Why old is gold
Giles Kime pays homage to some of the most inspiring books on interior design ever written
IN contrast with the infinite and sometimes maddening choice offered by the internet, one of the great joys of a book is that it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Posting an image on Instagram takes a second and costs nothing. Conversely, published books require commitment, in time, money and people who know stuff. That’s what you pay for.
Despite their cost, the market for interiors books remains robust. Pre-internet, they were pretty much all we had for inspiration, together with a clutch of interiors magazines that had a steely grip on prevailing taste: House & Garden for ruched blinds, The World of Interiors for genteel decay and Country Living for dried flowers and lavender bags.
The best interiors books published in the late 20th and early 21st century offer timeless, carefully curated content that remains freshly relevant today. They also act as monuments to unsung heroes, notably Roger Banks-pye, the Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler decorator whose book Interior Inspirations remains one of the most eloquent insights into the marriage of creativity and painstaking detail required to create a properly bespoke, comfortable interior. Another is Living by Design by John Stefanidis. Published in the 1990s, with images by the veteran photographer Fritz von der Schulenburg, it offers an exhaustive tour of Cock Crow Farm, the country home that the designer created in Dorset. Again, the attention to
Books require commitment in time, money and people who know stuff. That’s what you pay for
detail is remarkable, albeit applied to a somewhat more pared-back aesthetic.
More recent is The Interiors of Chester Jones by Henry Russell, which focuses on the work of the cerebral and meticulous former managing director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler who left to pursue his own, highly distinctive approach, informed by architecture and contemporary art.
Hardly an unsung hero, but certainly someone whose work should never be forgotten by future generations, is David Hicks, arguably the most creative interior designer of his generation, whose clients included everyone from Vidal Sassoon to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. David Hicks: A Life of Design, written by his son Ashley in 2009, chronicles his early life, his marriage to Pamela Mountbatten and offers an exhaustive exploration of his work.
Those with a geeky interest in the history of interior design would do well to delve into the past for books that offer amazing depth and breadth. One gem is Martin Wood’s Nancy Lancaster: English Country House Style, worth owning for the striking portrait of the designer dressed for the Jubilee Ball in 1935—and also for the insight it offers into the life and philosophy of the founding mother of English country-house style. Another is An illustrated History of Interior Decoration by Mario Praz, which digs as far back as Pompeii with the help of more than 400 contemporaneous works of art.
There is also a golden oldie that offers a rare commodity in the sometimes po-faced world of interior design. First published in 1939 (with eight successive editions), Osbert Lancaster’s Home Sweet Homes ruthlessly dissects the design styles of the mid 20th century, coining the terms ‘Hollywood Regency’, ‘Stockbroker Tudor’ and ‘Anglican’, which he describes as having a ‘prevailing atmosphere of plain living and, might be a trifle oppressive but it is balanced by an undeniable air of comfort and arouses a powerful nostalgia in all but the most hard boiled’.
Prices of old interiors books are wildly erratic. Mr Banks-pye’s book can be picked up on ebay for less than a fiver, whereas copies of Mr Hicks’s book on his father were recently changing hands for hundreds of pounds— although prices will doubtless fall now that it has been re-printed by its publisher, Rizzoli.
As well as the obvious online hunting grounds, Potterton Books, which is based in the Old Rectory at Sessay near Thirsk in North Yorkshire (01845 501218; www.potter tonbooks.co.uk), specialises in new, outof-print and hard-to-find books on interior design and decorative arts and is particularly strong on both American and French design. At Potterton, there are plenty of opportunities to veer from the beaten track; current stock includes a tome on interior design in Toulouse, France, between 1890 and 1970. The deeper you dive into the bookshelves, the more specialist you can get. Executive Editor Giles Kime is the author of ‘A House in Maine’ (Rizzoli, £45)
Hardly an unsung hero, but someone whose work should never be forgotten is David Hicks