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Traditional Interiors
“My greatest contribution as an interior designer has been to show people how to use bold color mixtures, how to use patterned carpets, how to light rooms, and how to mix old with new.” — David Hicks
England, as with any other country, has its positive and negative aspects, all of which, for better or worse, are what give it, and its people, a readily identifiable style and personality. When it comes to interiors, somewhat frustratingly (though I’m sure many would disagree), England is still synonymous with tradition, and all of its associated characteristics; pattern, print, antiques, art, silver candlesticks and crystal chandeliers. This is of course all inextricably linked to the landed gentry, to the concept of an “aristocracy”, and the romanticism surrounding crumbling country piles which, by and large, are celebrated as part of the historical fabric. These sleeping architectural behemoths — revered and preserved as mausoleum’s to a bygone age — are visited yearly by throngs of excitable tourists still keen to see how the other half live, or rather lived, as a good many of these grandiose pleasure palaces are no longer in private hands. After the Second World War as a result of a radical change in social conditions, the aristocracy found its pockets empty and by 1955 — as a direct consequence of the gentry’s dwindling finances — at least one country house (of varying architectural merit) was demolished every five days; collectively termed by several authors as “the lost houses”, it is an episode of our history now largely regarded as a cultural tragedy. Such was the wanton destruction that by the end of the century even some of the “new” country houses designed by fashionable Edwardian architect Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) had been raised to the ground. In 1974 the Destruction of the Country House opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was one of the most influential exhibitions ever staged by a UK museum; it laid bare the scale and depth of the losses suffered, showing how four centuries of architectural tradition and achievement in country houses had been severely damaged by the depredations of the twentieth century. The exhibition was an enormous success, not only in terms of capturing the public’s imagination, but also in being the catalyst for a long-term shift in terms of preservation and heritage politics more generally. Indeed writing in 1992 in The Daily Telegraph, journalist and novelist Auberon Waugh (1939-2001) felt confident enough of the survival of the country house as a domestic residence to declare: “I would be surprised if there is any greater happiness than that provided by a game of croquet played on an English lawn through a summer’s afternoon, after a good luncheon and with the prospect of a good dinner ahead. There are not that many things which the English do better than anyone else. It is encouraging to think we are still holding on to a few of them.”
The home of Irish architect and interior designer David Collins, London, demonstrating how traditional elements can be employed in a way that is wholly contemporary
A dramatic four poster canopy bed forms the focal point of a French bedroom designed by David Hicks, demonstrating the designers ability to update traditional décor
This change in public opinion led to a plethora of films and television series inspired by those novels that best captured the heyday of the English country house; the most famous and iconic of which might be the 1981 BBC serial Brideshead Revisited — an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 ode to aristocratic languor, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews — which was famously filmed at the sprawling Baroque edifice of Sir John Vanbrugh’s (1664-1726) eighteenth century Castle Howard, a stand in for the Flyte family seat. The lavishly filmed production made such an aesthetic impact that it’s still referenced by designers today; just last year pop impresario and fashion’s Renaissance man Harry Styles (b. 1994) wore a billowing white “Brideshead Revisited” shirt by Central Saint Martins alum Steven Stokey-Daley in his music video for the track Golden. If that weren’t enough, Luca Guadagnino (b. 1971) (best known for the achingly beautiful Oscar-winner Call Me By Your Name) will be directing a new star-studded Brideshead adaptation, which will surely set pulses racing once more and lead, inevitably, to a plethora of menswear referencing Etonian tailcoats, boating blazers and heritage knitwear (which Stokey-Daley refers to as being “hyper-feminine even though it was celebrated in such a hyper-masculine, male-dominated culture”). Indeed the grandeur of the English country house has always been tinged with an element of camp, something unavoidable given the preponderance of gilt gold, silks, feathers and floral flourishes. For a tweaked, primped, staged and incredibly chic example one need look no further than the glory that was Reddish House, photographer and costume designer Cecil Beaton’s (1904-1980) gloriously eccentric country concoction where he and his friends liked to play at being aristocrats of the ancien regime, recreating Watteau’s fêtes champêtres. A legendary aesthete and mainstay of British high society from the post-WWI era of the Bright Young Things down to his death in 1980 at the age of 76, Beaton had a taste for the fanciful; his interiors at Reddish spoke of theatre, old England and a wistful yearning for the past — furnished with an eccentric confection of floral chintz, Meissen porcelain and even, as seen in 1970s archival photographs, Picasso ceramics.
A sitting room designed by the inimitable American decorator Billy Baldwin
In recent years there has been a revival of the sort of traditional design last seen to full effect in the 1980s. Once again such hallmarks as skirted furniture, chintz and needlepoint pillows are making a comeback; as evidenced by the work of a new generation of designers like Beata Heuman, Flora Soames and Rita Konig, to name but a few. Fortunately, at least in large part, those more heinous details — ruffles, bows and balloon blinds — have been relegated to the annals of design history. Whilst todays “neo-traditionalism” might appear far more contemporary than its forebears, it is essentially the same thing, perhaps spurred on by a collective sense of nostalgia brought about by decades of social and economic upheaval (numerous financial crises, Brexit, Trump, and now a global pandemic). It could equally, of course, simply be as a result of the proverbial swing of the pendulum in favour of a romantic, Anglophilic style of design — a reaction against the wide scale uptake of mid-century modern. Since the1990s there has been en masse an unashamedly contemporary approach to interior design; a twenty-first century take on the egalitarian modernism of Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), Charlotte Perriand (1902-1999) and Aino (1894-1949) and Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). The public had grown tired of the sort of patterned and primped traditionalist décor that dominated the 1980s and embraced the clean lines and fuss free living expounded by designer Sir Terrance Conran (1931-2020) and put on show, to great effect, in his eponymous London stores. It would become the de facto design style in advertising, television and films — easy to replicate and produce in flat-pack-form for a public that increasingly expected affordable, stylish, family friendly furnishings.
Objectively, and at least in part now due to Instagram, in recent years a good many interiors have started to look the same, at every level, with even those designers operating within the higher echelons of the interiors world using the same pieces over and over again (those most at risk of oversaturation include Jeanneret cane back chairs, Perriand stools and Serge Mouille Spider ceiling lights) to the extent that, despite being iconic works of design (and rightly so), they are very quickly losing their appeal. This is an issue compounded by the number of fakes and reproductions, employed not only by “lifestyle influencers” flogging scented candles and fast fashion, but also, often, by the luxury interiors sector, commissioning pieces “inspired by” for e.g. Jean Royère’s Flaque table and Ours Polaire sofa (at least in part due to the now eye watering prices of originals, for e.g. an Étoile sideboard — commissioned in 1958 for the prominent Dumont family — sold at Sotheby’s in 2018 for $1.8 Million). As is often the case, people tire of seeing identikit iterations on the same theme, and want something new — or in this case, something different, and to many, rehashed traditionalism, a style which is tried, tested and comfortable, fits the bill perfectly. The key difference is that the modern approach is overall cleaner, less cluttered (chiming with a general desire for easy upkeep), employing brighter, bolder colours, graphic patterns and vibrant fabrics; although, of course, whilst it might look outwardly different, its essence is, more or less, much the same as that which went before. Objectively speaking, very little of what we see today is anywhere near as radical as when for e.g. in the 1970s Albert Hadley (1920-2012) modernized Sister Parish’s über-traditional sitting room: “I gave her high-gloss aubergine vinyl walls, polished aluminium Levelor blinds, a silver tea-paper ceiling that quickly tarnished to gold, plaster lamps, an abstract painting by Anthony Tortora, an entire wall of mirror, and billowy unlined pink taffeta curtains that she really wasn’t ready for.” Indeed as it would transpire the look was far too avant-garde and Parish and quickly eschewed Hadley’s radical designs for conservative striped wallpaper and floral chintzes.
The Family Sitting Room at Obama’s White House, designed by Michael S. Smith
The real problem is that a good many contemporary neo-traditionalist interiors are too twee and too little England; they have none of the pomp or originality of designers like Basil Ionodes (1884-1950) and David Mlinaric (b. 1939). Rather than taking tradition as a spring board and reinterpreting it in a way that is altogether new and contemporary, many designers merely parody and regurgitate period detailing, painting walls in lurid colours and upholstering traditional seating in eye-catching Instagram-friendly prints as a means of attracting editorial attention. The irony is that a good many American designers, perhaps not quite so encumbered by the immediate weight of history, are far more successful in realizing such classically Anglophilic designs; as shown to great effect in Michael S. Smith’s interiors for the Obama White House, where in the family sitting room Sean Scully’s ONEONEZERONINE RED (2009) works wonderfully in glorious juxtaposition against rush-cloth walls, a travertine-top coffee table and the buildings original period detailing. The overall look is serene, sophisticated, and contemporary — undeniably traditional, but steering well clear of pastiche. Closer to home French decorator Jacques-Grange (b. 1944) tends to mix antiques and classical decorative arts with modern upholstery and a pared back palette of materials in a way that at once is entirely of our age, and yet captures the spirit of what makes traditional interiors so alluring. Similarly Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt (b. 1947) creates spaces that whilst antique strewn and art laden remain calm, cool and collected. There is nothing ostensibly wrong with neo-traditionalism, but sadly, a good many of those designers aspiring to create such interiors seem unable to reinterpret those great rooms of the past in a way that is new; instead we see what is essentially a 1980s rehash, albeit it stripped of its frothier accoutrement. England has an extraordinary design history that is, understandably, a constant source of inspiration, with the hackneyed phrase “an Englishman’s home is his castle” perhaps going some way to explaining why in the home context the past still holds such allure; however, perhaps like Jean-Michel Frank (1995-1941) and David Hicks (1929-1998), contemporary designers might seek to update and modernize — and that means more than merely adding bold red piping to a roman blind.