The very first fabric I ever bought was from Celia Birtwell, I vaguely appreciated it was Celia I had the long chat with – as I mooned over fabled creatures, princesses, stars and stripes whilst upending the entire basket of remnants.  The upshot was my kitchen chairs had tobacco-striped silk seats with gold animals (yes it was impractical), my  entrance hall’s ‘remember me’ notice board was covered in a  gilt trellis design and that my bedroom still has a magical lampshade in Celia’s coral silk, with prancing unicorns.

So I was rather sad when I received ‘A little Bird’s‘ email about her closing down sale (her business is going on-line-only), it’s the end of an era. Celia  has been part of Notting Hill since her fashion print’s were the 60′s signature and her Notting Hill shop  is a charming reminder of when Bohemia, rather than bankers, ruled the Grove.  Intrigued I bought her book, A Life in Print,  which is a visual feast and read her journey from Salford to British Institution, complete with CBE.

Clockwise from top left: The lampshade in my bedroom, Celia is her cuter-than-cute shop, the ‘jacobean collection’, a chair developed with an American partner Suzan Fellman, fabric samples including Orphee, the trellis design botton left, also on chair  and lampshades.

Witty, charming, girlish but never sugary, pretty but never twee –  it’s quite a feat to walk that design tightrope and Celia specialises in it.

Celia started her home collection in the early 80′s, she felt “the fashion prints were all transience and change, whereas home fabrics evolve more gradually.” Alot of fashion women make this shift, as – just like Celia, they realise the slower pace and enduring nature of home products is more conducive to family life. It’s interesting how  a different lens is required: “I could visualise how a fashion fabric would look when I drew it on a figure, but it somehow wasn’t possible to convey how a home fabric would look by drawing it, say, on a sofa”.

Like many of the best british designers the V and A is a huge source of inspiration: Jacobean embroidery, Medieval tapestries, Victorian excess – each analysed,  spawning families of designs – I love the name “Beasties” for a Jacobean-inspired animal design, other family members include the ‘Birds and the Bees’ and ‘Little Animals’.

Reading the book, you can see her interests soaked up into the design process: the very english nature of these  creates that highly prized  ’British-with-a-twist’:  her love of animals, scented gardens,  cottage flowers, regency stripes, Victoriana  - even the local notting hill carnival have all been worked into her designs. Her femininity is also strongly reflected: Snow White is re-cast as ‘Mademoiselle’, scattered classical stars, overflowing baskets of flowers. She creates prints which feel nostalgic and warm the soul.

Her latest prints include Birdsong, Gloriana and Bric a Brac - Inspired by a piece of 18th century needlework vigorously re-awakened.

Many have a complicated genus: reflecting her broad knowedge of and and passion for the decorative arts. My favourite is her 1997 collection ‘Imagine’. Orphee below is inspired by neo-classical motifs: laurel leaves, lyres, horses heads but seen through the 20th C sur-realist eye, particularly Jean Cocteau’s 1950 film of this name, a re-interpretation of the greek legend of Orpheus.

This layering within the design process is what produces a unique final product. Designer Philip Prowse observes that designers usually reference one inspirational source, to aid the customer.  Celia “is interested in history but takes it through her own visual grid…her designs are not literal. Take Orphee”. This is what makes Celia stand out, Manolo Blahnik describes her as the best print designer of her generation.

This partly explains her extra-ordinary friendship with David Hockney, she is often cast as his muse. He says: “She’s good to go round galleries with, she really looks at pictures, she’s got a very good eye”. Somehow fitting then that the Tates best-selling post card, and one the nation’s ’10 favourite paintings’ is Hockney’s ‘Mr and and Mrs Clark and Percy” (real name Blanche).

I was fascinated to read that Hockney painted them virtually life-size,  to give them a real presence, and challenged himself by making the light source central to the painting.  Critics have decided it reflects the gender shift of the 1970′s, Celia standing in an assertive pose, to her husbands seated figure. Hockney  explains he was looking to do a series of  modern van Eyck or Hogarth type paintings of couples he knew, and that in the Clark house: Celia was the one always up on her feet. Hockney had moved past  gender stereo-typing to looking firmly into the individuals themselves. He set the space up to reflect their interests, note the Victoriana lamp amidst the modern boho-grooviness, Celia’s childhood obsession with Victoriana has never left her.

clockwise from top right: Celia is re-drawn for Hockney’s Paris Vogue, Celia and Hockney in Paris, sketches of Celia.

Hockney’s story of how and why they became so close is a testament to true friendship: the ties of a shared youth, lost loves, long lunches and consuming passions. Hockney brought Celia to California for several years after Osssie imploded and shared his life.

Celia is clearly an enchanting woman, she is gloriously soft and sexy below (gotta love a girl on a swing – right?) Her youth was part of a brave new bo-ho world.  Cecil Beaton was so taken with the bright young things, he invited them too Reddish House, they were fashionably late – centre right sees them strolling along, Hockney and Ossie to the rear. Elderly Cecil was peeved, but still took the charming picture, bottom right.

clockwise from left: Celia holidaying in St Tropez, a long lunch in France, with Cecil and arriving,  and finally a teenage sketch she did of her with her sisters.

Like Cecil’s own era, there were victims when the lights finally came on and Ossie Clark’s descent was absolute.  Celia threw her lot in with him, against friends advise,  superlative highs and extreme lows followed. Celia says that she helped curate  a 1999 show about her late husband’s work to enables her sons to be proud of him, if it didn’t – then one hopes that the 2003 retrospective at the V and A  achieved this. Not many Dad’s get that honour.  Ossie created the trouser suit pre YSL, Galliano’s 30′s bias cutting before Galliano, he was a master of fabric and femininity. Celia and Ossie were the 60′s dream team and their work is still in high demand, from cult vintage pieces  to  the mainstream –  via Topshop and now John Lewis.

Clockwise from top left: Bianca’s white trouser suit and evening dress were by Ossie, a fashion show invite, Patti Boyd, Kate Moss in Topshop’s Celia Collection 2006, Jane Birkin in the iconic Mystic Daisy (also shown separately) fluid, floral and geometric –  a perfect hit.

It seems fitting to end where it all began, Celia’s fashion prints, where she could imagine every drape and curve were famously sketched from the face down: if she was  happy with her muses face – she would draw the dress. There’s a real journey in this exquisite body of work  from Leon Bakst, via Poinitillism to Tulip-mania, all seen through the Celia’s kaleidoscopic lens.

top row: fashion sketches,   bottom row: a sketch with indicative figures for scaling up, a fashion sketch laid over  her fabric design and the final print, flowers fluttering on chiffon.

Reviewing Celia’s life and work, I  fell in love with her prints all over again.   Her designs are so charming, her vision transportive: I want to curl up in her sur-realist rose garden where the mythical creatures roam and the classical stars shine up above, preferably in floaty chiffon, glass in hand, birds singing.

Provence glows in my mind I have visited it whilst growing up with my family and now en ‘grand famille’ – including ‘chien’. We have our favourite spots, restaurants, shops, markets and memories, layered over time.  During the  past weeks southern heat has entered my bones and inertia lulled the brain, floatin’ along, leisurely lapping it all up. (Read: too hot to type)

Yesterday we went to Menerbes, Peter Mayle’s village, made so famous by his books that he had to flee the barbarians at the gate – literally.  Nowadays Menerbes is tranquil once more, sadly a tad-twee, but that’s life, at least no coach park.

On our return I picked up a book I had brought: Van Day Truex, The Man Who Defined 20th Century Taste and Style. Glancing through – there it was ‘Menerbes’, I sat up, I sat down and read it all.  Van day Truex was a Francophile par excellence (awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur) he made his home here, not once – no – 3 times, refining his Provencal statement each time.  His Provencal homes, reflect his philosophy: good design is forever.

Truex to the right in Provence  (he reached the ‘International Hall of Fame’ in 1974 as one of the Best Dressed men in the world)

He is a design legend, NY Times described him ‘as the arbiter of American taste’, this ‘terroir’ extends to the Luberon, Provence.

Hubert de Givenchy (possibly the chicest French man ever) gave his unstinting approval: “I admired everything that Van had done. The house was, first of all, an honest house. Extremely modest, it had a monastic quality. The bare-bone details embodied style and sophistication. It was so remarkably pure that it made me want to go home and eliminate the unnecessary things from my own house.  If I had to think of one word to describe Van’s taste I would say it was cashmere.  The finest and rarest cashmere. Being in the fashion business, I offer this as my highest praise.”

Truex discovered Provence in 1930,  little changed there between 1930 and  1960, despite a world war.

Van had though – from Parson’s School  protegé in Paris to THE Creative Director who made Tiffany. The picture above is the very first and last sculptures he purchased. ( 1925, a working cast commissioned by Queen Victoria, 1979  Naexa-Alkyard by Dougles Abdel – if your interested)  These perfectly reflect his aesthetic journey, an early dedication to the decorative arts (read: encylopeadic knowledge) tempered by 30′s modernism, particularly Jean Michel Frank, into his own distinct style.

His vision forged America’s signature modern-luxe: sophisticated, pared back and bold. Oh yes-  him and Billy Baldwin ‘The Dean’  got on a treat, Billy advised not to go into interiors directly as the necessary compromises would kill him.

Truex sketching at Aix en Provence 1930

The first house Van bought  in 1962 was an 18th C gem in Gordes, naive about the real costs of transforming this (in line with the French regulations for  historic building works)  meant he had  sell it.

He re-located to a village outside the ‘regulation’ area Gargas, Chaumet restoring a deserted farmhouse, working to his own designs with local craftsmen. John Hill photographed Chaumet in 1969, he remembered:

‘The innate sense of style evident in every detail, Truex maintained in a modern renovation the inherent simplicity of a rustic 18th-Century farmhouse. Unadorned native stone in the basic construction, unglazed terracotta for all the floors.’

‘Decorating choices: simple bamboo furniture made in a neighbouring town, lamps converted from old wine bottles (aubergine -not green), paper shades and modest fabrics: cotton and linen all  in monochromatic scheme, his (trademark) beige. A few decorative accessories were included, trompe l’oiel plates in the dining room from his Tiffany days, primitive African art and some ancient French farm implements in the living room. Outside an abundance of wild flowers.’                                                            (I have mildly truncated/accentuated it)

The sitting room

the bedroom

Van maintained an apartment in New York during this time:

His artwork fills the walls you can see a Provencal village, top right. (Personal design right?)

similiar works above.

Truex believed in going back to the source: primary documents if you will,  museums of the arts and natural history both delighted him, he abhorred the derivative and what he called ‘magazine sourcing’.     When designing his maxim was: Control, distil, edit.  But this doesn’t preclude playful  - his Tiffany ‘bamboo  flatware’ is still TOTALLY sought after, Truex studied nature’s design-sense. I also love his dinner service: Floral Amorial A heraldic crest featuring delicate flowers – his’n'hers: ‘For all the young couples who secretly wished they had an ancestral coat of arms, a lighthearted semblance of noble lienage.’ 

His tenure at Tiffanys included ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’, where his interior has survived at the New York flagship.  This includes Jean Michel Frank inspired chairs (below) and almost-beige mauve walls.  Commercially he excelled at taking 18th C  designs  and re-working them.  Personally he created award-winning designs that often pared back the object to its essential form e.g the carafe decanter.

 The Tiffany table setting  includes Wedgewood ‘drabware’, a Van ‘carafe’ decanter  (he preferred it with a simple cork), bamboo flatware, fish candlesticks (and a scatter of olives).  Which brings us back to Provence, I saw those fish in a village beside Menerbes, Bonnieux.

Provencal Inspiration? Maybe

Well finally,  he built his own house, designing every detail. I long to see MORE:  the architraves, hardware*, entrance – those details that define the user’s experience. I must be content with the central staircase:

The Nautilus design was inspired by Le Corbusier’s design for Charles dei Beistegui’s infamous Parisian apartment in the 1930′s. (I am also rather partial to the Bull’s head…)

The 1930′s inspiration

The Sitting Room

TRUEX STYLE RE-CAP:

‘The exterior and interior walls were finished in the same texture; the colour, if any, would be added to the plaster before application. Truex want no paint on any of the surfaces. The door and window lintels were to be cut from native stone with no superfluous detail. Floors natural-color glazed terracotta made by local potters. The teakwood trim left natural both internally and externally.  All bathroom fittings and kitchen WHITE.  Local furniture either bamboo or sturdy Provencal.  2 sets of dishes – one white, the other a bright safrron made from neighbouring Roussillon’s indigenous clay. Bedding – white, Table linens natural linen and brown. ‘ (Adam Lewis) The decorative accessories are as before – aubergine wine bottle lamps, african art etc.    GOT IT?

Van respects the locale – local architectural vernacular and materials – combining them with his aesthetic sensibilities: Truex-Provence.  You could apply his design rules NOW and have a great house. These days there’s alot of ‘Provencal-pretty’- rather less ‘True Provence’.

All images from Adam Lewis’s ‘Van Day Truex –  The man who defined 20th Century Style and Taste.

Except Besteigui’s staircase from ‘Baroque, Baroque’ by Stephen Calloway.

*Hardware – yes he won an award for that too.

On Sunday I woke up ’6 minutes’ from Foundation Maeght. We were there at 10 am sharp, opening.  Our visit was almost as quick, enfants in tow, chien in car.  In 2008 I saw the RA’s show ‘Aimé Maeght and His Artists’, it stuck: mythical names: Miró, Calder, Giacometti and Braque –  became poignant.

Foundation Maeght is a singular thing, as the RA puts it: Most great collections end up in the public domain by gift or by the creation of a specific museum. It is somewhat rarer for the gallery dealer to devote the fruits of their enterprise to the general good.  In creating the Foundation, the Maeghts celebrated their major artists but also ensured …contemporary art… would flourish in ideal surroundings.

Famille Maeght and many of their artists survived  World War II together: occupation, torture, profound loss. They  went on to shine a bright light into a raw new world.   The foundation opened in 1964: after the Pandora’s Box, Foundation Maeght is ‘Hope’.  The space is an extraordinary celebration of man’s creativity and nature’s wonder: dancing together.

High in the hills you enter a walled garden…

It unfurls, amidst  the high trees with secret places…

hidden surprises

and a strong welcome

Even the floor invites you in, asserting connectivity

and one day I might even get time inside with Chagall and co.

But some of us have to go straight through the door,  I didn’t mind –  it’s  the architecture and exterior that get me.  Josep Lluis Sert’s design and ingenuity are a dream.

These ellipses (impluvians) collect rainwater, lighten the building and extend shade, the bricks are locally fired etc

Even 6 year olds are impressed,

 particularly with Miro spouts  ( he starved himself into sur-realist trances)

there’s joyful random precision
Endless combinations of the old\new, smooth/rough, curved/straight -

Culminating in man’s impact on the earth, altering the view, all the better for this artistic vision.

Photos taken on the day.

I was struck afresh this summer by how beautiful Provence’s Luberon is at every time of day: the quality of light brings different elements forward, brilliant blue skies to amber dusks, white heat to warm golden tones. Cradled in the hills, or cooled by brilliant green streams in the valley, the ancient village buildings are all the more beautiful for their chalky-crumbling imperfections.

Life here is good, nature is oh-so bountiful under those ripening skies. Each day a visual feast is offered up within the daily cycle of life, a Provencal palette, here it is:

Sunrise is fresh and cool with lingering vistas

Village  shutters sleepy

As I descend for morning croissants ( a tad late admittedly – those shutters-  work a treat).

‘Dejeunered ‘I get in our little car (we have an family estate … but hey) I’ll pootle to the market daydreaming…

where fortified by café

I’ll shop with the best of them: for the freshest berries, trying not to eat too many en-route

the cutest tomatoes

multi-colouri courgette for my summer hit: courgette/mozzarella/hazelnut/lemon zest

Or maybe courgette flowers presented in sworls of newspaper, a culinary bouquet

Stuffed with the freshest eggs, lemon zest and all the rest

Of course … amidst the daily markets there is the lure of the ‘antiquaire’, impossible to resist…

Where confit and olive pots reflect nature’s palette

the Luberon’s ochre hills and green vines

or is it the berries, surely they inspired the village shop – my last stop

 Before I am undone…
emerging to  a white-heat,  where the provencal palette shifts from vibrant hues to greige and chalk:

Soft plaster tones reflecting the heat

Call for a shady spot, I love the ‘little old ladies’ one

beside Succulent window boxes

Back in the white-heat of lunch,  it’s possibly Rosé-time, I’ll raise a glass to Van day Truex

with a platter of green figs and soft white goat’s cheese

In the shade of those camouflaged plane trees,

While wondering why I didn’t buy those inviting vintage linens

For languid siestas behind closed shutters

it’s truly hot out there

And although those green valley rivers look inviting

I know how cold they are, I’ll settle for holiday maker’s poolside

Finally the day is spent, the heat retreats, leaving a golden glow

Rosé seems good

as  the sun sets

 on a landscape that

is blessed

Photos taken July/August 2012

‘Provencal Palettes’  for the home to follow.

Isle sur la Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse, Sivergues, Lourmarin, Oppede le Vieux, Bonnieux, Goult, Coustellet, Menerbes in the Luberon.

Baroque is designed to impress.  It’s been on my mind, it’s that Dolce and Gabbana AW campaign. I love how fashion grabs historical references, twists the kaleidoscope and punches them into public consciousness… their Baroque is modern, fun and desirable. Ruben’s style flowers and putti gavort over silk dresses, intricate lace and of course THE tapestry dress.

You can check out the collection and Vogue review here.

Over here in interiors-land, historical styles and references never go away, but Baroque’s fashionable moment has made me look again.

So  here is A 21st Century guide to Baroque:  The style, features and of course: ‘Baroque-now‘.

For me historical styles have 2 facets: Fact and Spirit. 

Fact: is the ‘Baroque stats’          Spirit: is its innate characteristics.

Fact: Baroque is a distinct period in European design history – emerging in late Renaissance Italy (1600) to become the choice of Kings and aristocracy, most famously  in Versailles. I am going to focus more on English Baroque, here under the Restoration of the monarchy and  the arrival of Huguenot craftsmen it flourished, c. 1666-1725.

Chatsworth’s Painted Hall, half-close your eyes to ‘colour blur’ and see how it matches up to Dolce’s image above.

Spirit: Baroque is assertive on a large-scale: dramatic, ornate and complex.  The ultimate alpha-male –  he’s master of the grand gesture, on an overt mission to bowl you over.  No wonder team D and G like him.

Baroque Stats: (bored already? you could head down to ‘Baroque-Now’)

The term Baroque was originally ‘barocca’ the name for highly prized, irregular pearls incorporated into fabulous, courtly jewels.  It now defines a period which evolved out of the Renaissance’s formal, mannered style.

The Canning Jewel, a spectacular ‘Barocca’number  from the 16th C

The church basically wanted to ‘wow’ the masses, demanding powerful images  which caught you emotionally rather than intellectually.  This was translated into architectural statements,  churches, palaces,  interiors and furniture as the aristocracy realised Baroque was a powerful means of reinforcing their exulted position.

Baroque’s best known triumph is Versailles, built to consolidate and magnify regal power. The Hall of Mirrors was officially the ‘brightest’ room in Europe, huge mirrored panels reflecting the Sun King’s brilliance, proclaiming his superiority and connection to ‘God Above’ throughout Europe.

Versailles Hall of Mirrors

English Baroque emerged during the Restoration. Royal and aristocratic building works included Hampton Court, Kensington Palace, Ham House, Petworth, Drayton and Chatsworth.  It Culminated under Queen Anne in the extraordinary palaces of Christopher Wren’s disciples Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor: Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, Vanbrugh Palace and Seaton Delavel Hall.

Look how the architecture changes,  the linear harmony of Hampton Court  Palace and Chatsworth becomes much more assertive, dynamic even at  Seaton Delavel Hall and Castle Howard – they’re literally  punching into the sky.

Architectural Novelties: Baroque excels at super-scaled elements to dazzle the visitor. Domed spaces, sweeping stairs, the state apartments – where the enfilade  offers an enticing view through the successive state rooms, formally aligned (with fantastically complex arrangements of access and greetings – defined by status), culminating in the bed chamber and closet.

Architecturally I am intrigued by  the idea of a ‘cabinet of curiosities’,  a room displaying natural phenomena, antiquities or tech-pieces – the pre-cursor to  ’Collections’ and museums.

 An enfilade at Chatsworth

A stairway to Heaven at Petworth, dramatically painted ceilings are a Baroque special.

Pure Baroque: The state drawing room at Chatsworth, with incredibly detailed carving, Mortlake tapestries, and prized Eastern curiousities:  the cabinet-on-a-stand with coromandel lacquer panels and blue-and-white porcelain  from China.

The State Bed: The climax of the Baroque ‘state apartment’ was intended for receiving important visitors, not for sleeping in. This early one at Knole has carved  lions’ feet, decorative feather plumes and is upholstered in gold silk embellished with real gold and silver thread.

Below is my favourite:

From 1700,  now at the Victoria and Albert museum, attributed to Francis Lapiere. Upholstered in white Chinese silk,  red velvet and crimson silk braid, the headboard has the husband and wife’s cipher – I like to think they slept in this one? Beds were the ultimate expense, Nell Gwyn commissioned hers in silver to entertain Charles II, reportedly setting her back over £2 million in todays money.

Socially the ultimate invite was a private space at the end of the state apartment …the closet.  Below is ‘The Queen’s Closet’ created at Ham house for a royal sleep-over.

English Baroque – Interior Features

Walls and Ceilings: Ceilings in round and oblong panels often with paintings.  Elaborate fruit and floral moulding with plenty of putti.  Cornice and coving appear alongside bolection moulding.  Rooms can have tall wooden panelling and mouldings or extravagantly  painted with OTT plasterwork.  Some have beautifully worked leather panels, damask and LOTS OF tapestries around.

Large doors or double doors with 2-10 panels. Sash Window appears. Around 1700 wrought iron developed used in balustrades, stairs and gateways.

Floors: Parquet and marble with oriental rugs.

Textiles:  Fabrics include: velvet, silk, crewel work, satin, chintz (printed cottons), damask, tapestry and the geometric ‘flame’ design.  Extravagant trims and braids: Lambrequins galore (tassels).  Deep, Rich colours.

KEY Motifs: flora and fauna, lambrequin, putti,monograms and crests.

Architects and Designers: Christopher Wren, Vanburgh, Hawksmoor, Daniel Marot, engravings of his work on the interiors of Hampton Court were extremely influential – promoting a coordinated style for the first time, Grinling Gibbons carvings are particularly famous.

Baroque Furniture: we can’t do Baroque without…  the frenchman André Boullé, (1642-1732)  this ébéniste  set the standard:  his marquetry work is dazzling. Baroque case furniture uses precious materials including tortoiseshell, ivory and exotic woods  with chunky ormolu mounts.

Examples of Boullé furniture and a detail from one of his marquetry panels: intricately designed brass laid over tortoiseshell

Furniture Innovations: Different colours of wood and the walnut  oyster veneer feature.The commode  arrives, literally ‘a chest with drawers’. The armoire appears . The cabinet on a stand is the statement piece particularly in chinese lacquer panels or precious materials, the pier table with candle stands and pier mirror –  traditionally between the windows is a standard feature, chairs have elaborate carving and gradually lose their stretchers, elaborate spindles  and carving also feature.  The first sofa appears.  Also furniture was arranged around the edge of a room, brought in as required to keep the space clear. The barometer is invented and the long case clock becomes a regular item.

The pier table – arrangements in elaborate marquetry and silver with torchéres  either side below co-ordinating mirror

The prized cabinet-on-a-stand in marquetry and lacquer panels, note the spindle legs and stretchers to the left and gilt apron centrally.

A crested mirror and  elaborate gilt frame mirror flank an engraving of Daniel Marot’s mirror designs –  check out the ‘aspirational lifestyle ‘ placement of chinese vases  (somethings never change) .

A Selection of seating and textiles

After the formal grandeur and theatrical scale of Baroque architecture,  the furniture and accessories feel more ‘human’, their user-friendly scale combine with rich decorative detail and luxury finishes to inspire.  Two images that play in my mind:

The scagiola table top at Saltram  has a card game already laid out, both inviting and sur-real –  a conversation piece of singular use.

A 21st Century Baroque moment, Chatsworth has ‘re-created a Baroque buffet’: an extravagance of fruit, flowers, oriental porcelain and silver gilt plate – originally intended to remind you of the Duke’s supreme wealth and good taste – still performing this task admirably  400 years later.  It’s wonderful when historic houses are able to reduce the aspic and make the space feel more alive and therefore relevant: this ‘lifestyle’ display puts the viewer in touch with the Baroque.

Finally, Not Forgetting …Eastern Luxuries: These Make an appearance as trade overseas intensifies,  ’Turkey-work’ rugs from the Middle East,  through to China where exquisite lacquered panels and Baroque’s beloved blue and white porcelain originate (which Europe tries so hard to copy – Chinoiserie - whilst drinking their highly prized, newly fashionable – tea).

Eastern Bounty at Chatsworth, oriental porcelain and a coromandel lacquer screen cabinet.

Baroque Inheritance: Baroque’s rich lexicon of design has been inspirational ever since: From William Kent through Regency Britain and beyond.  It’s 20th Century fanlist is a roll call of the greats: From decorators Elsie de Wolfe, Tony Duquette through to John Fowler and David Hicks, furniture  designers such as Gilbert Poillerat, Serge Roche, Oriel Harwood and Mark Brazier Jones and fashionistas like Coco Chanel, Christian Lacroix and of course Dolce and Gabbana have all plundered it’s treasure chest.

A small sample of 20th C Baroque: Coco Chanel between her Blackamoors( shot by Cecil Beaton), Tony Duquette’s Hollywood Regency interior, The World of Interiors ‘Baroque’ photoshoot  1992 , Baccarat’s Elephantine centrepiece, Serge Roche’s monumental scagiola table replete with lion’s paws and Rose Cumming’s infamous ‘ugly room’ a cabinet of curiousities curated from all the client rejects she arranged into splendid mesalliance. (images from Stephen Calloway’s Baroque Baroque)

Modern Baroque: Finally! Bring it on. Open any magazine and Baroque  moments hum.

From velvet plaited sofas to over-scaled mirrors, ornate chandaliers, sumptuous beds and dramatic paintings… each give a note of 17th century Baroque.

Once you started looking it’s everywhere: historical styles get re-appropriated through time and become part of our visual inheritance, sometimes you need to look again with a ‘Baroque’ lens to let it shine through.

To pick a few modern interpretations, there’s… Stand Out, Statement and Vignette:

‘Stand Out‘ Baroque which requires serious volume and grand-scale design.

Ilse Crawford’s work at a Regency country house has significant Baroque echoes: a vast Venini ‘Majestic Diamentei’ chandalier, Chinoiserie – this time hand painted Zuber wallpaper and ‘cocktail-cabinet-on-a-stand’ in vivid green by Aldo Tura c. 1947.

Donatella Versace’s opulent Italian dining room has a mural of Asian porcelain amplifying the collection of vessels in the room, parquet flooring, magnificent marquetry sideboard, shimmering chandalier and tassel upholstered chairs.

A funky-modern baroque: Tukey style carpet, over-scaled pedestal displays, velvet upholstery and tapestry  cushions interplay with the more modern elements at work.

The Ruling Queen of Modern Baroque is Kelly Wearstler, powerful, dynamic spaces ooze glamour that assert her privileged client’s position in the world.

‘Baroque Statements’ incorporating  a key ‘Baroque’ piece  or your very own Cabinet of Curios:

In Elle Decor a feminine dressing room gets a baroque-lift via a Gilbert Poillerat style table underneath Bagués Chandalier

Isle Crawford and clients commissioned Studio Job to make a modern marquetry   Armoire celebrating the history to the house,

Pier style bar table, looks good in Vogue Living.

Mantelpiece of curios, Barry Dixon, Elle Decor.

Steven Gambrel transformed a  powder room  into Curio Cabinet with pages from a reissue of  the 18th C  ‘Cabinet of Natural Curiousites’ by naturalist  Albertus Seba

‘Baroque Vignettes‘ a playful use of Baroque motifs or pieces:

From top left: Living etc. transforms a modern office setting with stylised pieces and trellis design, fashion design Andrew GN has an apartment ‘where the past is always present‘, Madaleine Weinreib’s blue and white collection is reflected off her dressing table and a coromandel screens transform a kitchen area of designer Lazaro Rosa-Violan’s home in Barcelona.

SO…fancy a bit of Baroque? I do.

Want to get serious from Studio Job to David Gill Galleries and beyond there are some fantastic modern pieces which pack a Baroque-punch.  1st Dibs Baroque has a veritable treasure chest.   But on this occasion… I would head on down to Aynhoe Park where James Perkins  and friend are selling off an estimated £1 million pounds of a fantastically eccentric collection: from taxidermy unicorns to Mark Brazier Jones and floating jewelled side boards. Bring it on. English, Eccentric and Baroque  - what more could a Brit-girl with a Baroque fetish ask for?

Baroque Encore forcuses on 20th Century Neo-Baroque

images for Baroque interiors and furniture from ‘English country Houses’ by Jeremy Musson and English Furniture 1660-1714 by Adam Bowett.

Forgive me, for I have sinned, my sin is one of ignorance and I am now converted, Chanel, Coco Chanel – I finally understand the reverence in which she is held by the fashion-flock and ordinary mortals alike. For I have read Justine Picardie’s book: Coco Chanel, The Legend and the Life. All hail.

Shall we just look at her…

‘Iconic Chanel’ photographed by Horst in 1937 (the cream fauteil is one of only two additions to her apartment after her death)

‘Candid Chanel’ caught by Cecil Beaton giving Christian Berard ‘what for’, alluring, confident in her eternal ‘effortless chic’.

After all this is the woman who quipped: ‘A girl must be two things fabulous and classy’

Chanel was both of these and more – an extraordinary self-made woman, on an epic scale – she re-defined womens’ code of dress and beauty, starting from the knowledge that: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself.” Chanel understood “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only, Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas , the way we live, what is happening”. She took the 20th Century fashion-pulse and made it her own, so that in the end she could truthfully declare, “I want(ed) to create classics… (why?)Fashion changes, but style endures“.

‘Serene Elegance’ photographed in 1936 by Boris Lipnitzki when she was 53 years old.

Chanel liberated 20th century women, creating a modern armoire which enabled them to move, breathe, eat and seduce- leaving a creative legacy still ardently worshipped today, “Arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face.” And tormented she was, Justine Picardie researched her book over 10 years and re-stitched our understanding of Chanel’s complex life in the process.

The abandoned orphan of rural France, brought up by nuns, who taught her to sew – became one of the most successful women of the 20th Century, creating her own life-story to both obscure and celebrate Gabrielle ‘Coco Chanel’, for ‘legend is the consecration of fame‘. Chanel is a fashion-deity and within her temple lies some understanding of the iconography of this Legend.

Cecil Beaton 1936: camellia’s in her hair, baroque cuffs, glittering beside a Venetian statue of a Moor

Her apartment, 31 Rue Cambon, is literally a place of pilgrimage. Maintained as she left it, warm and glowing, redolent with sophisticated beauty and gently polished symbolism. For she surrounded herself with touchstones from her life and lovers, talismans against the chill of loneliness which entered her later life.

A talisman-ic tableau: Gypsy fortune tellers’ balls, Chanel’s lover’s gifts and a mystery hand tempting you to turn the page … tempted? Shall we enter the inner sanctum one more time? for here Chanel still hovers amidst swirls of myth and legend.

You climb the infamous mirrored stairs…

Unmarked mirrored double doors to an entrance hall, cushioned in deep pile carpet, lined entirely in 18th Century Coromandel screens (Chanel owned 27 in total) accentuated by mirrors which concealed doors to a salon and dining room.

The entrance hall, now has the chair which she sat in for her fittings – alongside the famous life-size Venetian Blackamoors -Chanel had them beckoning you on through the next set of mirrored doors.

Now it’s at this point I wish we had one of those lovely ‘floorplans‘ by Inaki Aliste Lizzaralde,but maybe we would get lost anyway, many were overwhelmed when they first visited…

Marcel Haedrich quoted in AD said, “It was an Ali Baba’s cave with the treasures of Golconda, Coromandel screens, mother-of-pearl, ebony, ivory, deer and lions, gold and crystal, masks, rare books, spheres, magic, the scent of tuberoses. It was Byzantium and the Imperial palace of China, Ptomely’s Egypt, and in the mirrors above the fireplace, reflections of Greece, with a 4th Century Aphrodite beside a raging wild Boar, a metorite that had fallen from the sky on Mongolia thousands of years ago – everything agglomerated and conglomerated, mingled and mangled, ordered into disorder made harmonious by Chanel’s taste.”

Here’s the Horst chair in front of a mirrored wall where a Baroque ‘double-eagled’ 17 th mirror hangs. It’s an example of how Chanel skewered perspective, with mirrors on mirrors, she placed huge pieces in petit rooms and layered myriad treasures, which were all reflected over and over. The mirror is particularly famous – why? it’s the shape of the top of Chanel no. 5′s iconic bottle.

‘The Bottle’ placed in endless reflection on the mythical Rue Cambon stairs, reflecting both it’s bestselling status, and Chanel’s tightly (inter)woven brand imagery (US Vogue advertisement 1940).

The apartment’s scheme exactly reflects her personal style, monochrome beauty layered over with glittering baroque jewels, she herself said,’I take refuge in beige because it is natural, and red because it is the colour of blood‘. Chanel did not do pretty, she’s a Leo, powerful beauty was her statement, she herself noted, “all I do become(s) Byzantine“

We enter the living room, 22 coromandel screens obscure doors, which she hated as they reminded her of people leaving. Presiding over all is the chandalier she designed sparkling with stars, camellias and grapes, hidden within its wrought iron frame is a personal celebration: the double C, G for Gabrielle (her true first name) and her lucky no. 5.

The chandalier

The simple mantel is framed by ornate carvings from an Italian church, Aphrodites ‘heads’ the mantelpiece flanked by a sumerian lion, coptic head, wheat sheaves and a Bavarian bear…

Drawing back: a pair of bronze deer, a wheat sheaf table topped by a bouquet of crystal flowers echoing its shape. A wheatsheaf against the wall beside the most valuable items in the apartment (at current market values): bronze andirons created by Jacques Lichitz in the 1930′s.

Her desk – emptied of its most precious jewels and letters on the night of her death, with copious blood-red rare books behind on plain shelving.

That Leo lion, here prowling a gilded Regence table beside a crystal cross

The mirror opposite the mantelpiece mirror bounce images. Below this the famous suede sofa where she relaxed on diagonally-quilted cushions (copied from racing jockeys riding attire), for : Only those with no memory insist on their originality. And everywhere is treasure, particularly treasured pairs together and apart extending the mirrored arrangement.

Another pair of deer, usually beside the sofa, in painted metal.

The view across the sofa

Finally the view back out to hall, the doors had one large inset panel in gilt.

The living room exemplifies Chanel, items of beauty and refinement mixed fearlessly into a cohesive east-meets-west style spanning contintents and centuries, creating a highly original decor. The background is monotone, jute covered walls lacquered in matt gold, jute curtains, pale carpet and soft suede upholstery. This allows her treasure to glitter – the effect is spectacular – and has been copied ever since, much like Chanel herself.

For me these pictures capture the glories of the place – but not it’s entire spirit, the soft glow of the fire, the tuberose scent, the filtered and pooled lighting. But a photo of Chanel takes me some of the way, and that will have to suffice.

Reflective on the sofa

Glowing by the coromandel screens

Enter her dining room where a Louis XIII table and Louis XVI chairs covered in cream beige rest on a floral Savonnerie rug. The jute covered walls are hung with fantastically elaborate Spanish mirrors, the familiar coromandel screens once again punctuate the space and here Baroque console tables sprout from the floor.

‘She never bought anything she didn’t like and she didn’t buy because it was valuable, she hated furniture for furniture, jewels for jewels, precious stones as stones, She was a connoisseur by intuition” – said friend Hervé Mille. Her conoisseur’s eye was for the exquisite:

A details from one of her myriad coromandel screens, with signature camellia flowers and chinese bird.

A shepherd guides his jewelled flock, behind a tiny ornate birdcage…

Which Karl Lagerfield used as inspiration for his beautiful perfume campaign with Vanessa Paradis

Inside her desk a fan decorated with stars an ‘eternal’ Chanel motif, tarot cards and a photo of Chanel insouciant in the Boy’s clothes she made her own. Rumour has it, her great love – Boy Capel, sent her to his tailor as she was forever appropriating his wardrobe.

Did you spot the only painting in her rooms? probably not, too much mirrored-treasure, it rests above the sofa. Chanel claimed she had no pictures as she needed glasses to see them, this rather poignant stalk of wheat against Chanel black, was painted by her friend Salvador Dali, wheatsheafs symbolise fertility and wealth, “I imposed black, it’s still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around“.

Chanel acquired personal wealth, but wheat sheaf fertility eluded her, her only descendant a beloved niece. Chanel died alone, with her pair of scissors and nightly morphine phial at her side, a solitary space high up in the Ritz -opposite her apartment, where she retired each night. Everything contained – in its place- but connected.

Chanel in her roof top bedroom by her dressing table.

But for me Chanel’s living arrangements mirror her fashion, she declared ‘Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions. She learnt the power of architecture from the church, her years in Aubazine’s orphanage and Abbey. Here the geometric stained glass, the decorative alter, gilded shrines stood in powerful contrast to the austere, soaring architecture. The path she walked to prayers was a pebble mosaic, stars, maltese crosses, symmetrical flowers and abstract flowers guide you along. Chanel simplified women’s clothing, anchoring its architecture to women’s form and to this layered decorative treasure: stars, maltese crosses, pearls, her own invented double C, turning modern women and herself into a creation worthy of adoration. Amen.

Images of Chanel’s apartment and Ritz bedroom from Justine Picardie’s The Life and the Legend, from ‘The Covoteurs‘ photoshoot and AD’s Celebrity Homes published in 1981.

Images of Chanel from the 1930′s at the height of her mid-life fame from various photographers: Cecil Beaton, Horst to Roger Schall and Boris Lipnittzki.

Any amendments required please contact me.

All un-marked quotes from the high-priestess herself Coco Chanel.

How do you decorate for Christmas? I have decided it’s a version of:

something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.  yes – the wedding custom.

Well Christmas is all about making your own customs and wrapped up in the rhyme is an answer for christmas too.

Something Old: on 2 levels, it’s nice to take forward Christmas traditions or decorative elements from your childhood,  and it’s comforting to unpack old friends at Christmas time (and oh so convenient – the ‘here’s one I made earlier ‘ vibe).

for example – Christmas bunting from a few years ago never fails to emit Christmas cheer, especially with lashings of pom-pom trim.

Something New: well it always a thrill isn’t it?  This is the first time we have hosted Christmas so it’s  ‘lots of new‘ …including an adult tree (a.k.a. one for me!) – I had been pining for ‘white on green’ in a snow-dashed, star-struck kind of way, now it’s here:

Something Borrowed: Really, things the children make, they love getting involved  (gotta keep them busy) and it’s their home too.  We spent November making and December decorating: from snowmen, to snowflakes, to glitter-thick pine cones and table name settings.    They want to see their sticky-fingered effort on the walls (or windows) it feels right.

Snowflakes virtually eviscerated by glitter!

Something Blue: Pick your themes and stick to them!  look at the colours in the room and your architecture, think about what you have got in the Christmas box and then rip out a few tear sheets from December issues – then get real.  This year I was inspired by ribbons galore, vintage decorations, silver birch, pine comes and those x-large honeycomb decorations that have been making a come back.

Like most things: Decide  on it and stick with it.

Finally – Christmas at home should look homey, not perfect, but kind of cherished.

So how has is worked out? do you want to come in? look up the steps…

Peer in the windows

knock on the door:

come on in..and

watch out for the mistletoe, kiss-kiss!

Fancy a glass? well you know, the champagne’s chilled at Christmas:

The owl is at home, very fond of him already.

Take a glass, spin under the chandalier…

and there’s that Christmas tree…

Come into the sitting room, awaiting final greenery…

Take a seat, settle down, look around.

fireplace as focal point

mirror it the opposite end of the room

The green, gold and white continues, now we’ve added in deep blue, silver birch and narnia!

Through the double doors and into the dining room, before Christmas this was a dumping ground and there’s only so much that can be done in rented  houses, but as were hosting… better get the ladder out! get on ebay and track down a dinner service and generally get it together!

So basically awaiting final table setting, lashings of greeenery  and of course that damn turkey.

Finally  downstairs…  Where trad-rules via the Nutcracker.

Where a tree is waiting, waiting for Granny and Gramps to arrive:

So Christmas can begin, we can all have one those glasses of champagne and finish ‘decking the halls’ with the last cracker-box of Christmas cheer.

To embark on this journey through uncharted territory I need a vision to inspire me.  I always thought I would fall in love with an old house, instead I fell in love with a beech woood, a wild flower meadow and views that make your heart rise, What home belongs here?  Tomorrow is the big reveal: client meeting 01,  agreement of brief and schematic design.

I am interested in the design proposal relative ‘to my very detailed brief?’   I wanted to enable creative people, rather than constrain them to the limits of my vision, yet I need to love it.  Every time I watch ‘Grand Designs‘ I have heart palpitations at the money-sink stress all too many home-builders encounter.

So shall we review my brief for modern country living in timeless landscape?

First off: I want a sense of arrival, of coming home – to me this still involves the classic  children’s facade in some format.  Further in an ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’ it needs to feel integrated into the village’s architectural style and only on closer inspection reveal it is contemporary. I said: A front vista that is harmonious and understated, energised by modern elements.

Rowden, Totnes,  by McLean Quinlan, is my stand out project for this.

A house which feels part of the ancient landscape, the Cotswold has a rich architectural heritage and a clear building material.  We would like to use natural and salvaged materials where possible.

Alot of modern homes feel sterile, however I love  their fantastic light, ‘lifestyle’ friendly layouts and beautiful, thought provoking details.   I know we are inevitably of our time but there is the alchemy of precise geometry, proportioning systems and craftsmanship which creates timeless buildings I want to combine this with soul.

I would like a spine or core of Cotswold stone asserting the buildings connection to the land.  Visually layered natural materials: stone, raw plaster, wood, concrete, metal, marble, slate and handmade tiles.  One of my aims internally is to use materials in its construction which constitute it’s decorative finish as well, I don’t want to layer on ‘farrow and ball’ paint, wall papers etc. I’d like it to feel quite elemental and again really connected to the landscape.

Shall we call it ‘Refined Rustic‘.

Brit-brand Mulberry  nailed it in Bond Street, glamourising the quintessential Cotswold setting:

Architecturally  Seth Steins gives us modern beauty in Cornwall.

Layout: I don’t want a big reveal and then it’s all over, I’d like an element of tantalisation, a modern enfilalde and generous connecting spaces, combined with cosy corners and inglenooks.

Practically: I fantasise about those old fashioned rooms that make a country house function: the boot room, pantry, wine cellar, library.

Socially: I’d like to have a family kitchen which serves its purpose rather than taking over, keeping other activities separate: library, TV corner and sitting room.

Children: It’s their home too right? specifically – a slide, secret doors and a swing  please.

Want to see  my vision?  it’s been curiously unsatisfying but I have ‘pinterested‘ to various boards from ‘nooks’ to ‘halls’ and more.

So tomorrow I set forth… to see if the journey could lead me home, I think I’ll wear my Mulberry jumper.

p.s. Original brief somewhat longer, but I thought I’d spare you.

La Colombe D’Or’s history is intimately entwined with that of the Côte d’Azur, and although the coastline may have become tarnished, La Colombe d’Or still glows, a polished gem in the legendary St Paul de Vence.  Last Sunday we  crossed the hallowed threshold, it felt like we had been given the key to another world:  on closing the gate a golden light shone gently …

we were led into a restaurant founded in the 1920′s by the Roux family  ’who continue to take care of it’ and you.

and the ‘thumbs up’ greeting unleashes a bubble of contentment and good humour that doesn’t leave you

as you take your seat, presiding peacefully over her corner of perfection the colombe blanc

 and there we were  underneath ‘a colourful ceramic by Fernand Leger‘ looking out over scattered white parasols where the chic meet and eat: all of whom I assume must have the same sensation as me, a subtle shift whereby you are more glamorous, intelligent and charming, ‘D’Or  Chic’ let’s call it.

or maybe in my case it’s to do with the profusion of bottles which spring up, after all I am with the Irish, default position.

 the central butcher’s table is a constant theatre of waiter’s in fluid motion

and all too soon we have dined on  summer truffles and wild strawberries.

We were the last to leave… and a lucky few stay, the Colombe D’Or is hotel where each stone was put into place with love a precision, one fireplace is imprinted with the hands of the people who helped to build it

The space feel timeless, cherished.   Everywhere you look there is something lovely to gaze on.

Here’s the bar, where Picasso, Cocteau and Chagall  have all at one time raised a glass.

below the  fresco

and vaulted ceiling

I wandered through to the swimming pool open year through…

then I can’t resist the large, low slung dining rooms, all white washed walls and polished wood:

and everywhere you look pictures

artworks whispering to each other: donated, given, commissioned for these rooms.

It’s a collaborative mix of the serious and quirky that catches your eye, draws you in…

For here are ceramic guardians  that Madelaine Castaing would approve of

multicolori bathroom stairs

comfy, ‘pause a moment’ seats.

exquisite niche moments

and huge welcoming fireplaces waiting for Autumn’s return

I too must wait to return.  The Colombe d’Or  founded nearly 100 years ago still pulses  and inspires in today’s world, it’s history and art collection have not overwhelmed its ambiance, within its walls there exists a thoughtful integrity and playful charm . The Roux’s have created a place where the antique, the modern, the simple and decorative, the past and the present are harmoniously intertwined.  While your there  all is golden and ever after the memory is d’or.

quotes in italics from the La Colombe D’Or’s website.

with many thanks to our hosts who opened the door.

photos by me altered with Toycamera Analogcolor.

if you visit St Paul de Vence I seriously recommend the Foundation Maeght, perfect pre-d’or explore.

Patrick Leigh Fermor was once described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene,”  he kept good company with Deborah Mitford, AKA the Duchess of Devonshire.  Their correspondence written ‘in tearing haste‘ over 50 years makes a compelling read as you are swept into their charmed world.  My (almost favourite exchange) is when Deborah asks Paddy if he could rustle up some suitably low brow titles for ‘fake books’  in the seriously grand Chatsworth library…

I confess, I am not sure which one of 6 libraries she intended these for, but rumour has it, this is the one.

Debo writes: Now for something really important. We’ve had to put a new door with false book-backs in the library at Chatsworth and we’ve got to think of 28 titles….

Paddy throws himself at the task with self deprecating gusto:

clearly she asked the right man because the list flows on…

He concludes  They’re most of them pretty rotten, but one or two might do.

(A bit like my photos, apologies)

Pondering this post I have decided my lowly addition might be:

Decor8   –  Bee  Logge

A Decorative Carry On –  by A. Hobbyist

Affairs in Tinterland  - A. Stray

However these are for Chatsworth, the grandest of country houses, where only superlatives  apply -

The setting, the facade, its  extraordinary Baroque interiors, its unrivalled family collection, the libraries containing 27,000 books – yes, the largest in private hands.  Amidst all this pomp and splendour resides Mustafa Swig, Ivor Belch and of course - Abel and Willing.  Chatsworth  nows rests lighter in my mind, suddenly it is not quote so imposing, behind concealed doors – it makes me smile.

Antique books at Chatsworth via prettybook.com

Surely this is part of the purpose of libraries: maintaining links between past and present, enabling  us to mentally journey, to experience another voice in our mind’s ear … human contact.

Bess of Hardwick  began, what is now the Chatsworth library, 6 books are listed in 1601.  What is surprising is how long it took for the idea of collecting  books into a library and creating an appropriate architectural space took.  Another hundred years – the  rise of the ‘classical education’: an era of the Grand Tour,  the Palladian mansion,  a self confident belief in democracy and learning: one had to be educated, from the rediscovered classics to natural history.

Holkham: Palladian mansion extraordinaire

‘Book Closets’ emerged, first in an intimate corner of a gentleman’s private rooms, gradually entering into the public sphere: Sir Robert Walpole’s library at Houghton is one of the first examples of book shelves being incorporated into the architecture of the room, recessed shelves designed to fit the architectural elements of the room lined in leather and gold volumes.  A room to visit, a room to show off, a room to contemplate.

Holkham in 1741 provides the next architectural break through, here books go beyond being fitted into a scheme and their shelving inspires the architecture, the rhythm of the groined vault (ceiling) are further accentuated by the pedimented  sections beneath …

It was Robert Adam who introduced the library table : Osterley, Nostell Priory, Harewood all feature a  substantial Chippendale ‘desk’.  His supremely comfortable, well appointed rooms ushered in the concept of the library as a sitting room, a relaxed family room even.

The turn of the 18th century sees the culmination of the library decoration, often still emulated and alluded too today.  Petworth’s library around 1780 is positively cosy:

one way and tother

I am rather partial to the busts, a popular library feature visually linking the room to philosophers:  those ancient and modern ‘lovers of knowledge’.

Humphrey Repton in  1816 wrote Modern custom is to use the library as the general living-room, and that sort of state room (drawing room) …is now generally… a melancholy apartment. His illustration showed the newly fashionable french windows leading out to the newly invented conservatory, full of people  genially engaged in various activities.

Woburn Abbey’s sitting room designed by Henry Holland in the 1790′s and described by Repton above.

And so we return to the Chatsworth library redecorated 1815-1830, described in The English Country House, as containing an overwhelming sense of warmth and comfort, like … a luxuriously appointed London Club.

Library Rules:

• A classically masculine space decorated in  timeless style.
• Shelves integrated into the architecture of the room or the providing the framework for the decor.
• Comfortable seating often in leather to tone with book covers and age gracefully
• essential kit: a library desk
• jib doors, often providing a concealed exit whilst preserving symmetry of the scheme, and giving rise to the tradition which Paddy entered into so wholeheartedly …of ‘dreadful puns’ across the false book backs.
• A space inspired by classical learning: we educate ourselves in order to make a noble use of our leisure (Aristotle).

It’s only in knowing the rules, that  you can play them.  The 2oth Century libraries which really set magazine pages aflutter and continue to inspire today are by the master Billy Baldwin and naturally his protégé Albert Hadley.

Baldwin’s library for Cole Porter, featured chic shelving in brass, mahogany and lacquer.

Look again… leather: check  table: check, Shelving incorporated into architecture, in this case framing the doors: check, but then all freshened up by the spiffy brass shelving. 

Albert Hadley’s decor of Brooke Astor’s  library is sumptuous and RED.

Lacquer red walls with brass edged shelving, the brass continues in strong graphic lines, framing entrances and fireplaces.

Super comfy seating and opulent details.Hadley may have left out the leather but he fed all the senses.

This side of the Atlantic my favourite libraries are from  Yves Saint Laurent, a wonderful mélange of objects all held together by his aesthete’s eye.  His partner Pierre Bergé talks of  his poetic ideas, which originated in his imagination, allowing us to live in a charmed universe…each house had a story.  Yves spent alot of time in his libraries, books occupied a central role in our homes, with libraries full to overflowing.

The egg is a bar which opens to store bottles

the adoration of the Magi tapestry, centre place,  Burnes Jones 1904.

A modern Mondrain painting  above the mirrored fireplace

the shelving overflowing with pictures and inspiration

This Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s library was inspired by the famous de Noailles’ drawing room decorated by Jean Michel Frank.  The sheep are an Yves addition.

Fast Forward to London  21st century  chez uber-designer Marc Newson and family.  Here – the library itself is the secret surprise, an aesthetic counterpoint to the rest of the interior? a reference to the power of books in the digital age? a wife’s demand for traditional comfort?

Read into it  what you will, but one thing’s for sure: you need to keep reading to stay in touch.

and keep smiling.

interested in libraries? read about the extraordinary gift Scottish libraries received.

See various library schemes on Pinterest,

Images  and quotes from

The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, Robert Murphy

The Country House (as above) Gervase Stopps

 Iconic Interiors 1900 to the present Dominic Bradbury

Albert Hadley Adam Lewis

Billy Baldwin see lectures 1,2,3,4 on this blog.

Do you covet books?

Do ‘slip covers’ emit a siren’s call?

Do lavish titles lure you in?

Does a row of book spines induce mental Chinese whispers, always culminating in ‘take me home’?

 Bals and Swans:  in their slip covers above and revealed below.

If you have visited Assouline, the answer  to any of the questions above is probably yes, the publishing house has elevated the picture book into a coveted luxury item, slip-covered with a stylish brand experience.  Assouline is the 21st century tastemakers’ publisher of choice and an award winning cultural force.

Prosper Assouline combines technical brilliance (art director age 18) with passionate charm:  ‘I am just upset to have to sleep 6 hours a night, there is so much to do’.  He works in partnership with his supremely stylish wife Martine, the editorial eye, together they embody the brand which they have printed  into existence.

They say:  We began with an idea and a belief: the first, a notion that beauty, perfected, has meaning that is capable of transforming our lives, Second, that a book, artfully crafted and highly considered … can open our eyes and minds.  

They put the uniquely French expression ‘savour vivre’ at the heart of their ethic, ‘knowing how to live…we put our resources into things that matter: knowledge, relationships, and experiences; into history, culture and travel. We value things that are rare and precious, not for their price, but because they enrich our lives. We are visual beings…our ethic is aesthetic.

One of Martine’s latest projects, celebrating the ancient ‘Grand Bazaar’ in Instanbul.

She says: The more we live in this digital world, the more we need to have references to feel that you are still part of this world, with the book as an object, you have the past, the present, the memory and the creativity. People are still buying books; maybe they will just be more selective about what they buy.

Their store manager said: Of all the things in this world, don’t books deserve  to be luxury items. 

The impossible Collection: FASHION

 Others say:

L A Times: Other companies publish big, glossy, coffee-table books.  But Assouline is not so much selling individual books as selling a cohesive statement.

Financial Times:  Assouline produces some of the most exquisite books on the planet.

Time Out, NYC: What Cartier is to watches, Assouline is to books.

W Magagazine: Creating the glossiest coffee table books around has turned Assouline into a luxury brand.

Departures magazine: Assouline celebrates people who know how to enjoy the good life… ‘la dolce vita’ gleams in a maharaja’s diamond collection and resides in shimmering Venetian palazzi, but it can just as easily be found in a simple, sunny, lavender-filled hotel room in Provence.

dream into Assouline’s travel books

For me:  I love how they celebrate the heritage and craft inherent in book printing and honour the life well lived: expertly editing it  with their own brand of 21st century chic.

It’s nearly 20 years since the Assoulines’ published their fist book. Taking their annual break at the fabled Colombe d’Or: they thought why don’t we? He took the photos, she wrote the text, he laid it out, et voila, histoire.

They have published c.1,000 glossy books since, creating sophisticated volumes which not only define stylish living but are essential viewing in every stylish home.  

Check your shelves, if you have an Assouline book or two, I bet they they are one of your favourite books. Prosper Assouline’s sublime art direction and Martine’s chic production will have ensured that.

Jet Set ‘spread’ by Prosper Assouline

and as promoted on the front cover of their catalogue.

The Assoulines passionately believe in culture, that books as a cultural record, deserve to be luxury items. Their New York office is emblazoned with the maxim:

CULTURE IS NOT A LUXURY BUT A NECESSITY

The  Assouline’s cultural record has fashion and hi-society at its core: Fashion is their background, their stylish life. They have also studied  the business of fashion, their brand connects you with a  fashionable elite and the finer things in life through a series of  collections: from ‘Memoires’ ($25)  and  ’Lifetime’ ($45) up to Ultimate’ ($700) and possibly THE ultimate: a bespoke library designed by Prosper starting at $125,000.

Their stores are ‘culture lounges’ inspired by  libraries a colour palette of rich red, cream and dark walnut with an Art Deco feel. Each store has signature elements which affirm their values, a ‘Mondrian’ style  wall of books displays the ‘books as art’ and a Didot ‘Alphabet carpet’ laid underfoot. Layered into this scene are vintage books, one-off curio items and Assouline ‘lifestyle products’: book ends, scented candles and leather totes.

 in store Las Vegas

the Mondrian styled ‘wall of books’

a chic corner in the Plaza NYC store

It seems fitting, as I am sure Prosper intended, that my relationship became more intense (read covetous) when staying at Claridges.  Assouline now have a permanent shop-in-shop there (right next to the ballroom).  The catalogue is left beside your bed, I read it from cover to cover, imagine my horror when  Assouline was shut, aaagghhh, I peered and peered through the glass window into chic 1970′s YSL Paris.  I was decor-hooked.

Forgive my mid-winter photo, have you ever seen a bookshop like it? I just wanted to be on THAT sofa, book in hand. Below is an interior photo Assouline kindly sent through, because I came home obsessed with questions buzzing round my mind …

Q: What inspired the design? What was your brief?   I conceived of this boutique as a sort of private library, where the visitor would want to own each and every object.

Q: Who decorated the shop?  Me. (Prosper) I have a vision and I am very lucky as our boutique staff always makes it happen with style.

Q: Is it an evolving space with new accessories arriving?   In the months to come the Assouline boutiques will become more of a lifestyle destination where objets will become as present as books.

Q: Is the Assouline boutique within Claridge’s permanent or pop up? …Our Claridge’s store is a permanent location.

So from now on: first stop Assouline when I arrive in London.  And for here and now – I have reading to do, don’t you?

 Images from:

Assouline’s website, the Assouline concession at the Plaza NYC and  outside their store in London (pressed up against the glass, falling in).

Interested  in libraries? Look at their evolution and check out the extraordinary gift Scottish libraries received.

See various library schemes on Pinterest,

The wattage of Catherine Deneuve’s fame,  her trajectory through film history and modern culture as Belle du Jour and France’s Marianne to Grand Dame and Auteur creates dazzling refractions it’s difficult to see past to the woman within.

Deveuve has kept her ‘homes’ out of the public eye, they reveal too much, she puts herself into them creating houses that feel layered with love and memories. They are brimful with treasured collections and personal effects woven together with a sophisticated eye and assured ease.  Her ‘grand dame’  house has recently been the focus of attention as it came up for sale:

 Chateau de Primard’s entrance exudes a relaxed grandeur.

The vast kitchen appears friendly, it’s the casual arrangement of units, haphazard displays and blasts of vibrant colours against country cream. Oh and  that dart board in the corner, fun right?

An inviting sitting room or two, looking like they evolved gently, in sumptuous textiles and warm colours.  I like the random tiny pair of pictures above the book shelves and the bauble chandelier which must have been bought chez YSL in Morocco alongside the light below, non?

Moving upstairs… 

There’s a Madelaine Castaing quality to this bedroom’s floral and rayured stripes which appeals and the carpet …well, I’ve seen it before.  Deneuve’s previous Normandy retreat was photographed in another era, 1989, when she was France’s Marianne and the World of Interiors was declaring itself ‘the best glossy magazine in the world’.

Shall we go in…

Deneuve bought the long, low Normandy farmhouses when she was barely 20 as a  retreat with her young son, 20 years on it has a burnished glow, a home to enjoy with the people I love.  I love  that she arrived with just a mixed pile of ceramics in hand and  scrap of vintage blue fabric in her mind’s eye (still produced today).

 She is a collector, having spent her childhood playing attic high amidst eccentric hoardes and vintage toys,  her adult taste is on parr with the best of  Isle sur la Sorgue‘s  antiquaries: she loves Provençal things, and anything painted and 18th century whilst  her foibled buying habits sound reassuringly familiar: I always seem to buy on impulse, especially when my finances are at low ebb.   But what a hoard young Catherine stashed in her Normandy retreat…

The entrance halls just fits a chandelier, the corner cupboard and bench sofa are 18th century, facing them you catch a glimpse of the extravagent gilt console, out of sight bridal bouquets in glass domes, a curio touch? I also rather like how the curved stripes on the carpet echoing the hexagonal tonnettes beneath, highlighted below.

World of Interiors describes the interior as dotted with cane chairs, faded cashmere and cotton quilts, curios, gouaches and various small landscape paintings –  objects chosen for pleasure rather than value. With … collections  dotted all over: dogs in the bathrooms; in the kitchen – platters; in the corridors hats.

boho-country style in the ‘jardin d’hiver’

paisley cashmere over a card table with stripped 18th century panelling and a delft tiled fireplace

18th Century provencal chaise-longue gently quilted and cashmered, with deep red Chinoiserie screen behind and vintage style wallpaper

18th century sideboard beneath a collection of needlepoint pictures

collected Provençal pottery for everyday use, ‘lot’s of them are chipped as a result, but it can’t be helped‘.

I think my favourite shot is of her dining room, where 3 glass walls commune happily with a mirrored rear wall and a glass topped table, she has grown jasmine, citrus, bougainvillea and passiflora in each corner and they spread across the ceiling on a green trellis, she loves to see the sky reflected in the surface of the table. Imagine the scent?

there, you see the rug? reflected in the mirror?

Upstairs her bedroom is charming and  feminine, again  with 18th Century provincial ‘Provencal’ furniture and classic French fabrics.

 Her bathroom, follows her belief  that ‘delicate’ areas need a ‘delicate’ tonality.

The pillar table and chairs are from a Viennese tea room of 1905 and in the back nestles a grotto chair…

and outside, well it turns out Deneuve is a gardener too.

I just have a feeling that if you were looking for the real Deneuve, beyond the refracted light of  her legendary beauty, her homes speak of woman who has lived well in under the graceful aegis of  inner beauty.

photo credits:

Louis Vuitton 2007 campaign

Normandy chateau via HabituallyChic blogspot and Sotheby’s International realty

Normandy Farmhouse 1989 WOI

A hundred years ago Europe walked over a precipice: the ensuing slaughter spiralled us into a 20th Century in which each strata of society was left gasping with gaping, bleeding wounds: from Royalty  and Aristocratic officers to the  poignantly named Pals Battalions, the losses felt infinite.

When you drive through British villages, each has its  own War Memorial, for those millions of bodies never laid to rest under ‘An English Sky’, for me they are tragically symbolic of grieving families bereft of individual gravestones to tend and privately mourn at, a piercing reminder of those gaping holes in family and village life.

George Wyndham one of 5 Wyndham family members killed on the battlefield

Looking at the Great War, it’s impossible to absorb the personal tragedy behind the numbers: those 60,000 casualties in the first day of the Somme.  It’s individual stories that resonate  for me, once read, who can forget Birdsong,  Goodbye to All That  or Pat Barker’s Regeneration.   Of course the war is also a threshold after which a way of life disappeared, so we come to the story of a family  and being ‘a decorative affair’ … a house.  Let’s go back to 1886, When Clouds ‘the house of the age’ had just been completed for the Wyndhams, a country house built with supreme confidence, to last forever, for generations of family to come.

 Madeline and Percy Wyndham as they began married life

Who were the Wyndhams? Percy was the second and favoured son of Baron Leconfield growing up surrounded by the priceless treasures at Petworth House.  A radical modern art collector and member of the Souls they moved in the uppermost  echelons of British society, then as part of the artistic Holland  Park Set they helped create and promote the Aesthetic style we associate with late Victorian Britain.  The Wyndhams were sophisticated patrons of Whistler, Edward Burne Jones, Rossetti, Frederic Leighton and John Singer Sergeant.

Whistler’s Nocturne purchased by Percy Wyndham

Their daughter Mary’s painting by Poytner in her early 20′s perfectly illustrates the aesthetic style her parents pioneered ‘all greenery-gallery Grosvenor Gallery’ as it was nicknamed.  Sunflowers and Peacocks  motifs abound with lashings of blue and white china all in a naive style influenced by  Japanese  art .

The Three Graces, Sargent’s painting of Percy and Madeline’s daughters Mary, Madeline and Pamela, with their mother’s painting presiding over them from the rear, hangs at the Metropolitan now, it captures the closeness of the family, between siblings and across generations.  Madeline and Percy were known for their devotion to their five children. A letter written by Percy his to son George as he marched towards battle in the Sudan in 1885 is still evocative: My own dearest, dearest boy, I must say how deeply deeply I love you…One cannot say this speaking but I should not forgive myself if I had not told you… God and all good spirits keep you my darling. I cannot make you know what I think of you, but I feel to have had such a son is not to have lived in vain.

 Percy with a young George

Madeline with daughter Pamela

How happy Madeline was when they moved in to her scrumptious new domain, all 5 children safe and well: I am only too thankful simply BRIMMING over with thankfulness at being able to enter these walls with the 2 boys and all well.

The Wyndhams and friends en masse 1894

The Wyndhams assured position as collectors and style setters meant they enjoyed being different from the majority of their aristo peers.  Building their  family a home  in Wiltshire they set about creating their own exclusive, aesthetic vision where ‘good taste’ celebrated artistic beauty allowing their collection to take centre stage.  Clouds is a gloriously confident endeavour on the grandest scale built at time when the majority of Victorian Britain was cautiously looking over its shoulder for home style to create OTT Gothick and Neo-Baroque fantasies with densely layered, heavy interiors.

 Clouds in architectural progress

Clouds was designed by Philip Webb an Arts and Crafts architect  inspired by a love of England: ‘Not a vague, abstract love, or possessive pride and patriotism, but affection and even worship for the very earth, trees, animals, ploughs, wagons and buildings‘. The resulting house a glorified Kate Greenaway affair, all blue and white inside and all red and green outside.

on completion in 1886

10 years on

in its setting….

Clouds is not considered of architectural importance, the Arts and Crafts vernacular and values were lost in the scale of the endeavour, however the interiors and atmosphere created were extraordinarily magical, Henry James a frequent visitor was inspired by Clouds when he wrote: There were places much grander and richer, but there was so such complete work of art, nothing that would appeal so to those who were really well informed .

Clouds was a great social success:

Mark Girouard architectural/social historian (par excellence):

Balfour was a friend of the Percy Wyndhams and so was Burne-Jones, The 2 names gave the ambience of the house: political entertaining consumed with artistic discrimination. The style, sensibility and relative informality with which the 2 were pursued made clouds one of the most famous country houses of the era.    

Webb’s biographer William Lethaby wrote: it appears to have been imagined by its gifted hostess as a palace of weekending for our politicians.

Percy Wyndham was clearly extremely chuffed when he congratulated Webb saying, influential people (or donkeys as you would call them) are putting about that this is the house of the age. I believe they are right.

Mary communing with the birds in older age, a trait inherited clearly from her mother.

Madeline created a magical world at Clouds where wild birds were encouraged, peacocks roamed the grounds and a flock of turtle doves flew though the downstairs rooms – oh and the her pet squirrel fed from her hand. Layered into this were luxurious comforts: upstairs hot water ran freely (once the plumbing was sorted) and guests were cared for by 30 indoor staff, with ‘masseuse’ available on demand.  The staff …well they they had a kitchen modelled on a Medieval abbot’s kitchen, an eating hall 39 ft x 16ft with a table designed to separate for dancing and a servants’ wing composed as idyllic ‘cottage terrace’ for accommodation.

detail of Butler’s pantry, everything was thought through and designed to the highest specification.

Shall we go in the main entrance?

here the  interior is dominated by a vast central hall:

Madeline kept it sparsely decorated accentuating the quality of pieces selected from the William Morris tapestries to black lacquer furniture and a large Chinese screen complete with grand piano and Italian chimney piece.  Throughout the house Hepplewhite and Chippendale  furniture appeared (collected in a time when their peers were dismissing them as  ‘old fashioned’) but Madeline which appreciated and layered in with  modern Arts and Crafts commissions and Oriental pieces.

Blues, reds, pinks and greens dominated the house and I long to see some colour pictures, all that’s possible is a few pieces from sale details in the 20′s and 30′s:

part of a Rousseac dinner set.

William Morris upholstered child’s chair, obviously well loved, the house was awash with Morris designs.

The dining room  with its simple panelling boasted a lion columned fire place and a richly decorated ceiling. Madeline displayed her oriental china in sculptural force and used simple ‘bowl’ arrangements of flowers on the oval table … oh and the room was  a cosy 1,000 sq feet.

I wish I could find a picture of the billiard room which Detmar Blow helped Madeline transform over a weekend ,painting it dark blue so the the sister’s Sargent painting shone out. The children were at the heart of the home and Percy’s room poignantly reveals this, he slept with portraits of his five children in full view:

Children, grand children and guests mingled freely in the social centre of the house:The long hall above and below (shot in rather sunnier France my end) with its comfortable layout.

 Madeline’s grand child Pamela remembers drawing lessons at her table where grandma’s hands were always busy but her mind was free, moving among her guests, evoking and kindling.  It was her guests though that evoked and kindled the Great War,  stumbling blindly over the precipice. The Wyndhams were already feeling their losses as Percy and his son George died in quick succession between 1911-1913 leaving Clouds with large death duties and  a youthful  Percy heir… serving in the army and first in line for combat.

Baby Percy (Perf) with his mother.

Percy was shot dead in the first 3 weeks of the war.  His cousin wrote:

Father and son have not been long asunder

And joy in heaven leaves mortals sad and wan

His death-salute was artillery thunder

Praise be to God for such an Englishman

The patriotic line was  that death in duty was glorious, the young men were not too be pitied or missed as they were heroes, forever young. Wyndham mother’s now had to hold their remaining sons close, breath in their scent  and prepare themselves as one by one war called them up.

Bim Wyndham sketched by Sargent in his uniform

And they did it in style, these ‘Souls’ mothers of ‘Corrupt Coterie’ sons:

A picnic of grouse, roses and champagne…leopard skins stretched on a sofa, the piano acting as a sideboard… we had a feast and talked camp shop.

When the call up papers came, sisters advised each other, Don’t let him out of your sight, not even for a moment, whilst doing nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of their boys, they stayed by their side down to the last train, where Mary saw her 18 year old ‘Yvo’ leap high in the air as it drew out the station giving her one last glimpse of his beloved face.  Yvo died leading (what he knew was) a suicidal attack  from the trenches in 1915. Mary wrote with a pen ‘made of lead’ at ‘the sickening waste,  feeling  utterly blank and flat and miserable and grim’.  Yvo’s  cousins George and Bim were determined to fight, Bim only just being persuaded by his mother to complete his final term at Eton enlisting age 17, both died in 1915,  and 2 years later Yvo’s elder brother Ego died.

 Their grandmother, parents and sisters who were left behind found peace when it finally came an empty promise:

The lamp is shattered. Dust appears everywhere… There are no gentle flowers to be seen now. Only the blood-red poppies.

Oh why was I born for this time? Before one is 30 to know more dead then living people ?…(peace) will require more courage than anything that has gone before…one will at last fully recognise that the dead are not only dead for the duration of the war.

 Mary now 85 tried to sustain her family in its losses writing letters of comfort to her children and commissioning the memorial  ‘In memory of my five Grandsons who were were killed in the Great War’.  But in reality Clouds built with such confidence and love had clouded over, Dick who inherited the estate was haunted and unwilling, gradually its contents were auctioned and sold, parcels of land split off, the house dynamited to a manageable size  and put up for sale.  Clouds and the family who made it were like so many in Europe shattered and bewildered by the destruction of the Great War which none had seen coming.

THE END

Guy, Mary and George Wyndham 1867

For a full history of the Wyndhams and Clouds read ‘Those Wild Wyndhams‘ by Claudia Renton and ‘Clouds: The biography of a Country House‘ by Caroline Dakers, all photo credits from these 2 publications.

There has been so much written about the Mitfords, and by the Mitfords, both during their lives and after , that now as the final obituaries roll off the press for the last sister,  ‘wait for me‘ Debo, it is truly the end of an era.

Debo with her beloved chickens, happiest in the country with 2 whippets by her side, expert on rare breeds, keen hunting lady  and vocal in her dislike of Tony Blair and drivers who slowed down for cattle grids. What’s not to love?

I mourn the passing of  her vintage aristo-Englishness, where tiaras were casually collected from the bank vault in woolworth’s plastic  bags and walked home before the grand London balls, when country pursuits were unquestioned and a stiff-upper-lip / stiff-drink-humour ruled.

The eccentric world portrayed by Nancy Mitford in such charming and vivid prose made legions of young girls (me too)  yearn to be with them in the hons cupboard, searching for love in a cold climate, brimful of plans and distinctly-U … you know, one of the family

.

5 of the 6 Mitford sisters whose lives were so intensely lived they caught the public imagination as between them they spanned the extremes of the political spectrum which divided Europe in the 20th century.

I have a  VIP  black box: here rest all the ‘places’, which between them make up my fantasy ‘interior’, including Debo’s Old Vicarage decorated with David Milarnic, for me it is the ultimate Granny house, as you can see from my post-it filing notes:

Naturally it made the front cover of WOI.  I have searched high and low, to no avail, for the name of the apple green paint that greets you in the entrance hall.

Debo was Chatelaine extraordinaire of Chatsworth, as her husband said, My wife is far more important to Chatsworth than I am.  She is on the bossy side of course;  but I’ve always liked that in a woman.

Duke and Duchess together in the West Hall,  Simon Upton.

Her vision and commercial acumen, both restored the house which was  sad, dark and derelict when she first saw it, into  the most popular of stately homes, but also a private home of great personal style.

Debo strikes a pose in the Gold Drawing Room at Chatsworth beneath a Holbein portrait of Henry VIII. Norman Parkinson, 1952.

9, Duchess of Devonshire, as Nancy teased her youngest sister (inference: mental age 9 and cardboard cutout aristo) was far from textbook.  She claimed not to read,  under duress citing Beatrix Potter as her favourite author, but by her death was recognised as a successful  author and prolific writer.

Unforgettably introduced by the line:  I haven’t cooked since the war.  Class.

My favourite, In Tearing Haste charts her correspondence with Patrick Leigh Fermor, it’s so evocative you feel part of their gilded coterie.  In one of my favourite letters Debo relays grand daughter  Stella Tennant and Vogue’s flying trip to Chatsworth.

I turned the page down:

I was the monkey…suddenly that grand photo becomes intimately  human and that’s what Debo did: she took the Baroque grandeur of Chatsworth and made it human, something to be loved and cherished by the nation, by locals and by the 100’s of people who worked there, 600 of whom lined the drive at her funeral.

Daily Mail

It was on her husband’s death that she downsized to the Old Vicarage, telling visitors*:  The luxury of having everything so small—it’s simply amazing!

The flagstoned entrance hall with family paintings and a rope stair rail.

Debo’s cosy pink sitting room, book filled, warm and inviting you to chat.

I love the red wood burner.

The traditionally tiled kitchen complete with aga re-uses and updates old pieces found in sheds and attics, accessorised with plenty of chicken-ilia and eggs.

The dining room in country gingham and walls covered in good art – often presents from friends.

One of 8 bedrooms, this one with floral wallpaper sourced from America, because …all English wallpapers are so monstrously ugly. It’s great with the graphic floral rug and the mis-matched ‘bathroom on sweet ‘(another Debo-ism).  The lacquer  mint  is one of the decorative surprises within the classic  interior which makes it sing.

Debo’s bathroom has photos of her brother Tom and sister Unity  amidst lashings of Elnett, I am big fan of her precise coiffure.

That fresh apple green goes all the way… to the top.  I still want it.  I like its contrast with the classical painting and uber-modern pendant.

Another spare bed…  Debo advises Porthault linens are wonderful for disguising ink stains.

Finally, and I think this is my favourite, the grand children’s attic bedroom: your expecting a pair of pretty beds and you get them, but their mismatched colour and gothic fantasy  paired with stripes is another great example of how this interior’s country-chic surprises.  That window by the bed? it  allows the grandchildren to peer into the house’s old reed insulation – the flowers are still on stalks after 150 years.

My favourite room though, like Debo’s, is her powder room downstairs, it’s wallpapered in silver sticky-back plastic, and celebrates her favourite crooner Elvis, whose picture reigns over the loo.  I reckon Debo was a rocking granny and her house speaks of a life well lived:  full of love, family and friends.

  She left the world better for her being here and an ongoing legacy for all visitors to Chatsworth (and viewers of Pride and Prejudice) to appreciate.

Debo neé Mitford, 10 out of 10.

R.I.P. Debo Dowager Duchess Devonshire March 31 1920-September 24 2014

Debo Devonshire on her funeral: ”I suggest NO CREMATION, just an ordinary common or garden FUNERAL, I mean you have ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful” & ‘Holy, Holy Holy’ and then the stalwarts shoulder you and heave you to the graveyard…& everyone is in floods as you are lowered & and a handful of earth is thrown on & the fellow says Dust to Dust and Ashes to Ashes, more floods & bowed heads & then all start screaming with laughter before they’re out of the churchyard. That’s what I’m after.’’  source The Last Duchess.

Images of young Debo Mitford, from her memoirs, Wait for Me, Harper Collins.

Debo with chickens, was originally shot for the cover of Observer Food Monthly magazine and chosen by Debo for her memoirs, Wait for Me.

Images of Debo at Chtsworth as credited previously, Norman Parkinson and Simon Upton.

Funeral shot taken by Ross Parry.

Debo’s Delights from WOI, photography Simon Upton.

telling visitors*:  The luxury of having everything so small—it’s simply amazing!  Quote from Vanity Fair correspondent James Reginato.

Books written by Debo (all after the age of 60)

Chatsworth: The House                                                    (1980; revised edition 2002)
The Estate: A View from Chatsworth                            (1990)
The Farmyard at Chatsworth                                          (1991) — for children
Treasures of Chatsworth: A Private View                    (1991)
The Garden at Chatsworth                                              (1999)
Counting My Chickens and Other Home Thoughts (2002) — essays.
The Chatsworth Cookery Book                                       (2003)
Round and About Chatsworth                                        (2005)
Memories of Andrew Devonshire                                  (2007)
In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor (2008), edited by Charlotte Mosley
Home to Roost . . . and Other Peckings                      (2009)
Wait for Me!… Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister (2010)

It seems fitting that the grand dame of House and Garden, Sue Crewe, should bow out in her final issue, after 20 years at the helm, with an interview of the reigning master of hi-society décor Nicholas Haslam.  I reckon Nicky at 75 could offer a swift masterclass in RRR: Retiring in style, Retiring to strike again, Retiring to …. (fill in final word at your leisure: party, write memoirs, decorate, have fun etc ) I am stressing the ‘retired’ element as there is nothing retiring about Nicky.

Nicky in cream jumpsuits, tonally coordinated with his latest pad.

And what a pad…it’s kind of ‘Eau de Nicky': fun, fabulous – even a little trashy supa-chic. A stylish tightrope act over tacky-taste which he walks fearlessly.

As Nicky says: Having ‘taste’ – by which I mean the love of whatever pleases us – is one thing… But taste’s big brother, ‘style’, comes with inquistiveness, imagination, audacity, a sense of history and an urge to redefine and reinterpret. Taste is inert, style is proactive.  

This latest pad (flats like this are pads right?) is faux fabulous: teasing your instincts and visual eye from the moment you walk in:

Trompe l’oeil floor and faux bamboo wallpaper set the tone for Nicky’s gamesmanship, he keeps you guessing whilst asserting himself and his decor-magic all the way, as Sue Crewe says: Nicky could turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse.  Want a full run through, check out House and Garden and then maybe, as I did, click through to the NY Times article. It will help you decipher the faux from the’ inspired by’, the old friends from the chic recent bespoke commissions.

Contemplate whether you would consider momentarily (let alone install) a life size, nude, Lucien Freud inspired portrait of ‘one’… in the sitting room, Haslam makes me laugh.  He lives life to the FULL and I admire how he still stirs it up, he’s provocative, energetic and engaged – not Retired but RELEVANT. He says: I just find there is something fascinating about everybody and you have to dig a bit and get it. It’s very rewarding. Not to be closed in any way is very important in life, I think.  So it seemed appropriate that my next click on NY Times, (I always get lost on their site it’s endlessly good) brought me to a whose-who of the Octageranian  world entitled: Old Masters, after 80, some people don’t retire they reign.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 81, in the Lawyers’ Lounge of the Supreme Court.  NY Times Magazine

If you want their secret, past the obvious: longevity, it’s PASSION and curiosity, they keep asking questions and drive themselves relentlessly in their area of expertise, sounds familiar.

Photo illustrations by Zachary Scott for The New York Times.

Turns out that these evergreen octogenarians have the secret of youth, not the physical perfection we’re assaulted with daily via myriad dewy skinned ingénues,  but a state of mind.  Well according to the next NY Times article I read:  What if Age is Nothing but a Mind-Set?  here Ellen Langer, Harvard Professor of psychology tells her elderly subjects: make a psychological attempt to be the person they were 22 years ago. We have good reason to believe that if you are successful at this you will feel as you did…  Clearly no one has told Langer all she needs do is hook up with Nicky Haslam. Actually this is what I love about him, Nicky is young at heart, busy of mind and passionate.  Can’t wait for what he pulls out of the retirement-hat next, turns out – one more click, it’s a book! published November 20th.

I read recently: Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. So let’s fill ourselves with dreams we are passionate about, become masters,  and stay engaged … all the way to retired and beyond.

Photo Credits:

All images of Nicholas Haslam’s apartment are from House and Garden December 2014, shoot by Simon Upton.

New York Times photo credits given in the article.

Book Cover….better buy the book A Designer’s Life, published by Rizzoli, November 2014.

quote: Earl Nightingale and he has plenty more, Haslam would rather like, Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.    

Decision made:  am definitely doing that Decorative Arts Masters…..the one I was dreaming about.

I am gliding softly through as the clock chimes the hour, each door gives way to a space more extravagant than the next, the gilt boiserie glittering in the firelight and the doors sequentially leading me on, in enticing succession, until I reach the state bedchamber and slip past the the balustrade into the hotly contested ‘ruelle’,  bedside, the ultimate power seat.

I love an enfilade.

Even the name feels inviting. The enfilade is an architectural power-play, a sequence of rooms created with a seried rank of doors which teases your senses: how far down the line will your rank grant you access? how far will your host descend to greet you? In a tightly ordered hierarchical world of intricate ceremony the enfilade created a sequence of rooms to directly reflect Baroque court etiquette.  Where did this architectural scheme evolve from? what was its apex? how did it disappear?

The State bed – the ultimate expense and power symbol of the Baroque

First of all why do you want access to the king’s bed chamber? Well…the closer you are to power and influence the more likely some will come your way.   Originally the great Medieval hall had a bed chamber off it, gradually a withdrawing room was introduced in between, then a guard room and an antechamber.  Over time a sophisticated suite of rooms culminating in the state bedchamber evolved.  Then a small room appears, called a cabinet, a private room – behind the grand bedchamber.  Gradually this mushrooms into a series of intimate rooms, ultimately creating a second ‘private apartment’. Then you need some subtle links, jib doors, small corridors, secret stairs – connecting these apartments and creating hidden access.  The term back stairs intrigue emerged in the court of Charles II as all the best gossip and power plays happened on the rear stairs giving direct access to his intimate cabinet.

For power behind the throne you need discreet access to the state bed and cabinet beyond

All elite European families wishing to impress have a state apartment, the really swanky ones have ‘double state apartments’ his and hers. Then in the 18th Century the new ‘apartment privée’ becomes the place where it’s all happening, behind closed doors. The Mercure of Paris announced in 1755 ‘ those of the highest ranks live in the smallest rooms’.

‘reading Moliére’ in 18th century Paris, hanging out in style and comfort.

So finally after over 200 years of evolution and power play the enfilade’s purpose is eroded: replaced  by concepts of convenience and privacy,  a redefinition of luxury for the elite.  The enfilade allowed no room for ‘vie privée’ due to the alignment of those doors, once the term ‘private life’ enters the Dictionaire Universalle in 1690, the enfilade’s demise is inevitable.Where once the elite saw luxury and power as the demonstration of wealth and splendour they now see luxury as using money to make  their lives more enjoyable.  But for the next 100 years almost all grand house will continue to have a state apartment of some description, creating fashionable new rooms shapes and architectural decoration to impress and delight.  But the real fun, is behind closed doors where privacy is assured and access is a privilege.

and seductive… dinner for 4, intimate and alone…

What defines the modern home currently? What do we aspire too? It  seems to me we may have reached an architectural apex of open plan living.

House And Gardens has a sumptuous array of large scale open plan living

Maybe like our elite ancestors… living out our lives on constant display, in perpetual ear shot, makes the idea of shutting the door and having cosy corners very appealing.  I love a nook, need a study and fancy a bijoux girlie space.

Which bring home to me however modern each generation feels it is, there is always a historical antecedent, because our values and needs as human beings don’t really change.

Images from Pinterest except

State bed from Victoria and Albert Museum

House and Garden UK, open plan living

Dinner for 4 , Le Souper Fin, is from Moreau Le Jeune’s engravings of the 18th C French elite at play

Reading Moliere is a  1728 ‘tableau de mode’ painting by Francois le Troy

ps. you may have noticed I have started that Masters on the Decorative Arts, meanwhile the house/home is coming on and could even get a look in / photograph taken… very soon.  The bathroom is a big win, I love it.

Don’t tell anyone but I keep nearly crashing the car, May is the giddy climax of our English spring  and it’s so beautiful I keep on wanting to pull over/swerve wildly.  So far disaster averted.  You think I’m exaggerating? Well look, as I drive under the trees…

because I can’t help but look up, then as  Slad slides into view

There’s a screech of brakes (mine).The buttercups and dandelions are so dense underfoot that the meadows appear yellow with the horses etched into the vista.
Across the verges and inside the woods the wild spring garlic is a sensory experience, so intense I kind of do want to roll in it, but stick to foraging for risottos and soups instead. I am safer on foot (basket in hand).

Absorbing the soft air as the beech leaves multiply and the green glow resumes its luminosity over the wood.

I pause to absorb it all and there straight ahead is a deer.At the edge of the woods the valley rolls and folds before me, the light playing over it, shades of green multiplying, whilst the birdsong intensifies overhead.

and I can just hold spring in my hand.

To me spring is green and white with flashes of intense yellow and blue, it’s an interminably slow start from January when tiny violets pierce the hard brown ground, and snowdrops bow their heads. Here Spring builds note by note, flower by flower into the full glory of May. The blaze of yellow daffodils, then bluebells, wood anemones and wild spring garlics which form carpets of intense colour against a growing array of vivid greens.  Finally even the verges and paths froth over with cow parsley and the fields are massed with yellow buttercups and dandelions.

I walked this daily in our woods this year…. as colour burst from the ground and climbed the trees seemingly branch by branch.

in ever increasing clusters of lime green.

Reaching full force as the bluebells gently wave goodbye.

Letting the wild spring garlic claim the forest floor.

After the endless grey and brown of English winter and intense rains of April the village starts to venture outside literally blinking.

and cricket resumes play on the Laurie Lee ground heralding summer.

Spring comes to England as to no other country, as though the island were its natural home…It seems to last longer here lingering voluptuously over the passive landscape..stumbling, sweet and slow, a thing of infinitesimal shades, false starts, expectations and deferred hopes, and final showers of glory.  The month of May in England, so long awaited, is the flower studded crown of spring, the final raising of the curtain on all we’d been promised, the shimmering threshold to the mansions of summer. Laurie Lee  – The English Spring.

The main reason I love this visual feast which imprints itself daily – in a thousand small moments – is that its such a powerful palette, the intense colours and textures of spring’s awakening symbolically cheer the soul.  Bring them into your home or wardrobe for an instant sunny fix to lift the greyest of days.

Like Lauren Hutton circa 1970

Michael Kors Runway 2015.

Green is the only colour our eyes don’t adjust too see, it’s a naturally relaxing colour for us to be around, layer it’s vibrancy – just like nature – with shades of silvery green and darker ivy, to tones of vivid leaf  and pea green –  they all naturally work together.  Ground it with neutrals and fresh shades of white or pop in blue and yellow, your done.  This palette is about bringing nature into your home.

Whether you go the WHOLE way or add a natural accent.

It’s about making an entrance.

Or waking up surrounded by a scheme which offers the healing touchstone of spring….

It’s a classic equally at home in Lee Radziwill’s uptown NYC to David Hick’s and Syrie Maugham’s country England.  It’s soothing in the Caribbean heat of Lyford Clay and Playa Grande and chez the chicest of fashionista’s Yves Saint Laurent’s Moroccan bedrooms. In contemporary interiors scale-play and stripes complement each other.  Green feels good. AND when you wake up…wouldn’t you feel good walking in here, no I am not green with envy. no really. (might re-upholster the chair – yes really).

Coffee with added spring-pep in the kitchen, or coffee coolly contemplative – green can do both.

I even rather like the idea of a green ceiling:

or a REALLY green window

and I definitely like the idea of a spring green mural….

might have to sit down and think about this.

However you style it. green works. which means springs coming home.

and right now I am at Ett Home (‘at home’ in Sweden) and the bar is calling – and guess what – my seats the GREEN one.

credits:

please see my pinterest board Spring Green

and remember green is great with accents of blue, yellow and neutrals, just like in the country.

I finally went to Versailles, it was Monday the palace was closed to the public and we echoed through the vast space of the state apartments, I could have cart wheeled through the Hall of Mirrors…WHY didn’t I? I suppose I was scribbling furiously as John Whitehead held forth eloquently. While we were there they were moving furniture and paintings and the most famous of Versailles’ queens floated past…

Versailles is synonymous with the King Louis XIV who conjured up the most magnificent palace in Baroque Europe from marshland to dazzle both his court and royal neighbours.
A flamboyant display of power: gilded, carved, mirrored and marbled to excess throughout the state apartments with the enfilade thoroughfare ensuring maximum display and power-play.

Louis’s vision and determination transformed the French decorative arts, importing craftsmen, establishing guilds, factories  and academies, commissioning and commissioning, building and decorating – all with a connoisseur’s eye.  His legacy was France’s unquestioned leadership in fashion, taste and luxury goods supported by unparalleled craftsmanship. His ticking time-bomb an insistence on absolute rule and a crippling system of royal protocol that detonated a fault line between Versailles and the country at large exploding in revolution. Caught in this gilt rift and final blast, Marie Antoinette, the last queen of Versailles and the queen of taste.

Marie Antoinette’s formal life was conducted in the very state apartments Louis created almost a hundred years before.  Desperate to escape  and have a ‘vie privée*’  her private apartments and the Petit Trianon are some of the most exquisite rooms and interiors in Versailles.   So this palace which is synonymous with Louis and his grand scale self-glorification is also synonymous with its last inhabitant, a female intent on escaping it. Pierre de Nolhac, Versaille’s extraordinary curator (1892-1920), who helped restore, re-furnish and revive Versailles describes her Petit Trianon as: exceedingly elegant, but in no case lavish: pure good taste in place of the expected luxury. Marie Antoinette’s charming rooms  are both sophisticated and naturally beautiful,  the finest craftsmanship and designers of 18th century Europe focused on creating rooms which are a sensory balm and a personal Eden.Petit Trianon’s graceful  neo-classical proportions were designed by Jacques Anges Gabriel in 1762.  An elegant exercise on a ‘cube’ each facade  was modulated to its function and position within the palace domain, celebrating the classical orders. Does it looks familiar?..well it has been a source of inspiration ever since its completion, the facade and scale celebrated and repeatedly explored.

Designed as a Maison de Plaisance for Madame de Pompadour, but completed only after her death in 1768.  Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette (aged 19) a key studded with 513 diamonds on ribbon…Madame you love flowers. I have bouquet to offer you. It is Petit Trianon… Marie Antoinette had her own miniature kingdom, where even the king needed an invitation to enter.

Shall we can go in…

The entrance facade features a giant order, topped by corinthian capitals.

Why? well the giant order symbolically announces the illustrious royal connection, then scale wise their monumentality unifies the facade and from a distance delicately ties it with decorative ribbons.  My kind of ribbons. Inside is where we see both the early emergence of the new neo-classical style  architecturally  (1760’s) and its decorative peak in Marie Antoinette’s redecoration of the principle rooms. 

The vestibule is a beautifully proportioned, purely architectural space echoing the exterior’s facades and its bucolic location, look at the chequered floor – now softly faded – the  green campania marble squares were chosen to echo the grass outside. 

looking up to the first floor and under the lantern…The lantern was traditionally used to protect candles from the wind in vestibules where guests dismounted from their coaches: the transitional space from the exterior to interior. At Petit Trianon Marie Antoinette and her designers used it in several public spaces enhance the interiors connection to nature. Marie Antoinette had her cipher inserted into the balustrade (replacing Louis XV’s) made  by Francois Boichois.  Framed by the French cockerel and symbols of french royalty  and alternately hung with trophies celebrating Hermés the God of transition and boundaries.

Spot the exterior’s garlanded windows?

Spot the interior’s garlanded windows? Inside and Out, Inside-Out, Outside-In, the Trianon plays with your senses.

So let’s make sure we have our bearings (thank you internet!):

As you enter the anti-chamber ‘Rustic Luxe’ which is the Style Trianon fully reveals itself.. even from the turn of a door handle it’s ALL about: the use of flowers and floral motifs on every surface and in every form, roses and lilies of the valley, myrtle and lilies, sunflowers and ears of corn (épis), strewn in all their natural simplicity, woven into graceful garlands, arranged in artful bouquets, mingled with motifs of pearls and ribbons, and scattered in profusion over furniture and objets d’art.  You got the message…it’s exquisite. Carved by Honoré Guibert – Marie Antoinette didn’t touch it. Do you see the fleur de lys  -lillies (symbols of French royalty) intertwined with the ornate looped  myrtle-leaf ‘L’s’ .

‘French Grey’, is really ‘Trianon Gray’ which is actually  a bad 19th Century paint job over the original, pale green ,which restoration has only recently revealed  … and chosen once again to echo nature beyond the windows.  There’s little of Versailles gilt here…and no formal court dress, Marie Antoinette and friends received ‘en chemise’.  The  painting of the Queen in this boho-chic caused such a storm at the 1783 Salon du Louvre that it had to removed:It’s difficult to imagine now how scandalised people were but then Elizabeth Vigée le Brun hastily repainted the Queen in a  more formal and patriotic style: a Lyons silk dress in a royal and loyal shade of blue  (tellingly in exactly the same pose to refute the queen’s critics claiming lax morals and more besides) with a rose the symbol of love and grace.

It’s the first thing that greets you in the ante chamber today.

Opposite busts of her brother and husband, (her brother who saved the queen by literally explaining the requirements of the marital act to her husband Louis) .  You’d probably walk by the wooden stools, but they survived the revolution,  created for her dairy at Rambouillet and designed to mimic ancient Greek stools traditionally made with strapped leather, strongly neo classical and in the plainest wood, these were designed by Hubert Robert and carved by  Georges Jacob.

There’s another pair dotted either side of the console, beyond the dining room door where  garlands of grapes drape either side of a mask of Bacchus, the God of the harvest and wine. A recurring theme in this space, where the art reflects the source of its food in scenes of fishing, hunting and the harvest … and  do you see the carved quivers full of arrows to catch your prey?

Marie Antoinette’s bust still presides over the mantlepiece carved with  nature’s bounty.

Even the chandelier hangs from a ceiling rose articulated by cornucopia, classical horns of plenty, overflowing to the feast below… possibly served on the Sèvres dinner service hand painted with Marie Antoinette’s favourite cornflowers, encircled by pearls and framed in GREEN. 

Through the small dining room we trot, still large enough for billiards…

to the Grand Salle.

Which clearly inspired Vogue on the release of THAT film:

So picture that right here…

Where flowers are combined with musical trophies and Marie Antoinette would play her harp  …Everywhere there’s a jewel like quality to the work, look closely at the candelabra’s mounts  and the mirrors carved edging:

see?

When the General Estates met in 1789 the provincial deputies were all desperate to see the Petit Trianon, where the rooms were apparently decorated with precious stones. Although the queen demanded the finest work, this is the closest it gets to diamond studded walls…

So we dream on today, imagining close friends and the queen  reclined on the sofa, buying  19th century copies of these finest 18th century chairs. The square  die joins (the dice at the top of the leg) and fluted legs (en carquois) are quick identifiers as to whether your having a Marie Antoinette chair moment. These though are the originals made by Jean-Baptiste Claude Sené (second only to Georges Jacob) and covered in Lyons damask.Then there’s the central lantern: can you just make out the stars in their enamel surround at the top?This lantern is one of the most beautiful ever made, with mounts by Thomire of musical elements on deep blue enamel work , sold in the revolution, its importance meant the government bought it back under Napoleon in 1811.  Just when  Marie Antoinette’s Austrian niece Marie-Louise was Empress of France and the Petit Trianon once again a private refuge, how often did she consider her Aunt’s fate I always wonder.Her Aunt who was so intent on privacy that her boudoir had mirrored panels installed by the Métivier brothers which could cover the windows.  The  ‘Wedgewood’ inspired blue and white boiserie scheme,  made by the Rousseau brothers would then infinitely reflect Marie Anoinette: shielded entirely from the outside world,  oblivious to day or night, cocooned.

Small rooms are so much more intimate, their beauty embraces you.

Beside the boudoir, Marie Antoinette’s bedroom. documents have recently shown that the queen’s locksmith  Sieur Juneau created a system whereby , she can open and close the doors from her bed at will.  All this leads us into Mills and Boon speculation around Axel de Fersen her reputed lover and the Queen, whose bed looked out over the Temple of Love.

The bed and chairs are climax of the bucolic fantasy created at Trianon,

The ‘ears of corn’ suite, by Georges Jacob, topped with pine cones and entwined with jasmine, honeysuckle and lillies of the valley, rustic details painted in the colours of truth and nature and upholstered in embroidered roses and cornflowers.

.

Marie Antoinette arrived in Versailles age just 15.  She kept talismanic reminders of her Austrian home and family whenever she could and here in her  bedroom the clock resting between the Hapsburg eagles still strikes the hour …
Why does Marie Antoinette and the Style Trianon endure?  In an era surrounded by such extraordinary beauty and wealth, backed by the writings of Rousseau, refined simplicity and ‘back to nature’ became the ultimate chic in la vie douce*. Petit Trianon is the pastoral dream of a supremely sophisticated urban design team, a project which still resonates loudly today as city types dash down to country retreats for the weekend, or spend summers in greener pastures – just as Marie Antoinette and her friends did.  We still seek to reflect nature’s  beauty as a source of solace, inspiration and restoration.

When the fish wives marched on Versailles in October 1789, forcing the royal family to return to Paris with them,  mob rule overturned the established order and the revolution’s fuse was lit.  That day as guards desperately sought members of the royal family, Marie Antoinette was found alone in the grounds of her private kingdom, rural idyll and enchanted world that is the Petit Trianon,  it was the last time she saw it.

History continues to rewrite the life of Marie Antoinette but one thing is clear, Petit Trianon, is a lasting legacy of the Ancient Regime*,  the queen’s taste and a creation of timeless beauty, I could go back again and again.

CREDITS:

photographs of the Petit Trianon taken by ADA.

Paintings of Marie Antoinette from the internet, sources easily available, except the last image photographed by ADA at the Victoria and Albert museum.

the Petit Trianon’s decoration under Marie Antoinette was overseen by her premier architect Richard Mique, with a dream team! Thomire, the Rousseau brothers and Jean Henri Riesener.

la vie privée is a termed which only entered french society in the 18th century. as notions of privacy asserted themselves, and the concept of a private life emerged.

la vie douce, the aristocratic sweet life, a life of refinement and beauty.

Ancien Regime: the established order of pre-revolutionary France divided into its three estates.

How was your birthday this year? because quite frankly however you celebrated, the ultimate birthday celebrations are Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s  33rd birthday in 1753. After a private theatrical performance, the Swedish royal family strolled through Drottingholm park and there her 7 year son – dashingly dressed as a Chinese prince – presented her with a key on a red velvet cushion, then the trees parted and there stood a Chinese pavilion, which had been secretly constructed off site and then erected in the palace grounds overnight, a real fairytale creation…the loveliest imaginable (she wrote to her mother).  Thus began eight days of celebration and a birthday gift which has kept on giving, to the extent that it is now a UNESCO world heritage site.  So when we went to Stockholm  I persuaded my husband to join me on a the chinoiserie-pilgrimage…I think it helped we went by boat.

It slipped through the archipelago while we sipped clear white wine and slipped back local delicacies.  Fortifying for a ‘cultural heritage’ tour with the Mrs, who map in hand at Drottingholm, swerved left as we arrived …at the guards pavilion:

It was a pit-stop for one and total inspiration for the other.

STRIPES! lambrequins! tassels! trompe-l’oeil, Rope… curtains UP.

It’s a perfect fantasy construction, an ephemera recently restored to its former 18th century  glory.  The chinese pavilion’s construction failed fairly quickly (1763), but its popularity meant it was swiftly rebuilt in its present form by 1769, as  chinoiserie mania was at its pagoda’d heights in 18th century Europe.  

The central grand pavilion  shown above was framed by four separate smaller pavilions, containing billiards, wood-turning (I kid you not) and the ultimate in private 18th century dining style… ‘the confidence’ … a mechanised dining room where servants hoisted the dining table and dumb-waiters into position, course by course, from below and you dined in strictest confidence.

All this was designed by Carl Frederick Adelcrantz, director of Public Works,  and Jean Eric Rehn, Surveyor of the King’s household.  But Chinoiserie entwined itself throughout 18 th century Europe, we can see French and English influences within the building .   Sir William Chamber’s illustrated guide ‘Designs of Chinese Buildings,Furniture, Dresses, Machines and Utensils’ was widely disseminated despite its tongue-twister of a title:

plate 2 from Chamber’s book.

chimes with the exterior of the Chinese Pavilion.

While inside the main Green and Blue Drawing Rooms at either end of the central pavilion, have romantic Rococo -Chinoiserie painted interiors inspired by the fashionable French artists Francois Boucher (below), Antoine Watteau and Jean Pillement.  

So this Eastern inspired summer house is also realised and inspired by multiple European sources and influences, and yet at its heart remains Swedish, reflecting the tastes of the royal family and their interests, from the tiled Swedish stoves to their collection of Chinese dolls,  from the embroidery the queen and her ladies undertook to her husband the King who gave his wife a precious link to her family home in Prussia …

Where the  Chinese Tea House  was commissioned for Sanssouci. So back to those trees parting… WHAT a present.In Lovisa’s era the walls gleamed with oil paint to mimic the lacquered red and yellow of chinese temples, today dragons and palm trees still support the second story and bells chime under the undulating roofline.

An inventory compiled in 1777 just before Lovisa’s death, when it fell out of fashion, has enabled a large scale restoration project to return the pavilion not only to its ‘original state’ but also to source and accurately place over 75% of the original furniture.  As you step through the door, you step back in time and feel the full skill of the 18th century decorative arts.

The marble hall’s restrained neo-classicism is  a visual palette-cleanser before you travel the Chinoiserie rainbow.  Its angular geometric shape accentuates the cool colour scheme, the monochrome marble floor and the soft shades of scagliola (imitation marble) walls are only enlivened with gilt trims and rococo gilt reliefs poised between the five double doors.

Either left or right, you enter the Red or Yellow Rooms, symmetrical rooms and schemes, both incorporating costly imported lacquer panels into the European conception of Chinese design and reflecting the exterior colour scheme.

The intersecting rings (above) and ‘meander’ (at the top of walls above the chandelier below) are both in William Chamber’s book. The circular overdoors are Swedish visions of the Chinese lacquer panels incorporated into the walls below where they are  finished with Swedish ‘Chinese’ symbols framed by European ‘Chinese’ garlands. There’s a constant through ‘the looking glass’ effect  of endless refractions between East and West as you peer deeper into these schemes.

Then the overdoors from the yellow room are inspired by Francois Boucher’s romantic Chinoiserie and the vibrant yellow bounces off bright pink in the embroidered room beyond.   Look closely at the details….details…details…to seehow much intricate work and thought was put into these tiny rooms.The occasional splash of fashionable Rococo  even occurs in these supposedly ‘authentic’ Chinese interiors, like the corner console above.  The 17 th century porcelain urn is once again resting  on its top…within touching distance of us, the 21st century visitor.

These are jewel box rooms, you could literally have tea for two,  but its their intimacy that makes you inhale their jewelled interior, lit up by Rococo foliate chandeliers, framed by the rocaille gilt trim and meander edging (in red and gilt).

So we pass through to the curved galleries – see the door open above- one either side of the red and yellow rooms, a yellow gallery connects the red to the green drawing room, a green gallery connects the yellow to the blue drawing room.  Do you sense a rainbow theme here? I do.There are delicate and unassuming Chinese lanterns, simple panelling and display cabinets for family treasures, my favourite? the beaded glass pagoda from the 17th Century and Queen Hedvig Eleonora.The blue and green drawing rooms at either end of the pavilion (and these galleries) are the ultimate in 18th century entertaining, simultaneously channeling the inside-outside trend still going strong today whilst serving as drawing room, dining room and banquet hall as required. Sometimes both sets of drawing room doors would be open and guests could mingle between these rooms in scented summer gardens and the rooms would become virtual verandas with potted plants inside and out to blend space and fantasy together. Both rooms are hand painted with imaginary scenes of mythic Cathay, Chinoiserie pilgrims show their respects.Emerald green, gilt and fresh white –  add trellis work, panelling and cartouches -timeless chic. I love looking into the framed scenes and carved details.

snapping away…

Before crossing the courtyard to its Blue pendant. Here enlarged scenes are placed into panels, each one a musical tableau:looking back into the green gallery.Up into the chandelier…see how each pictorial element is at eye level.Not forgetting those gilt edged panels and trellis work:and then the musical scenes themselves:In this romantic Rococo vision of China, inspired by the ‘blue and white’ export porcelain  collected by European royalty and aristocrats, there are endless charming details beautifully painted to entertain visitors and massage away daily life, no wonder Chinoiserie still appeals today…The ho ho birds, the flowers, the ladies … it’s all idyllic.  You might want to stay… Queen Luvisa never did, but her bed chamber exists, for retiring too between the summer fun. Its original cerise watered silk with silver trims has faded now, but its still exquisite teamed with vibrant green.Upstairs the octagonal room’s  walls are covered in silk hangings painted by  Chinese artists to their idea of far-flung European taste, our native flora and fauna… Euroiserie?Completed with the Swedish tiled stove, it’s an idiosyncratic mix that twists the Chinoiserie kaleidoscope one notch further.

From here the oval room (see those colour shifts, pink-blue-green, move  over boring Grey on Gris):

Shall we just move in?

The Chinese Pavilion is an incredibly rare, well preserved example of the exquisite Rococo Chinoiserie in the 18th century, why does it matter? why do we care?

Our desire to create beauty, infusing sensory and intellectual pleasure into our surroundings, is the most powerful and lasting expression of civilisation, while an interest in the world beyond our own reflects the curiosity essential to all our progress.  The Pavilion enshrines this in the finest of 18th century craftsmanship, enabling a dialogue between past and present, to treasure and enjoy. Indeed perhaps like Mr OC you might have to lie down and recover at the dizzying wonder of it all after the extensive pilgrimage…

as you hear the wife say, ‘Next birthday could you possibly …make mine a pavilion’.

Credits:

all images taken by me except for plans of the pavilion and the Sanssouci Tea house, from Wikipedia.

Specific information about the pavilion is from ‘the Chinese Pavilion’ a room by room guide for visitors.

Want to know more about Chinoiserie? it’s on the blog… origins, history and contemporary examples.

Some buildings and their interiors  never fade from sight, they are too influential,  defining a style, a high-point in taste and design which become a touchstone for  subsequent generations.  Petit Trianon’s restrained neo classical elegance,  decorated to reflect the charm and beauty of the gardens beyond its windows is just such a building.  Call it ‘Trianon Today’, the queen’s taste filtered by modern tastemakers through a contemporary lens to create interiors that while rooted in the past are utterly chic and very, very desirable.

See what I mean?

So what’s the tick list? how to spot ‘Trianon Today’…. you may wish the skip this bit if your tête-à-tête with Trianon….

TRIANON TODAY: ELEMENTS OF A STYLE

• Fusing inside/outside to play with your senses, this was the era of Rousseau   championing nature’s positive influence.
• Louis XV and XVI side by side, Marie Antoinette’s design team left aspects of Louis’s interior untouched.g. the boiserie, the staircase, the stone vestibule.
• Clear, soft colours with occasional jewel brights, Petit Trianon has lots of gentle green, lashings of white and greige, layers of soft pinks and shades of blue, dashes of raspberry red and darker green… the colours of truth and nature.
• remember that blue and white ‘Wedgwood’ inspired boudoir.
• Exterior lanterns are brought inside.
• Stone and marble, parquet and panelling, cotton and linens. Gilt accents…Beautiful natural materials of the finest quality.
• Floral motifs from meadows and hedgerows, lightly held in garlands and ribbons, over multiple surfaces and textiles, oh …and scattered with pearls .
• Temples in the garden and THAT Treillage pavilion, Pavillion Frais.
• This is a Queen’s vision of rustic charm, so … remember
• Pierre de Nolhac: elegant not lavish: pure good taste in the place of expected luxury.

The essence of the Trianon’s Style  is….

Georges Jacob’s ‘épis’ bedroom furniture delivered 1787, back in situ in its original upholstery…

 So where does the style Trianon reside today?  I kept on thinking about this in Provence and images of  Janet de Bottom’s nearby manse  kept floating into view, so shall we take a look? via Vogue Living and Hamish Bowles?

It was actually converted from a bull farm, hence the minotaur’s maze below.  Converted doesn’t really cover it though. The 1,000 acres surrounding it gave scope for ambitious garden plans, which Marie Antoinette and Richard Mique (her architect) would definitely have approved of, nature being the essence of style Trianon.  De Bottom’s brief was ‘amaze me‘ and ‘don’t forget a cutting garden’, there is a temple (like Trianon) and like Trianon the rooms colours reflect the flowers beyond and visa versa…

Shall we just walk through the roses, maybe pluck a few?

Or pass by the hydrangea walk below…

These soften to shades of mauve over the season and reflect the  glazed lilac linen which Janet found at Nicholas Haslam’s shop a decade earlier and finally used across the drawing room windows.  Armfuls of irises complementing this purple palette in the Spring …

Looks comfortable doesn’t it? Louis XV’s curved lines sit comfortably beside later pieces, while tole floral wall lights frame a Carolyn Sergeant leaf painting above the decorative console.  A playful tromp l’oiel needlepoint side table reminds guests of their host’s championship level bridge…
Need a refuge? the library is next door, mirroring the palette and materials, against bespoke greige panelling. Janet said that while her husband Gilbert (now deceased) wanted Versailles, she wanted the absolute opposite, banishing embellishments and passementerie, simplifying boiserie designs and panelling details.The entrance hall was  formed around a Louis XVI staircase and took ten attempts to form the perfect proportions. A key partner in the project said: Janet is impetuous, she will go for it, and if it doesn’t work break it down and start again. Go Janet.Makes me want to sit down for a moment and soak it in:On the Louis XV canapé à confidantes, naturally surrounded by an artless profusion of flowers…Getting peckish? the breakfast room is surrounded by floral 18th century Marseilles fiaencé this is a collector’s house.

Swoon over it from your Louis XV chair… stroll through the sea of lavender (or brave the maze) before lunch…personally I’d track down the grotto (Trianon infamously had one too),  here master jeweller JAR has been at work, swapping shells for gems.Time for a glass of rosé in the shade enjoying the view through the grapevine arbor… Before an afternoon around the pool surrounded by  fantasy tents Haslam designed inspired by the Guards’ pavilions at Drottingholm, swoon, double swoon… arranged for playing cards poolside (according to Hamish). Not being the ultimate card-sharp maybe I would need to retire pre-dinner, when I think I’d be the first one down…The dining room is surrounded by Louis VX hand painted canvas panels with an 18th century dauphin’s ‘dolphin’ presiding over you,  hello Marie Antoinette – Dauphine of France.

She could literally pull up a seat, a Louis XVI chaise still in its original Aubusson upholstery. This house is one of the great contemporary estates of our time, hailed by Nicholas Haslam as a masterpiece,  and by Jacob de Rothschild as the most comfortable, thoughtful place he has ever stayed. It’s an epic creation with Trianon refracted and reflected into the 21st century. But you can see  and create a sense of Trianon in any space you choose,  I visited Joanna Plant at the House and Garden magazine’s Summer Fair, and took a step backwards as I walked in to her  stand, just to see it again…

how charming is this?

Parquet – tick, treillage – tick, inside-outside –  big tick, green and white – tick, plants galore – tick, lantern – tick, floral wall lights – tick, neo-classical urns and massed tureens – tick, cabbage ware (chic twist on classic floral Sèvres) – double tick, rustic-luxe – tick, understated elegance –  tick.  Trianon Today.

It’s fresh rather than classic and inviting, a fantasy dining space to relax in. The white dinner ware, modern chairs , soft stripes and natural textures a perfect counter point to the playful trellis and massed florals.  Shall we just pour a coupe right now?

Actually I am going to hold off for coffee, I am meeting Joanna to talk interiors, Trianon, keeping it real and modern English style later this week.  So let’s stay in touch.

Credits:

Trianon, Juliet O’Carroll.

Provence, photographed by Francois Halard, quote ‘one of the great contemporary estates of our time‘ Hamish Bowles. Vogue Living 2004.

Joanna Plant’s decorated exhibition space, photographed by  both Joanna and Juliet.

It’s worth noting, you see what you want to see and also what your eye has been trained or encouraged to see, I undoubtedly was influenced by my visit to Trianon, subsequently seeing it in both de Bottom’s Provence and Joanna’s summer room, but isn’t that the point? in seeing more, the world becomes more layered and interesting. Think of Vogue’s great editor Diane Vreeland: the eye has to travel.