Lucite & Velvet
Letters from London on Interior Design
I was an expat blogger for about half of our time in London and I had a bunch of recurring themes I posted about. One was interior design, the traditional exteriors with modern interiors or the love of velvet. Early on I learned that London was on the front end of the curve in interior design. I got a reminder of that today when I opened the Williams-Sonoma interiors catalog for Early Fall 2018. It looks just like the OKA catalog or the showroom floor of Peter Jones circa 2010. Then I remembered my series on Lucite & Velvet and decided to bring some of those letters here.
May 2010
When we first moved over here, it was for a 12–18 month stint. We rented a flat and thought of camping out in London. Or flat has great space, but hasn’t had any fancy updating. The kitchen is so-so, my bathrooms all have separate hot and cold taps, wiring is sketchy and not very well placed, etc. I didn’t move any furniture over. I only sent a few boxes of kitchen items, including melamine plates from Target, and our clothes. I rented bare necessities in furniture, beds, kitchen table, couches, side and night tables, and a few lamps.
Having always loved the modern picture spreads in furniture catalogs, I chose modern furnishings. With the odd exception, I have now worked modern design out of my system. It is uncomfortable for the most part. My parents really hated our couches’ low profiles and, when I got stuck on them while great with twins, I broke down and had a handyman install taller risers.
Modern décor is also hard to warm up. Since I still have young kids, I can’t put out flowers, or pictures, or books. Well, I can but then will deal with broken glass and torn pictures and water, flower residue, damaged books strewn about. Every once in a while I try candles. I am quickly reminded why I don’t put them out on a regular.
I have now figured out that if you want to do modern well, you have to pay for the extremely well made modern designs, like Eames. Anything less and modern furniture looks like crap with the slightest wear. “Luckily” I did cheap modern so I am keeping it until the children get older. It is sorta nice to not get too fussed when they spill yogurt or go a little wild with the Crayola markers. (Tip: always get the Crayola washables. Crayola brand washables reliably wash out. )
It is amazing, though, how much a society with beautiful old buildings loves modern furnishings. I can’t tell you how many 17th and 18th century facades hide a modern interior of chrome, polished marble, and green glass. Then I think about home where we pay more for anything that looks Old World. The new trend in Houston, so I hear, is scraped wood floors. I don’t think that would go over well here.
September 2010 (I think this is the afternoon before I discovered my son could read.)
One of my regrets about our time in London is that due to the ages of our children we haven’t been able to use London as a jumping off spot for travel. When I browse through the other expat blogs I get a little pang of jealously over their traveling posts. But instead of wallowing, we have opted to explore the area around London. Even then we haven’t done as much of that as I’d like. Since this year is likely the children’s and my last in London, we have decide to do more this year, hence a spur of the moment decision to head to the country for a night.
Vilvy (our nanny) returned yesterday morning a few hours after my mom left for Texas. Yasha had to leave a few hours later for some professional conference at a resort just outside London. On a whim we decided to leave the Things with Vilvy overnight while the older kids and I joined Yasha. Yasha left, I quickly packed for the three of us, fed them lunch, and headed off to the Tube.
The children clamored to go swimming when we arrived. Then they saw the grounds. They are fabulous. We had to go hiking instead. Since I had been here before with Yasha, I didn’t expect anything more than a walk in the garden so the well travelled light packer I am didn’t pack other shoes. I had the ballet flats I wore here. I should have known that Christopher Robin and Cupcake would find a slope for hiking that ballet flats couldn’t handle.
The hotel itself is a bit strange. It is a prime example of the old on the outside and super modern on the inside. The original building is about 300 years old. It has all the narrow hallways and twisty stairwells that you would expect in such a building. When investors decided to turn the house into a hotel in the 1990’s, though, they enlisted famous British garden designers and interior designers for the redo. The interior is what I will call patchwork odd-modern. The designers used loads of Lucite in various colors, modern wrought iron, chrome, polished marble, halogens, green glass as well as more traditional antiques. One wing is orange and cream based with Lucite tables containing fake nature displays. That is, instead of filling the tables with local pine cones, for instance, some of the tables and wall displays are filled with dyed feathers, the kind you’d get at Michaels. The wing we are in this time is painted deep blue, or has lush, black velvet curtains lining the walls with halogen pendants surrounded by wire shades. Some elements are quite lovely, but few elements, much less the overall effect, create the design one would expect from a restored 18th century manor.
Later in September 2010
It seems that our neighborhood is now on one of the London Walks routes. Twice since Yasha and my return from the country I have seen the telltale group of people walking with one guide with a backpack. Both times they have been looking at Peter Jones, the department store. I will have to sneak close to listen on day as I am curious what the story is. My guesses are that this is a tour about London’s business history so they are telling stories about the John Lewis group of which Peter Jones is a part. (I can’t remember where I read this, Junior League book I think, so I can’t take credit for the analogy, but here is the UK department store primer: Harrods is the flamboyant, rich Grande Dame, Selfridges is the sensible matriarch, Harvey Nichols is the young and hip heiress (I call it Nordstroms on heroin), and John Lewis/Peter Jones is the spinster aunt, with PJ being slightly younger and more attractive.)
If the tour isn’t talking business, then I suspect it is an architecture tour. London architecture is full of contrasts, of which the Peter Jones building is a good example. The main part of the building is red brick, mid-19th century perhaps. It matches much of the rest of the Cadogan Estate. (Neighborhoods in London were/are owned by landed nobles. When the families developed the land they often used a unifying architectural style so, for instance, most of what was the Cadogan Estate is in red brick. You will know when you get to Belgravia as most of the buildings are cream stone or stucco.) Additions to the PJ building however, are white cement, stucco, glass and chrome.
Brits don’t seem to worry much about blending types of architecture. People redoing old homes probably try to blend more, but for commercial or public buildings, Brits seem to favor the flavor of the day. My favorite example is the Lister Hospital, which I will take a photo of the next chance I get. Probably the worst example is near Parliament. Among the stunning Parliament buildings and Westminster Abby on Parliament Square is the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center, not to be confused with the even worse Queen Elizabeth Hall that scars the South Bank. (The 60’s and Brutalism were not good for architecture.)
Speaking of design, last week my oldest friend came to town. As is my custom, I took her to tea. I didn’t do the Ritz as it really isn’t my favorite, very touristy and, save the scones, not very yummy. My favorite place is The Antheaneum Hotel, which was Yasha’s home in London before we moved over here. It had a redo about 2 years ago. Oh, the Lucite. Orange, smoke, and pearlized Lucite to be precise. With velvet, always with velvet. I should have taken more pictures last week.
January 2011
Yasha and I are off for the first Wife Maintenance Weekend of the year. Actually, this one is just a Wife Maintenance 24hours, but welcome all the same. My mom and Vilvy have the children, and I am already relaxing at the hotel with some nibbles and a nice chianti. (No, I am not nibbling on fava beans.) Usually, I’d wait for poor Yasha, who is still at work, and head off to the hotel with him. That typically means that we arrive just in time to drop our bags in the room before dinner, though. So today I was mischievous. After the morning with the Things, McDonald’s with all the girls, and a chapter of Goblet of Fire — read with Christopher Robin while a hail storm raged outside on a rather nasty day here in London — I gathered my things and headed off to the hotel. Yasha, a long time customer of this hotel, always gets unlimited minibar and wifi. It seems a shame to waste it, no?
Checking in to this hotel, which is liberally peppered with velvet and lucite in its decor — a subject I’ve written about previously — I’ve now named all the British interior decoration observations “Lucite and Velvet”. You can’t appreciate the British affection to velvet, even in clothes, until you spend some time here. Same too for the mix of traditional and modern decor, which in this case includes shabby chic mosaic, nude sculpture. (I’ll have to get a photo. It even has a nipple represented by what I can only assume was the delicate flower handle to a sugar pot top.)
So a flurry of posts coming, I hope, in the next day or so. I’ve already told M&M I’ve got something in the works about the claimed superiority of Tiger Mothers. I want to at least get that out.
February 2011
When Yahsa I first moved here, we expected to be here for 12 to 18 months. We operated under the theory that we were camping out in London. We didn’t bring much with us, clothes and some kitchen stuff. I rented essential furniture. I had no pictures on the wall, a spartan assortment of lamps for light, a TV. We didn’t even have a full-length mirror, which was a problem for Pippi and I that first summer. She was a 16 -year-old girl who had to check her overall look when she left the flat. I had a time finding a mirror too. I could find heavy freestanding ones for 100 GBP, but I had toddlers and wanted a plain one to put on the wardrobe door. I finally called the rental company back and had them install one.
Once we realized we were going to be staying here longer. I went through a phase of wanting to make the flat a little more homey. The modern furniture decor had worn out its welcome with me and everything looked kind of barren, not exactly the kind of thing you want when you have little ones underfoot. We went searching for lamps, cushions, curtains — some decorative things. We tried Harrod’s.
At the time, pre-2008, the town was still lousy with absurd amounts of money. The money, however, often came though people who like ultra-modern decor. Therefore, the higher end stores had gone ultra-modern. Yes, Harrod’s is the grande dame of English department stores but these days it’s full of lots of astrobrights, gold foil, glass, chrome, and lucite and velvet. It wasn’t what Yasha and I were looking for. We ended up purchasing a bunch of stuff at OKA a which is basically the London version of Pottery Barn, which I had wanted to avoid. Of course once the Things came along those lampshades and lamps took a beating, the thows have been washed and shrunk — that’s what I get for trying to decorate before my youngest children were at least past 3.
I also didn’t prefer Harrods because you actually could get lost there. Between the many floors, the wide spaces, and the multiple elevator banks, everything twists and turns. To me at all looks a bit the same. I’m sure if I shopped there more often I would know my way around, but as I don’t I worry I might not find my way out.
Finally, there is the statue. Everyone in London knows what I mean. There is a statue in one of the main stairwells of Dodi al Fayed and Princess Diana. Dodi, the man who died in the car accident with her, his father used to own Harrod’s. He thinks that the British monarchy engaged in a conspiracy to kill Diana and that she and Dodi were “Innocent Victims.” That is in fact the name of the statue. Their clothes are billowing in the breeze, with Dodi’s shirt open, and they are reaching for a flying dove. It’s just too saccharine. And large, on a plinth. The picture doesn’t give you a good idea. I’d bet good money that Diana would have hated it. It doesn’t have anything to do with shopping there, except if I go in that door…but it is just awful.
