried bones’, shown here with the delicate shades of ‘Sung’ porcelain made around 1000 AD.

Mazarine Blue (made from cobalt powder)was primarily used with gold scroll work, The Tang Yellow was originally made with iron salts. Anya surround hers with a mix 18th Century ephemera and hi-tech: ostrich eggs and binoculars, ivory globes, marbleised paper, pearls and boxes. All set off by deep blues and buffs.

Then a striking ode to Wedgwood, chinoiserie, the classical and the ornate all in her jigsaw alignment.

Those blues …

Leding into colours which were named by the handful of French Catholic missionaries who exclusively gained access to China in the 15th and 16th Century: Celadon, Claire de Lune, Rouge de Fer etc.

all of which made me swoon rather…

And wonder… which one to choose? the time-piece ‘Duke’ clutch below surrounded by admirers? definitely a future heirloom.

Our choices frequently have more historic influences at work than we consciously credit: I love the heritage jigsaw and ‘stand out’ product moments woven together in Pomp and Pleasure how chinoiserie whispers between the pages or in this case the handbags.

Images from Anya Hindmarch ss13 catalogue, ‘A tint book of Historical Colours’ and WOI feature on vintage product cards exhibition .