Latest Arrivals
Shop Now
Having grown up on the beautiful island of Cyprus, founder and creative director of Design Stories, Murude Katipoglu, is inspired by raw beauty and colour from surrounding landscapes. Steeped in legend, myth and beauty, it is not hard to see why. Cyprus is abundant with traditional architecture. It has a natural environment flowing with Mediterranean flora and fauna and a peaceful, welcoming vibe for locals and visitors alike.
After moving to London for university, Murude graduated from Kingston with a degree in interior design. She then spent seven years working on high-profile projects and, in 2017, upon deciding that it was time to set up on her own, Design Stories was born.
Murude draws on her heritage when evoking the feeling of home and this deep appreciation for natural materials is a common thread between every project. As she says, “Nature, people, spaces and materials are all elements that excite and inspire me. Sometimes we get to work on a historic building with plenty of history; sometimes we’re inspired by an antique we’ve sourced, or it can be our clients and their stories who we draw our inspiration from.”
Here at Lorfords, we love her style and ethos, so we wanted to share with you the woman behind her story, behind her Design Stories, in fact!
The best books I’ve read in the past year are The 5 am club and The Everyday Hero Manifesto , both by Robin Sharma. They are brilliant guides to balancing life and staying focused on what is important to me as a person.
My favourite Lorfords Antiques piece I have sourced for a client was a stunning 19th Century French Copper and Tin Bateau Freestanding Bath. It was for a cottage we designed a couple of years ago. It had so much patina and character.
I recently placed the Lorfords Contemporary Elmstead Sofa – I love it. We placed two of them into our large residential project in Hampshire more recently for our client's living room. She absolutely loved them.
The last thing I bought and loved was handmade pink velvet shoes from Florence! They make me happy every time I wear them.
The place that means a lot to me is Cyprus. I grew up there, my family are all still there and I love the sunshine!
The podcast I’m listening to is The Diary of A CEO by Steven Bartlett, On Purpose by Jay Shetty & How to Fail by Elizabeth Day.
In my fridge, you’ll always find Greek Yogurt!
Some of my best ideas have come while I’m in bed trying to sleep and also when I travel alone.
One thing I couldn’t do without is coffee.
The decision I made that changed everything for me was deciding to stay on in London after finishing my degree rather than move back to Cyprus.
An indulgence I would never forgo is luxury hotel stays! I love a good hotel, and I am passionate about hotel design and hospitality. A good hotel stay can change your life for good!
The last piece of clothing I added to my wardrobe was a shirt from With Nothing Underneath. I like the simplicity and effortless look of their shirts.
My favourite room in my house is my bedroom. It’s calm and cosy and looks onto the river Thames. 
The best advice I’ve ever received is don’t listen to criticism from someone you wouldn’t seek advice from.
I do not compromise on comfort. Comfort must be prioritised in the places we spend most of our lives, where we work and in our homes. Our studio space is a good example of that, we had to do a long refurb but it’s been worth it.
I often compromise on my personal time….
My signature object to include in a project is a Diptyque Black Baies candle. It has become the recognised studio scent.
---
Imagery by Helen Cathcart
---
To find out more about Design Stories and Murude Katipoglu, please visit the Design Stories website.
To read more L-Shaped interviews, including those with other interior designers, please click here.
More than ever, we are recognising the value of our gardens as outdoor rooms. The nights are drawing in and the temperature is dropping, but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon the garden until next summer. Alongside modern inventions like the mighty patio heater, antique lanterns are a great way to create a cosy atmosphere
Let there be light
The role of lanterns throughout history is well-illustrated in books, folklore, and illustrations. They are one of the oldest forms of lighting in the world, with the first recorded lanterns dating to the Han Dynasty in ancient China.
From the lanterns sailors used in the 18th Century, lit by whale oil, to the electric ones used by police officers from the late 19th Century to fight crime in the dark, these versatile objects have long been indispensable to humans. Throughout their long history, lanterns have used animal fat, candles, oil, gas, and finally electricity.
Some antique lanterns originated in a street environment. Scotsman William Murdoch invented the coal-fuelled gaslight in 1802 to try and make street lighting more efficient. Five years later, London had its first gas-lit road – Pall Mall. These lanterns are often of good scale with a charming sense of history. Whether hung as a pendant or freestanding, street lanterns will bring authentic and unique character to a space.
Antique lanterns for every occasion
Despite immense technological advancement, antique lanterns remain very popular for both indoor and outdoor use. We may no longer rely on these primitive sources for light, as our ancestors did, but they are undeniably very stylish. Lanterns, as décor and as light sources, are perfect for creating an old-fashioned atmosphere.
No outdoor gathering works without some light to see each other by. Lanterns are ideal for creating light at all levels, without it feeling glaring. They come in all forms to suit your setting; they can hang on a chain, sit on the floor nestled by a table, or attach to a wall.
Rain or shine
One thing that hasn’t changed since the 1700s is unpredictable weather conditions, so antique lanterns are often designed to resist the elements. Good materials include toleware, steel, aluminium, copper, and brass.
Meanwhile, antique storm lanterns have a wonderful industrial look and were literally designed to withstand the most extreme weather. Years of exposure to the elements can bring out a fabulous patina in these time-worn objects. Vivid verdigris, burnishing, and tarnishing only adds to their whimsical appeal.
Featured here is just a sample of our lanterns, so make sure you browse our whole collection online.
Read more on lighting...
During September we were delighted to be asked to contribute to several fantastic events in London. From London Design Festival to RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Lorfords Antiques were at it all!
RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Jardin Blanc
When the organisers of Jardin Blanc at RHS Chelsea Flower Show contacted us to ask if we'd be interested in contributing to this year's restaurant, of course, we couldn't say no! We were delighted to lend the show two beautiful dining tables and chairs with glorious urns accompanying them, as well as a fantastic large French iron clock face and decorative French gilt mirror.
Belgravia in Bloom with Cox London
From France to Belgravia, this 19th Century French fairground horse has been showing off its beauty in a beautiful window display created by Cox London for Belgravia in Bloom. Belgravia in Bloom celebrated its sixth year this year and returned with a series of floral installations all themed around 'Floral Fairground'. Cox London walked away with the silver award and the wonderful horse has now returned back to his current home in our Hangars in the Cotswolds.
London Design Festival with de Gournay
de Gournay's crisp rendition of the ‘Chatsworth’ Chinoiserie on White Metal gilded paper creates a glittering backdrop for an imagined bathroom at their London showroom in celebration of London Design Festival. An elegant setting composed around a majestic bath from Drummonds overflowing with gypsophila – its gleaming copper the perfect foil to the hand-gilded walls, illuminated with a pair of plaster standing column lamps from us.
The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair
The Decorative Fair returns after a year of postponements and cancellations and we weren't going to miss it! With many of our dealers attending this year's show, it proved to be an event not to miss with the finest treasures from all over the world.
"That's the beauty of garden design in a way. Longevity is there in the plan and the structure and everything else changes all the time - whether you want it to or not." Legendary duo Isabel and Julian Bannerman are garden designers by appointment to The Prince of Wales. Their accolades include the majestic gardens at Highgrove, Trematon Castle and Houghton Hall. We had the privilege of asking Isabel about all things garden design.
The beautiful gardens at Trematon Castle, Cornwall
Q: You left Trematon Castle in Cornwall in 2019, having transformed its landscape. What different gardening concerns come with a coastal setting?
A: Well, wind is the main one. It was very windy! You have to adopt a trial and error approach. We plant euphorbias and they literally blow out of the ground, so it’s a matter of seeing what will stay put. Because Trematon was a castle it was surrounded by walls and that makes it worse because the wind forms eddies and currents. It was a dramatic but lovely setting.
We used to stay at Arundel Castle when we were working there. They don’t have any central heating upstairs so you have to have a wood fire in your bedroom which is really romantic and lovely.
Q: Your third book is coming out soon. What will we learn?
A: Our first book was about our work - lots of people didn't actually know what we did all day. Our second book was about making the garden at Trematon and scent. The third, this book, is basically an anthology of smell literature. It also offers a lot of science about scent and pollination.
The Walled Garden at Houghton Hall, Norfolk
Q: Having worked on so many iconic houses all over the country, does any one in particular hold a special place in your memory?
A: We’d always loved Houghton before we even got to work there, so that was very exciting. Architecturally it is fabulous. Also, we used to stay at Arundel Castle when we were working there. They don’t have any central heating upstairs so you have to have a wood fire in your bedroom which is really romantic and lovely – so Arundel sticks in my mind.
Q: Working and living together with Julian, do you ever disagree on designs for a project? How do you overcome that?
A: *laughs* we have LOADS of disagreements. I mean it’s part of the process actually. I think it’s the reason we are quite good value for money in some ways. We argue things through a lot, so presumably the ultimate solution is the best because one of us has given in to the other!
Q: So, do you have quite different styles?
A: On one level not at all. But on another level… I’m much more environmentally concerned. I’m much more organic than Julian. We're of slightly different generations, he’s ten years older than I am and I think that makes a difference. Also, he’s probably braver. You know, he’s just that much more confident.
Q: On that note, how do you think the approach to garden design is going to evolve in light of environmental concerns in the near future?
A: Oh, I think a lot. I hope there will be a lot less mowing of everything. It has already started though, in Hyde Park they changed that in the 90s. I think the industry has got to change, plants are like cheap clothes at the moment- throwaway things.
We did this courtyard on Hertford Street that's a bit like the Sir John Soane museum - lots of plaster casts on the wall and a fireplace and stuff. We’ve actually done several gardens in London like that. They’re more like outdoor rooms.
Q: You design some huge grounds for your projects. For those with smaller city or town gardens, is it possible to bring grander features into a smaller space? Or is a completely different approach necessary from the get-go?
A: It is different, obviously. We did this courtyard on Hertford Street that's a bit like the Sir John Soane museum - lots of plaster casts on the wall and a fireplace and stuff. We’ve actually done several gardens in London like that. They’re more like outdoor rooms. That works very well in smaller gardens which are basically an extension of the house. But that’s what we’re trying to do in the big gardens too – make places for people to live in. This is sometimes more difficult in a big garden if anything.
A courtyard garden on Hertford Street in London, designed by the Bannermans.
Q: With grand country house gardens, do you bear in mind their interiors and the social and historical context when planning the garden design?
A: They’re definitely integrated. It’s all about how the garden and the house connect and how you live in those two spaces. It’s changing a lot, I find it a bit sad that everybody now wants to turn a barn into something else. Personally, I like lost dusty places to stay like that. There’s a bit of a compulsion to convert everything into something.
Q: How do you ensure longevity in garden design? How do you know what is right for the client now will be right in ten years? It's certainly a big element in interior design...
A: Well, it’s different with gardens in that they go on getting better if they are well-designed. That's the beauty of garden design in a way. Longevity is there in the plan and the structure and everything else changes all the time - whether you want it to or not. Gardens are constantly evolving. But you do want to get the basics, those bones, right from the beginning.
Q: I know you're fond of an obelisk... when it comes to garden ornaments, are there certain garden features that you come back to time and time again - no matter what the setting is?
A: Sort of, yes. Big coppers and big planters are generally always good… Sorry, my mind is flooding with things I don’t like! We always keep an eye out for nice benches and coppers. Strange planters are usually a good thing. We don’t like statues *laughs*, they’re mostly pretty awful.
Q: What will we find you and Julian doing when you are doing nothing to do with gardens at all?
A: Ooo. I suppose we drink and eat a lot! We like visiting churches and architecture. We read a lot. Going to antiques shops is another big pastime of ours.
Isabel's latest book, 'The Star-Nosed Mole: An Anthology of Scented Garden Writing,' will be published next month.
Inspired by the majestic landscapes created by the Bannermans? Shop our garden antiques.
Read all of our Q&As on L-Shaped.
Topiary has given our gardens a sense of structure for centuries. With their neatly clipped shapes, they also bring formality to an outdoor space. Lorraine Spooner is a Horticulturalist and Sales Advisor at Nicholsons. She talks us through different topiary planting techniques and which species to consider.
This article originally featured on the Nicholsons website.
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants into clearly defined ornamental shapes by clipping the foliage. You often recognise topiary for its geometric shapes, but they can also take abstract forms. Artistic topiary might take the guise of anything from birds to chess pieces.
Indeed, Prince Charles gave the gardeners at Highgrove House (pictured above) free reign to customise his topiary to their own designs. The result has matured into an eclectic mix of unusual shapes, including a crown and a Christmas pudding! Levens Hall in Cumbria is another spectacular garden that features some of the oldest topiary specimens in the world, dating back to the 1690s.
Levens Hall Topiary Garden
For inspiration a little closer to home, the Nicholsons Plant Centre offers a diverse selection of topiaries. Topiary is an indispensable tool for enhancing the permanent structure of your garden.
Where to plant topiary
Whilst traditional topiary often acts as the main focus in a garden setting, you can also use it to complement other features.
Plant them at the foot of a pergola or the base of a water feature to draw attention to special garden elements. In a border setting, plant half standards or ‘lollipops’ at intervals throughout the length of a planting scheme. These plants will add permanent height and structure, whilst drawing attention to the more naturalised planting below.
Classic topiarised shapes, such as cones, balls and spirals, act as bold punctuation points at the corners of a scheme. This technique adds aesthetic interest to an otherwise ‘flat’ area.
Pathways are ideal for lining with topiaries. Use them along paths to the entrance of a property or lead visitors to a focal point such as a garden sculpture. Symmetrical rows of topiary cast an illusion of space, so they are great for smaller spaces.
Containerised topiary
Enhancing a front entrance is a popular use for topiary plants and they provide a regal welcome. This is effectively achieved with a matching pair of containerised specimens. Cones, spirals, cubes and quarter standard trees all suit this purpose. However, these topiaries will probably remain in situ, so your choice of plant species should suit the orientation of the sun throughout the day.
It is also important to select planters that complement your property's period and harmonise with existing hard landscaping materials. Beware that containerised topiary requires regular watering and feeding. Copper or brown-tipped foliage is a sign of nutritionally depleted soil.
Nicholsons stock a range of plants that are perfect for containerising. Suitable specimens include...
Taxus baccata (yew), Elaeagnus ebbingei, Euonymus japonica (spindle), Ilex crenata (Japanese holly), Laurus nobilis (bay), Ilex aquifolium (Holly), Ligustrum jonandrum (Privet), Osmanthus burkwoodii, Phillyrea angustifolia, Teucrium fruticans, Viburnum tinus, Prunus lusitanica (laurel) and Cryptomeria japonica (Japanese cedar).
Living architecture
If you are feeling bold, why not create a tiered topiary plant? When executed well, these topiaries provide living architecture in your garden. The best plants to use are evergreens with finely textured small foliage that can withstand regular clipping. A trio of young plants potted close together will provide initial density. Place a wire frame over the plants to facilitate clipping into your desired shape.
The Nicholsons Plant Centre stocks wire frames in ball and cone shapes to help with the pruning process. They also offer specialist topiary shears which are the best tools for achieving a neat finish.
Alternatively, you can manipulate chickenwire to create a more unique masterpiece.
The highly skilled Japanese art form of cloud pruning, or ‘Niwaki’, involves shaping a shrub or tree into a series of rounded spheres which resemble clouds. The Japanese holly, Ilex crenata, is often used for this, as pictured below in our polytunnel. Other suitable plants for this type of pruning would be Taxus baccata, Ligustrum japonicum, and Pinus.
Contact lorraine@nicholsonsgb.com to find out more about the above plants and their potential uses.
About Nicholsons
Nicholsons are based on a 23-acre site in North Aston, Oxfordshire. Their team provides a range of professional services, including garden design, garden construction, garden maintenance, forestry and agriculture. Nicholsons also offer retail services including Rosara Outdoor Style and the Plant Centre.
A skilled garden designer can help sculpt your preferred ingredients into a cohesive garden design. This will deliver more useable space and give your garden a sense of purpose. Head over to the Nicholsons website or visit them in person to start bringing your garden dreams to life.
Read all of our gardening articles here.
Since the ancient world, we as humans have felt compelled to explore and document our natural surroundings. Over the course of a mere few centuries, revolution after revolution in printmaking produced botanical prints in a variety of forms. Not only do antique botanicals represent early scientific progress, but they also offer a stunning form of wall art.
Nature printing
We are always aware of our origins as hunter-gatherers. We once depended on our knowledge of the natural world to survive, and this has never truly dissipated. The earliest and most primitive forms of botanical prints date to the ancient world. From then until well into the Middle Ages, nature printing was invaluable for recording the medicinal value of different plants. Might this herb cure a fever, or serve as a death sentence?
This utilitarian purpose gave rise to nature printing. This simple practice uses the surface of a natural object, such as a leaf, to produce a print impression. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codice Atlantico is well-known for his singular print of a sage leaf, along with instructions for nature printing. All that was required for this method was the beauty and detail presented by the natural world itself, an inky substance, and a receiving surface.
Colonial exploration
It wasn’t long before nature printing became entwined with evolving colonialism. As empires expanded and expeditions were sent further and further afield, knowledge of new species grew rapidly. In one instance, botanical printing was even harnessed to create paper money societies in American colonies.
In 1723, an ambitious 17-year-old boy arrived in Philadelphia to seek a career in printing. Benjamin Franklin was dissatisfied with the financial chaos he found in the city. Shrinking metal coinage was putting a halt to Philadelphia's economy. Franklin realised that this physical payment method could be replaced by little more than a promise. Amazingly, the founding father’s experiment worked. He circulated paper money throughout various states with great success. But paper money presented one major issue- counterfeiting.
Franklin was good friends with the talented botanical artist Jacob Breitnall. He was impressed by Breitnall’s very detailed drawings of leaves and flowers. The two worked out that, by transferring leaf images onto banknotes, each would have its own unique signature. And so, using different plants, Franklin transferred the images onto his paper money using the old technique of rolling ink onto a leaf and pressing the surface onto the banknotes.
The experiment worked, and the four colonies that used nature printed notes experienced far less counterfeiting than those which did not. In 1775, the Continental Congress authorised the creation of a new national currency.
Electrotyping: a revolution in nature printing
Contributions to nature printing came from far and wide, and perhaps the most seismic development occurred in Austria. Alois Auer became Director of the Austrian National Printing Office in 1841, and under his leadership, it became a centre of excellence in nature printing.
Auer kept the essential method of making an impression in a soft material. He first experimented with gutta-percha, a gum-like tree sap. His innovation was using electrotyping to create a duplicate copper printing plate and make many more copies of the print.
Electrotyping was a revolutionary technology at the time, as although it was quite laborious it meant that the number of copies that could be produced was infinite. When the quality of one copper printing plate started to deteriorate, a new one could be made.
Gutta-percha was still quite a messy material for creating the impression, like soft lead before it. Auer adapted the process further by using a rolling press in place of the gum. This method, whereby the specimen passes through plates of polished lead and steel, makes a cleaner impression to take an electrotyped copy from.
This new method was used extensively for large-scale botanical projects. Auer patented the process, but it wouldn’t go unrivalled…
Henry Bradbury
Henry Bradbury 'Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland' prints
The age-old case of the student becomes the master. Henry Bradbury, the son of an established British printer, was curious about developments over in Austria. He asked Auer if he could visit and learn about this new printmaking process. Auer showed Bradbury how electrotyping worked, perhaps in slightly too much detail, and the student mastered the technique.
Back in England, Bradbury took out his own patent on what he claimed to be a new and improved technique. Naturally, Auer argued it was essentially the same and a great deal of bad blood developed between the two.
In the midst of this dispute, Bradbury produced several stellar works- most notably The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. This folio, edited by Thomas Moore, demonstrates the suitability of Bradbury’s method for reproducing ferns- an ever-popular topic for botanical prints. Regardless of who true credit is due to, both Alois Auer and Henry Bradbury made enormous contributions to the field.
Botanical engravings
Lots of botanicals in our collection come from folios of engravings. Original, highly detailed drawings were engraved using copper plates and hand-coloured afterwards. Surviving prints made this way date back as far as the early 17th Century. Engravings turned botanicals into a true art form, and these prints are some of the most stunning on the market.
Basilius Besler
Basilius Besler 'Hortus Eystettensis' engravings
Among the most collectible antique botanical illustrations are those of Basilius Besler. Besler was an eminent horticulturalist and botanist, who was personally responsible for the gardens of Bishop Johann Conrad in Eichstätt, Germany. Inspired by these majestic gardens, Besler commissioned a team of skilled artists and engravers to document the extensive plant life. The end result was his Hortus Eystettensis, 'the garden at Eichstätt.' This folio, published in Nuremberg in 1613, represents the earliest large botanical compendium.
The work took over sixteen years to complete and depicts over 1000 different plants. It covered everything from European flowers to the newly discovered tobacco plant. Besler first published the work in black-and-white, but some ‘special editions’ were hand-coloured by Georg Mack. Among the lucky later owners of these rare coloured examples was George III.
Surviving prints from Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis demonstrate why botanical printing was about far more than classification. The drawings are incredibly accurate and include the root delineations of each plant, and they also have great beauty and character. Hortus Eystettensis prints have a wonderful liveliness that reflects true passion on the behalf of the patron and artists.
Elizabeth Blackwell
Despite being better informed than their counterparts in the Middle Ages, there was still a great thirst for medicinal knowledge in the 18th Century. A young woman called Elizabeth Blackwell faced an uncertain future as her husband spent two years in debtors prison. She undertook a considerable challenge, looking to provide the first definitive handbook for medicinal plants. The first volume of A Curious Herbal was published in 1738 and included over 500 plates. Elizabeth engraved her drawings on copper plates, and then hand-coloured the works afterwards. Elizabeth turned to botanicals out of financial desperation, but her pain-staking care is a common trait in so many botanical artists. Hence why the results are so breath-taking.
Johann Wilhelm Weinmann
Johann Weinmann engravings
Another vast collection of botanical engravings came from Johann Wilhelm Weinmann. Weinmann was a renowned apothecary in Regensburg and published his Pytanthoza Iconographia in 1737. The work includes no less than 1025 plates, depicting several thousand plant specimens in total. Detailed original paintings act as a source for engraving each plate. This monumental folio represents a near-complete record of all flowers, fruits, and vegetables cultivated in the early 18th Century. The colour revolution in botanical art happened around 1700, and Pytanthoza Iconographia represents the earliest example of multi-colour printing from a single plate. Weinmann's greatest asset was the young Georg Ehret, who was a major contributor to the work. Ehret used a new printing method, mezzotint, to produce lively and detailed images that he finished with hand-colouring. Ehret would eventually abandon the commission due to the rather measly payment he received.
Other botanical printing methods
Photo technology
We often underestimate how botanical studies were not just a matter for scientific gain, but also an absorbing hobby for many. During the late 19th Century, many young women spent long periods of time documenting plants. Seaweed and ferns were always major topics of interest.
In the mid 19th Century, a young Anna Atkins pioneered a new sort of printing - cyanotype - which made use of photo technology. Through her connections with the prolific Royal Society, she learned of a new photographic process under development- sun-printing. Sun-printing used acid, water, and sunlight, to create a print impression. This method, otherwise known as blue-printing, was particularly useful in architectural and engineering contexts.
However, Anna saw an opportunity to use sun-printing to create botanicals. Over the course of the 1840s and 50s, she produced two key works: British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, and Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns. These were pivotal works and the first likely represents the earliest publication of any form of photography. Anna's beautiful prints demonstrated the scientific and aesthetic power of this method.
Lithography
At the end of the 18th Century, the invention of lithography marked a seismic advance in printmaking. Lithographs rely on the basic premise that grease and water do not mix. It was actually the Bavarian playwright, Alois Senefelder, who stumbled across this simple concept. Senefelder found it difficult to reproduce his plays efficiently, so he experimented with different printing techniques. He hit the jackpot when he tried writing the play out in greasy ink and then printing it on a limestone surface.
Lithography took off in the 19th Century, presenting lots of advantages over previous methods. Because of the use of stone or another grained surface, it was possible to achieve far more variation in tone and texture. It also improved colour-printing, where one applies different colours to different stones and overprints them onto the same sheet.
Print-makers soon recognised the value of lithography for creating botanicals and it was particularly significant for colour differentiation. Whether the prints are originally black-and-white and later hand-coloured, or chromolithographs (printed in multi-colour), these results are vibrant, detailed and striking.
Styling antique botanical prints
We have seen botanical printing evolve from a utilitarian means to an end to a powerful academic resource. Not only do these prints represent a long history of scientific discovery, but they also have immense decorative power. You can hardly escape a wall of prints whilst flicking through an interiors magazine. Why are botanicals and other nature prints in particular so appealing?
We often talk about foliage and bringing the outside in, but this doesn’t always have to be literal. Fascinating botanical prints bring a sense of the natural world into our interiors, and prints will certainly last longer than a fresh bouquet! The magic of botanicals lies in the blending of art and science.
The styling opportunities for a set of prints are endless. Whether you have a full set of ferns or just a couple of floral engravings, botanicals are a wonderful decorative accent. Choose prints with subjects that appeal to you and a story that intrigues you.
The fundamental rule of collecting prints is to source ones you will enjoy looking at every day and to put them where you will see them the most. Create a staircase gallery wall you will walk past daily, or cluster them together at the end of a hallway. A larger set of framed prints is particularly useful when a room lacks an obvious focal point, such as a fireplace or a big window. Above a bed, a console, or a chest, colourful prints provide height and cohesion in a room.
The Lorfords collection
For centuries, botanical prints have appealed to physicians, scientists and gardeners alike. Those who contributed to the art, whether colonial explorers or pioneering women in science, have shaped its long and rich history.
Today, these studies of nature offer an important piece of history and an inspiring form of decoration. Prints from significant early botanical works are hard to come by, and we are lucky to have some special examples here at Lorfords. From vivacious Basilius Besler engravings to Henry Bradbury's revolutionary ferns, we are always excited by the botanical prints coming through our doors.
Looking at the prints themselves is by far the best way to understand the history of botanical illustration. You can browse our current collection of botanical prints here, and all prints and engravings here. Our lookbook, 'Where science meets art,' offers all the inspiration you could need for decorating with prints.
The outdoors provides enormous pleasure for many of us. Throughout the last year or so of lockdowns, we have never appreciated these spaces more. Whether your canvas is a city balcony, a suburban courtyard, or a rolling landscape garden, garden antiques bring texture and interest.
Seeking Arcadia
Gardens, in their private and public capacities, have existed in some form since the ancient world. Their uses have evolved, of course, from the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon to modern sculpture gardens. However, at their essence gardens have always been a space for beauty, relaxation, solitude, and worship.
Various developments have transformed gardens over the years. Urban planning descended on Europe in the 17th Century, and cultivated gardens were seen as a way of regulating nature. By the 19th Century, demand for public outdoor spaces gave rise to more and more furniture, including the humble park bench. Industrialisation played a huge role, and the mass production of materials like cast-iron brought about a wide range of garden features.
Despite these common developments throughout Europe, countries across the continent developed their own unique approaches to gardens. Much of our collection of outdoor antiques originates from France and England, and these countries had quite different takes on the ‘garden’ concept.
Jardin à Françoise
The formal gardens at Versailles, designed by André le Nôtre.
The French garden style is a majestic feat of design and engineering. Symmetry, cohesion, and straight lines typify the Jardin à Françoise and this formality still characterises French gardens today. The Sun King, Louis XIV, commissioned what would become the pinnacle of French gardens. The extraordinary and vast gardens at Versailles exemplify the formal French style.
Versailles was executed by André le Nôtre, principal gardener to the King of France. Le Nôtre was not only faced with a dull and uninspiring landscape but also a capricious and unpredictable master. This makes the end result all the more impressive.
Taming nature
Indeed, Louis XIV wanted his chateau and their gardens to reflect his total dominance over everything- nature included. André le Nôtre took this brief and ran with it, and his name is synonymous with the apex of French garden design. He began work on Versailles in 1662, and it would take him until the end of the century to finish his project. The design focussed on subordinating nature whilst also appreciating its natural beauty. Gardeners manipulated water into over 50 water features, including fountains, pools, and canals. Similarly, endless topiaries are tamed into neat aesthetic shapes which give the overall look a mesmerising cohesion.
Despite the scale of gardens like Versailles, French gardeners wanted the beholder to appreciate certain features in the landscape. French gardens were designed to highlight a centerpiece, which is often the château or house. They were intended to be viewed from a distance so that nothing is obscured and your eyes are trained to the main attraction. Symmetry and geometry allow for this focus whilst also giving the impression of endless depth and scale. This is the magical paradox at the heart of the Jardin à Françoise.
The English landscape movement
The Temple of Ancient Virtue on Elysian Fields at Stowe, Buckinghamshire.
Across the pond, Britain followed in the footsteps of their counterparts on the continent for a while. In the 17th Century, gardeners adopted a similarly magnificent and grand approach. In particular, the reign of William and Mary saw an overhaul of the gardens at Hampton Court to incorporate features inspired by the Dutch and French, including the Great Maze. When Charles II ascended to the throne, he asked André le Nôtre to oversee the designs for Greenwich Park in London.
But the style didn’t find permanence in England like it did in France. In the 18th Century, there was a groundswell against formal landscape gardening. The French style mirrored an absolutist monarchical government, and British sentiment was leaning away from this. In Horace Walpole’s 1750s essay The History of the Modern Taste in Garden, he captures this attitude clearly. He describes Britain as, ‘an Empire of Freemen, an Empire formed by Trade, not by a military conquering Spirit, maintained by the valour of independent Property.’ He goes on to champion a new natural garden style, that he claimed the English had invented.
Much of the inspiration behind this new natural landscape garden came from art as well as politics. Romantic paintings depicted landscapes that were much more natural than English gardens at the time. The growing desire for something freer, something less prescribed, led to a gardening revolution.
Kent's revolution
One name is heavily attached to the new approach: William Kent. Kent already had a reputation for his prowess with classical architecture, and he began to incorporate the classical Arcadian feel into gardens. Chiswick House is often described as having the first ‘natural’ garden, designed by Kent under the direction of his mentor Lord Burlington. The gardens offer sloping lawns, a serpentine lake, and a rustic waterfall. Clipped hedges and heavily formulaic gardening are notably absent.
Kent’s name is also attached to the stunning landscapes at Rousham House, Stowe, and Badminton House amongst others. Classical buildings, such as temples and monuments, sprung up in his gardens. In his essay, Horace Walpole delights in the way Kent ‘leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden.’
Structured informality
The revolution did not begin and end with Kent, and many consider Lancelot Brown as Britain’s most prolific country garden designer. His nickname, 'Capability Brown,' comes from his oft-repeated phrase that a site had great ‘capability’ for improvement. Despite early collaborations between the two, Brown moved Kent’s style on in the face of new commercial and practical factors. For example, the rise in hunting birds with guns demanded more areas of cover in the landscape and Brown incorporated clusters of trees into open spaces. He did, however, share Kent’s fondness for buildings in the classical style. Brown's landscapes were peppered with rotundas, temples, and monuments- his Grecian Valley at Stowe is most notable.
It was Brown who truly codified the natural landscape garden. He worked at over 250 sites and had the majority of the House of Lords on his client list. It is important to note that this revolution was never about doing away with design completely. In fact, meticulous planning is behind every great English landscape garden- you just cannot tell.
Conversations with the past
Whilst different countries evolved their own approaches to gardening, they also produced beautiful furniture and statuary elements to adorn their landscapes. Royals and nobles raced to keep up with fashions across the continent and source beautiful garden statues and sculptures. Stone has always been very popular, and the rich also commissioned marble and cast lead pieces.
Genuine 17th and 18th Century examples of these items are hard to come by and often very expensive. But in the 19th and 20th Centuries makers reproduced many popular styles with great results. These pieces often appear older than they are because of years of exposure to the elements.
French foundries produced some of the finest iron furniture. The town of Arras in northern France produced reams of wrought iron pieces in the 19th Century. This durable yet very pretty garden furniture is still highly sought after today. The organic curves of an Arras piece will bring texture and whimsical appeal to any garden setting. Val D'Osne was one of the most prolific cast iron art foundries, producing everything from street furniture to majestic statues. England has an enormous legacy of makers who crafted iconic designs. Work by the likes of Coade, Coalbrookdale, and Pulham & Sons is still coveted today and can be seen at many prominent sights around Britain.
Styling garden antiques today
Blending antiques with nature. One of our tables at the on form exhibition in 2018.
Times have changed of course, and the function of gardens continues to evolve. We may not be dealing with the same amount of space (nor budget) as The Sun King, but garden antiques have a magical effect on a space. The garden and its features have a certain timelessness to them and you don’t have to inhabit an ancestral estate to create a wonderful garden. Adding weathered features to a newly planted garden will give it a more established and mature feel.
Gardenalia connects us to our ancestors as well as our natural surroundings. Often practical features and tools, such as lead cisterns and tethering blocks, are just as charming as purposely decorative benches. Antiques have a symbiotic relationship with the flora and fauna that surrounds them. Natural processes, such as the oxidisation of copper and weathering of a stone statue, transform an object into something arguably much more beautiful.
The French were masters of playing with scale, and this is where the secret to a beautiful garden lies. With an open mind, a grand statue can look fantastic in a small leafy corner and other carefully placed pieces can really change the beholder's perception. Don’t fear a clash of styles; you can unite a wide range of pieces, materials, by their common texture and colour.
Garden antiques at Lorfords
Because these pieces were designed to endure in the first place, we are lucky to have a plethora to choose from. We covet garden antiques because of their wear and tear, rather than in spite of it. Lichens, moss, weathering, and patination give a garden piece its beauty and appeal.
If you're not quite ready to start moving outside, our previous article, 'Where home meets garden,' explains how can you bring garden pieces into your interiors.
Here at Lorfords, we believe our outdoor spaces deserve the same love as our interiors. Our extensive collection of garden antiques brings the beautiful history of European gardens to you. Choose from our planters and urns, garden seating and tables, architectural elements, and more.
The Arts & Crafts movement touched every corner of the design world. From furniture to textiles to jewellery, designers adopted a holistic approach to manufacture. At the very heart of every surviving piece is the craftsman himself.
Another cog in the machine
Vintage engraving from 1860 of a jacquard weaving machine.
By the end of the 19th Century, the industrial revolution had utterly transformed Western society. Industries boomed as new technologies emerged, and handicrafts dwindled. Vast factories emerged to accommodate these changes, and productivity and efficiency were the new watchwords.
The industrial revolution brought many elements of our lives today into fruition. In lots of ways, this was a momentous step forwards. Society underwent a dramatic change and standards of living improved for many. However, it was not so for those on the frontline of machine-led production.
The underbelly of factory work was tedious, gruesome, and dangerous. Unskilled labour was in high demand because the process required scores of workers to perform repetitive tasks. Certainly, the skilled craftsman conceiving, designing, and producing a piece became mere nostalgia.
The counter-revolution
Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.
For some thinkers, critics, and designers, these developments were unsettling. John Ruskin was a vocal art critic in the second half of the 19th Century. He claimed a link between poor design standards and poor social health in England. Ruskin suggested a return to handicraft: 'fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.' This idea that art serves a moral purpose would later become a fundamental principle of the Arts & Crafts movement.
Let's go back to 1851, the year of the highly anticipated Crystal Palace exhibition in London. This exhibition celebrated the finest corners of Victorian design and pieces from as far away as India. It was a majestic display of talent and wondrous furniture, but it also exposed the excesses of industrialisation. A nauseating range of revival styles was on display, and much of it was heavy-duty furniture that was rich with ornament. It was no coincidence, then, that the following years of the 1850s sowed the seeds for a different sort of revolution.
The pre-Raphaelite brotherhood
Excitement about machine-led production side-lined the decorative arts, and discontent mounted. The antidote to this artificial excess was a return to medievalism. The gothic was a popular Victorian revival style, and reformers hailed 16th Century methods. In his 1851 text, The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin praises gothic architecture and saw its roughness as evidence of the craftsman’s personality and freedom.
Pugin was another gothic advocate, and he believed in the importance of a piece's construction. He was in favour of exposing joints and other methods in the manner of a Medieval carpenter. This school of thought found its voice in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848.
Among the group's members were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Ford Madox Brown. The Pre-Raphaelites opposed the High Renaissance, which they saw as frivolous and insincere. Instead, they sought moral seriousness and integrity, and this group was in many ways a precursor to the Arts & Crafts movement.
Madox Brown was one of the first to transfer the group’s shared ideals about design into furniture. He shared Pugin’s vision of flat surfaces and linear profiles that had more in common with Medieval carpentry than refined 18th Century cabinet-making.
Arts & Crafts established
Arts & Crafts societies sprung up to centralise this growing group of individuals. The biggest of these, the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, was formed in 1888. This society held regular shows up to and beyond its 50th anniversary in 1938. They gave the decorative arts a stage and spread the beauty of Arts & Crafts. In 1960, the society merged with the Cambridgeshire Guild of Craftsmen to form the Society of Designer Craftsmen which is still active today.
There was a strong sense of community amongst these different organisations. 'The best tastes are to be found in those manufacturers and fabrics wherein handicraft is entirely or partially the means of producing the ornament.' These words of Richard Redgrave, a prominent reformer at the London School of Design, describe their shared sentiment. Significantly, many of the early members of this movement were architects. This meant that they held a shared interest in the gesamtkunstwerk- the 'total work of art.' For example, Charles Voysey was foremost an architect and then a major contributor to Arts & Crafts furniture and textiles.
Exhibitions put Arts & Crafts on display for all to see and escalated the movement. Journals such as The Studio helped to spread the word internationally. America's own movement was well underway, but with a slightly different approach. Unlike UK reformers, US practitioners were indifferent to the machine. They saw it merely as another tool at the craftsman’s disposal and necessary for commercial success. Under Gustav Stickley the American 'mission style' emerged. The mission style used sturdy oak and promoted democratic values, but Stickley was more than happy to use machinery to produce the furniture.
William Morris
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
Although he was already a prolific designer, William Morris only became fully involved with Arts & Crafts later on. Nonetheless, his influence was monumental and he played a central role at the beginning of the Arts & Crafts heyday in the 1880s. His focus was on a return to small-scale workshops, whereby the craftsmen involved could oversee the design process from beginning to end. The Medieval Guilds inspired Morris and offered a model for the personalised craftsmanship that he craved.
As an upper-class man himself, the impact of the factory system on the working classes shocked Morris. He drew on Ruskin’s teachings and shared his nostalgia for a pre-industrial world. Morris loved nature, and flora and fauna are front and centre of the 50+ wallpaper designs he produced over his career. The designer realised that to live in his perfect home, he would have to design every aspect of it himself. His famous Red House embodies his trademark quote: ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’
Arts & Crafts design principles
Designers wanted to create furniture that was useful to ordinary people and free from fussy decoration. Nonetheless, this movement was about reviving the decorative arts and aesthetics were still important. But crucially, designers did away with the ‘artificial’ ornamentation that had been front and centre of the Great Exhibition.
The Arts & Crafts umbrella was wide-ranging, but the majority of designs are united by a few simple features. Tables, chairs, and cupboards would have rectilinear shape and rely on simple vertical forms. The construction was a return to basics and most joints exhibit mortise-and-tenon or dovetail joinery. Arts & Crafts practitioners were unconcerned with hiding hinges or other aspects of a piece's mechanism. The movement proved that practical and aesthetic elements could happily coexist in design.
19th Century engraving showing the interior of the Crystal Palace in London, UK, which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Substance over style
Craftsmen preferred darker woods, such as stained oak. They would use the wood itself as an aesthetic factor, with the grain, flecks, and rays often on display. It was not always solid wood, and some craftsmen took a more decorative approach than others. Some pieces might exhibit veneers and intricate carvings, but these elements never sacrifice the piece's utilitarian value.
The ‘through tenon’ provided another decorative touch, whereby the tenon extends through the mortised piece and projects out of the other side. Craftsmanship itself is visible in the end product of an Arts & Crafts piece, in a way that had formerly been lost to the machine. ‘Truth to materials’ was the mantra, and the results had a sense of integrity.
Upholstery would involve leather or simple cloth, in order to keep the overall look as plain as possible. Hand-sanding and pigment-staining gave pieces of furniture the best possible finish. Hand-rubbing exposed the different layers in the wood and began a piece's journey to having a wonderful patina.
The Arts & Crafts legacy
In the cities, Arts & Crafts gathered momentum through exhibitions and print promotions. Soon, the philosophy turned into commercial success. Designers forged good working relationships with manufacturers who could sell their wares. William Morris set up Morris & Co in 1875. The major Oxford Street store stocked other designers too, and they also sold through Liberty and Heals. Suddenly, the Arts & Crafts movement was reaching a much wider audience and it moved into the mainstream. It was the dominant design force in Britain up until the 1910s, and its influence spread across Europe, America, and Japan.
At the turn of the 20th Century, Arts & Crafts migrated out of the city and into the countryside. Lots of the designers celebrated simple rural ideals and the rolling hills naturally held great allure. Workshops sprung up across Britain, and many designers settled in the Cotswolds. These workshops became their own schools of sorts and each had its own take on design.
Sturdy structure, compelling patina, and timeless aesthetic appeal. These are just some of the qualities offered by Arts & Crafts designers. From cupboards to metalwork, every piece has the social history of this movement behind it. We are privileged to have the Arts & Crafts legacy around us in the Cotswolds. Our dealers are always sourcing Arts & Crafts gems so that we have wonderful pieces in stock. Our collection includes big names and makers, from iconic Heal's pieces to Gordon Russell's fantastic works. Visit our lookbook, 'Truth to Materials,' to explore a sample.
Spring is springing up everywhere.
With the arrival of the first crocus, our thoughts inevitably turn to the outdoors and the garden - or the terrace, or the backyard, or the window box. Whatever the extent of your plot, one thing’s for sure, we love our gardens. It’s true to say that, over the last few years, the garden and all things horticultural have undergone a major image change. Gone are the days when having a nice garden meant little more than a well-tended lawn and herbaceous border. These days we expect our gardens to be every bit as stylish and distinctive as our homes – a Victorian style patio set and water feature just won’t cut it. Planting and landscaping might be a garden’s backbone, but it’s the added structures and embellishments that transform it into something really special. But, while many of us are used to furnishing our homes with antiques, how many of us would consider buying period pieces for the garden?
Our love of gardening is as old as civilisation itself. The ancient Greeks were the first people in Europe to create gardens and adorned them with marble and bronze effigies of gods and mythological heroes. The Romans were equally keen on their gardens; some of the oldest surviving examples of garden furniture are in the gardens of Pompeii. Our Celtic ancestors cultivated small enclosures and the Tudors had their knot gardens – tightly clipped box hedges laid out in intricate patterns. But it was in the late 1600s that the fashion for decorating gardens really took off in England. This period saw the fashion for highly formal French-style gardening, modelled on the works of Andre Notre, Louis XIV’s gardener at Versailles. When Charles II regained the English throne in 1660, one of the first things he did was to ask King Louis if he might borrow Le Notre. The aristocracy were keen to follow suit and before long, grand parterres and avenues, complemented by numerous statues designed to invoke classical settings and terminate views, were the order of the day. At first the taste was for statues depicting figures from Greek and Roman mythology – the Borghese Gladiator and Hercules swinging his club were particularly popular. The earliest ornaments were carved from stone, or, for the very wealthy, marble or cast lead. As the fashion for French style gardens took hold amongst the Francophile aristocracy and those eager to copy them, a vast repertoire of ornaments were introduced into the garden, including classical vases, fountains, obelisks, balustrades and furniture. By the middle of the eighteenth century the strict formality of the French garden had yielded to something softer. Designers now sought inspiration from the landscape itself. Rolling lawns and serpentine ponds became the order of the day and, in the hands of designers like William Kent, the garden became a complete work of art. Ornaments in the form of statues, temples or follies took centre stage with every element carefully chosen to work in harmony with its neighbour. Iconography was the order of the day and the positioning of garden ornaments often had a deep symbolic meaning which, although less decipherable today, would have been easily understood by most educated people at the time. This period saw the creation of the celebrated gardens at Stowe in Buckinghamshire and Stourhead in Wilstshire. Garden “ornaments” might include a replica of the Pantheon in Rome, a temple dedicated to Apollo or an underground grotto, containing that mid-Georgian garden essential: a live hermit, who would be employed full-time as a curiosity for visitors. The job of a hermit could be fairly lucrative but there were strict conditions attached to the job description – a hermit wasn’t allowed to speak and nor could he cut his hair or fingernails.
Whilst few of us have the sort of garden that can accommodate miles of gravel paths and numerous classical temples (or hermits), a well-placed statue or urn can bring a flavour of eighteenth century grandeur to a modern day garden, acting as a focal point and adding a sense of drama.
Early examples from the 17th and 18th centuries are rare and, on the rare occasions they do appear on the market, command high prices. More easily available are statues from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many of these were made of composition stone or terracotta both of
which became popular in the Victorian period as way of producing good quality garden ornaments that were cheaper than stone. Henry Doulton started making terracotta garden ornaments in the late nineteenth century and by 1900, Doulton were England’s main manufactures, with a range that included window boxes, fountains and sundials. Terracotta is highly durable and has the advantage of being frost proof, enabling it to survive the rigours of an English winter. Composition stone was invented by the Romans but also took off for garden ornaments in the Victorian era. Figures and ornaments are moulded rather than carved, so multiple copies of the same piece could be produced relatively cheaply. Properly weathered, a piece made from composition stone is difficult to tell apart from a carved-stone original.
Garden furniture only started to appear widely in the nineteenth century. Before then the only seating used in a garden would have been benches of marble or stone and these would have only have been within the reach of the upper classes. In the early nineteenth century, as gardening for pleasure started to become a pastime of the middle class, wrought iron seating started to appear. This would have been made to order by the local blacksmith and, for this reason, no two pieces of wrought iron furniture will be identical. Wrought iron fell out of favour as the century progressed but remained popular on the Continent, particularly France where furniture by Arras was made for use in public parks well into the twentieth century.
The Victorian era saw a return to formality with terraces, elaborate flowerbeds and manicured lawns, complemented by a plethora of ornaments 
once again being de rigeur. Mass production, thanks to the Industrial Revolution brought garden furniture within the reach of an aspiring middle class, eager to ape the taste of the gentry in the big house. The invention of cast-iron made their dreams an affordable reality. There were many foundries making cast-iron garden furniture but perhaps the best known is Coalbrookdale. Based at Ironbridge in Shropshire, the firm began by making architectural ironmongery, such as drainpipes and gutters but by the 19th century it was producing a vast number of garden seats, plant stands, urns and fountains, and all manner of other paraphernalia for the well-dressed garden. Leading designers of the day were commissioned to produce designs and, in its day, Coalbrookdale was a by-word for quality. The foundry is still in business and, as the maker of the Aga stove, still plays a big part in middle class aspirations.
It’s often the case that the most distinctive garden ornaments are made from objects that weren’t originally intended for the garden. If it’s a quirky, original look you’re after, you need to think outside the (window) box. All that’s needed is a bit of lateral thinking: for example, a gargoyle head 
can make an excellent wall fountain. Stone troughs, originally used for animals to drink from, were at one time a feature of every village. Bedded out with plants they make an imposing statement and are highly sought after today. Beaten coppers vats, originally used for boiling laundry or making cheese, are solidly constructed with rivets and take on a wonderful patina with age. They are now enjoying a new popularity, not for laundry but as vast bedding planters. It’s not just large items that make a statement. Vintage garden tools used for gardening can be used as smaller decorative elements leaned against fences or left on tables. Wheelbarrows and old carts are the perfect containers for planting out vivid summer blooms, while garden rollers simply need propping up against an old brick wall to look good. Terracotta flower pots, trowels made of metal from the 1950s, rakes with handmade teeth and branch handles and early 20th century metal buckets and enamelware watering cans all add a distinctive personal touch.
Rolling acres or roof terrace, rustic or urban: antiques offer a stylish way of decorating the “room outside” and there’s not a gnome in sight.
Does the 1970s deserve to be remembered as the decade taste forgot? Absolutely not, says antiques expert Chris Yeo. It was a time of bold experiments and high glamour.
There is, they say, nothing new in fashion. Is there anything new in design? Whatever your thoughts it can’t be denied that the lure of the past has always been a potent source of inspiration. The Romans took their style tips for everything from togas to temples from the Ancient Greeks, the Elizabethans got dewy eyed over the Middle Ages and the Victorians were besotted by anything Medieval (apart from Chaucer, who was far too dirty for them). Not much has changed except that, latterly, we have tended to take a leaf from the more recent pages of style’s back catalogue. Anyone who was around in the 1970s will remember that the 1950s held a powerful draw and now it’s the turn of the ‘70s itself to be the focus of our rose-tinted spectacles. Ah, the Seventies. They called it the decade taste forgot. Of course, “they” were the 1980s, which, if we’re talking taste, is nothing short of the pot calling the kettle black. But now the decade that brought us Abba, the hostess trolley and the three-day week is being mined by a new generation of tastemakers. Fashion has been nostalgic for the 1970s for the last few seasons, with tinted sunglasses, long floral dresses and straw handbags omnipresent on the high street and catwalks alike. However, when it comes to interior design, it’s been a different story. For years, the very mention of the word ‘Seventies’ was enough to strike fear and loathing into otherwise reasonable, aesthetically broad-minded people and it seems old prejudices die hard. Style pundits from Wallpaper magazine recently collated a shortlist of the most egregious design faux pas of the past half-a-century and guess which decade came top? But look beyond the avocado bathroom suites and macramé plant pot holders and a different picture soon emerges.
Decadence and glamour were the twin beats that throbbed throughout a decade that was bookmarked by Bowie at its beginning and Grace Jones at its end – oh, be still my beating heart! They were the torch bearers of the new mood that thrived in a world filled with the harsh realities of economic uncertainties and political strife. In a decade that saw two miners’ strikes, countless I.R.A. bombing campaigns, runaway inflation and powdered orange juice, what to do but loose yourself in a whirlwind of hedonism? A mood of defiant decadence was abroad, whether it was glam rockers “gender bending” – as contemporary parlance had it – on Top of the Pops or Bianca Jagger riding into studio 54 on the back of a white stallion (because, let’s face it, how else do you let people know it’s your birthday?) In London the mood was encapsulated, branded and retailed to perfection at Big Biba, opened on Kensington High Street in 1973. Biba had started life as mail order fashion outfit but over just a few years had come to dominate the UK fashion scene. Big Biba was the firms last great shout before bankruptcy in 1975 brought an end to its reign of fabulousness. Housed in Art Deco splendour at the former Barker’s department store, complete with live flamingos on the roof garden, Big Biba offered an interior vision that took elements of Hollywood’s Golden Age and mixed it louche colours, peacock feathers and peacock chairs, crushed velvets and Art Nouveau prints. It was bold, daring and worked perfectly a world jointly ruled by Marc Bolan and Pan’s People (ask your parents).
At the same time as Biba was refashioning homes in the UK, Willy Rizzo (1928-2013) was introducing a chic – not to say disco – sensibility into furniture design. Rizzo had started his career as a fashion photographer but, at the suggestion of his friends and clients – the great and the good of fashion and film, he took a sideways step into furniture design. He was soon swamped with orders and requests. Rizzo designed and produced more than thirty pieces of furniture: sofas, consoles, hi-fi furniture, coffee tables and lighting, all of which were handmade. Rizzo’s world is one where coffee tables rotate like a vinyl disc on a turntable and then open up to reveal an integrated ice bucket – perfect for those pre or post-club Campari. He opened boutiques across France and Europe and had points of sale in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles. However, in 1978, Rizzo gave it all up to return to photography, his first love. Rizzo’s furniture design channelled the sophistication of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, his pieces combining clean, simple lines with bold geometric forms and a delicate handling of materials. The result is classic modernism and very chic.
We’ve included a few iconic items within this blog but please browse our website for many more incredibly cool 1970’s pieces.
Images: Lorfords own & Willy Rizzo