Saving Face
Middle class dilemMa
“Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.” — Matthew Arnold
Earlier this year, sometime between orchestrating stealthily delivered Daylesford deliveries, planning a “Boho wedding” and managing a global-pandemic, the newly-weds Carrie (née Symonds) and Boris Johnson somehow found time to appoint an interior designer to redecorate their grace and favour flat above 11 Downing Street. The increasingly anachronistic Tatler magazine said the couple were transforming it from “Theresa May’s John Lewis furniture nightmare into a high-society haven”, something which was, apparently, important to the self-confessed conservationist and newly appointed “first-lady”. The couple — who hired Soane Britain co-founder Lulu Lytle to undertake the revamp — reportedly spent £58,000, which included wallpaper at £840 a roll and a £9,000 sofa (though for a company whose clientele are prepared to spend upwards of £11,000 on a brass “Owl Lantern”, the overall cost, if including Lytle’s design fee, does seem a relative bargain). In the weeks after which Tatler offered the unattributed remark, one might have assumed it would be forgotten, swept under the rug along with such other inconsequential ramblings as “There will be no tariffs and checks” and “We’re putting record sums in [to the NHS]”. Yet with the subsequent hoo-ha over a tory-funded trust fund set up by BoJo to fund the lavish renovation, it’s hung around like a bad smell (or more topically perhaps, an embittered Chief of Staff), something which, presumably, precipitated Carrie’s G7 rental wardrobe, so as to avoid any further allegations of reckless spending akin to the court of Queen Marie-Antoinette (a thing which Brigitte and Emanuel Macron could teach them a thing or two about, with French Vanity Fair recently reporting the presidency put out an order worth £216,461 in kitchenware and utensils, and the newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported that it had bought a new crockery set worth £450,591). Can we really blame him though? The poor chap was only last year lamenting the fact that he didn’t have enough money to send his son to Eton (quelle horreur!). We couldn’t possibly expect him to tolerate the high-street-heavy abomination that is unrefined-middle-class-taste. Dominic Cummings told him “his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal”, but what could someone Vogue described as “dressed in the clothes he apparently found in the boot of his car”, who when greeting the paparazzi in a straw hat and rumpled linen shirt “looked like he’d been doing acid with shepherds” possibly know about the cutting edge of interior style?
The London home of Soane Britain co-founder Lulu Lytle, demonstrating the designers love of clashing prints, photograph by Adrian Lourie
The London home of Soane Britain co-founder Lulu Lytle, demonstrating the brands classic, yet eclectic aesthetic, photograph by Adrian Lourie
Of course for years now we’ve been hearing about the middle-class squeeze, as they struggle to maintain their quality of life amid stagnating incomes and rising costs. Indeed the middle-class it would seem has become downwardly mobile, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reporting not only that this embattled socio-economic sub-set has shrunk in most countries, but that it’s now far more difficult for younger generations to claw their way into a cohort defined as earning between 75% and 200% of the median national income. In the 1990s we had sitcoms like Frasier, Will &Grace and Friends, all of which revolved around the affluent and aspirational lives the middle-classes — doctors, lawyers and psychiatrists who were skiing, antiquing and taking advantage, not only of cookery classes, but myriad promotions and seemingly abundant opportunities; spending their more than ample incomes on Biedermeier and Eames, in the case of the former, and Pottery Barn and Ralph Lauren home, in the case of the latter. Now we have Arrested Development, Schitt’s Creek and Years and Years, in which ruined families attempt to eke out a living, having been unceremoniously booted down the social ladder. For decades those who went to university and trained in certain professions, finance, accountancy and law for e.g. were guaranteed a comfortable, stylish, affluent lifestyle, easily able to afford homes in the most desirable postcodes and to send their children to private schools. Now asset prices have now outstripped wages in developed economies, it has resulted in what economist Thomas Piketty calls an “inheritance society”, in that the vast amount of wealth comes from inheritance not work. Accordingly, many of those in such highly qualified professions are struggling, still living in their childhood homes, trying to placate often lesser-educated parents who still control the family purse strings. Not only that, but there are now a multitude of professions made up of highly skilled people, for e.g. the cultural industries, design, architecture, academia, that even with a small inheritance, economically speaking, descend in class.
The London home of Soane Britain co-founder Lulu Lytle, searing yellow walls make for a dramatic backdrop in the study, photograph by Adrian Lourie
In the UK, perhaps more so than any other country, the middle classes have always had a preoccupation with keeping up appearances, and as they find themselves increasingly lacking in liquid assets, their interior choices are becoming ever more limited. Perhaps the recent trend for all things traditional in interiors might be explained by those who on the one hand can’t afford to spend £58,000 on home furnishings (much like the Prime Minister for that matter), and on the other, simply can’t face the torment of living with John Lewis furniture, even worse, Ikea, or heaven forbid, DFS. If you can’t stump up for your own Lulu Lyttle style makeover, or, having taken a page from BoJo’s book, are flummoxed as to why the general public won’t donate to your JustGiving fund, a role of William Morris wallpaper and a cheap Georgian side table might just be your saving grace. Traditional interiors, and all of their associated characteristics — pattern, print, brown furniture, silver candlesticks and crystal chandeliers — have long been linked to the landed gentry, to the concept of an “aristocracy”, and the romanticism surrounding crumbling country piles.
Perhaps this renewed interest in all things “quaint”, for e.g. clashing colours, Staffordshire Dogs and floral fabrics is perfectly apt as essentially, given the economic situation, we’re seeing a return to the era of Balzac and Jane Austin, when assets trumped wages and storylines revolved around dramatized inheritance. With life expectancy rising (except in the US) and a bachelor’s degree the new high-school diploma, younger generations simply can’t afford to splash out on those Pimlico Road doyennes once favoured by their parents generation. Even so, solid, classic, country style is far cheaper to replicate on a shoe-string-budget than the sort of bespoke, marble clad creations — peppered with pieces by the haute of twentieth century design — created by the likes of Pierre Yovanovitch (b. 1965), Joseph Dirand (b. 1974) and India Mahdavi (b. 1962) (lest we forget the much maligned Camerons’, who, attempting to achieve such an art moderne interior within their pitiful prime-ministerial budget, were forced to settle for a “reproduction” of the Castiglioni brothers’ iconic Arco floor lamp). Once again such Anglophilic hallmarks as skirted furniture, chintz and needlepoint pillows are making a comeback, and this rehashed traditionalism, tried, tested and comfortable, is seemingly the perfect way for a downwardly mobile middle class to save face.
The London home of Soane Britain co-founder Lulu Lytle, in the bathroom hand-panted lapis-lazuli; an arresting effect the more adventurous might try themselves, photograph by Adrian Lourie
The UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies recently projected that, “on average, inheritances will be worth 9% of household lifetime (non-inheritance) income for those born in the 1960s, rising to 16% for those born in the 1980s”, which equates to a truly enormous transfer of wealth; though unlike the sort of middle-class families depicted in Guy de Maupassant’s Pierre et Jean, there are likely to be fewer big heirs and far more small ones, or “petits rentiers” as Piketty calls them. So as to avoid the shame of living a John Lewis Furniture nightmare, younger generations (especially those for whom there are simply no decent heirlooms to inherit) are going to have to get more creative so as to avoid their lack of style, or for that matter, rattan, being judged by a cosmopolitan elite whose homes are chocked to the Georgian rafters with Jamb lanterns, leather-clad Soane armchairs and Drummonds bathroom fittings.
At least by implementing a decorating scheme that is essentially a 1980s rehash, albeit it stripped of its frothier accoutrement, wear and tear will be judged deliberate, and guests can easily be distracted from a questionable Loaf sofa by a plethora of tulips, shoved haphazardly into any and every receptacle. Walls painted in jaunty shades of Farrow & Ball (or at least colour matched at the local B&Q), along with those bits of Wedgwood, Whitefriars glass and blue and white china, picked up whilst combing junk shops on weekends away with the kids in Kent, will all add the requisite bohemian flair. Who knows, with the right lighting and an artfully placed Diptyque candle or two, you might even find your Instagram posts start landing lucrative PR deals and can be snow-balled into a career in interior design. Whilst the middle-classes might be divided on the appeal of clashing prints, reclaimed butler sinks and shaker-style kitchens, we can perhaps all agree with comedian Alistair Barrie who tweeted: “The John Lewis Christmas ad now has the potential to be an absolute corker this year.”