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What are the new middle-class interiors clichés – and how many do you have?
Nitpicking over tiny design details is as old as time – but the list of what’s been done to death is constantly changing. Simon Mills struggles to keep up
Remember that bitchy and condescending Alan Clark snipe at Michael Heseltine? Margaret Thatcher’s reckless junior defence minister described the former secretary of state as the kind of person who “bought his own furniture”. What did that mean exactly?
Clark was alluding to his own belonging to an upper-middle, aristoadjacent tribe that inherit their homeware from parents and would never be reduced to – Oh, the shame! – having to shop for it. But what sort of furniture is this?
Across families from Cumbria to Cornwall, the passed-on pieces in his world would be the same: sturdy, fashionless mahogany and chintz, crusty oils and limescale-striated crystal, George Smith armchairs, Howard sofas, French dressers, armoires and circular Georgian “breakfast” tables covered in silverframed family photos. It didn’t matter that this stuff was clichéd, because cliché was the whole point.
Alan Clark actually appropriated the Heseltine put-down from another MP, Baron Michael Jopling. But neither man’s opinion has aged particularly well: the snooty allusion to a nouveau/ arriviste type with a lack of “breeding” – and no family sideboards to inherit – has not even lasted a single generation. The Fitzrovia home of Jopling’s son, art dealer and gallerist Jay Jopling, tells a story of expensive and carefully considered, very modern and fashionable acquisition, not brown and sturdy hand-me-downs.
But then, because this is how we are now, we keep looking and judging, forensically scanning and critiquing details, and we become sniffy, catty, nitpicking, desktop Alan Clarks ourselves. Snotty Alan Clark might appreciate the shameless cattiness of our micro-examination, but would surely also be horrified to see how the home has become a fast-moving, highly “fashionised” aesthetic: styles coming and going, colours trending, fabrics falling in and out of favour, whole cultures and architectures being eaten up, celebrated, then spat out.
In 2024, the desired look for the English man’s home is not bequeathed castle; it is self-purchased house that avoids stereotype and obviousness, that suggests an eye for the unusual, isn’t of a style that feels warmed-over or done to death and is now available in – cheap, ersatz-edition – Dunelm, or knocked-off and mass-produced in China.
The third series of the Netflix series Bridgerton hit screens this week, bringing with it a fresh obsession with super-pretty Regency interiors. For those with a penchant for flowers, the spectacular floral designs are particularly of note: blooms and greenery play a starring role themselves, decorating every room and every house exterior, and contributing to the spring-like sense of hope and youthful optimism that characterises the show.
Yet the majority of flowers used for the stylised sets are, of course, artificial – they need to stay perfectly in place, without wilting or changing shape or colour, for days at a time – and the exquisite displays that are achieved are testament to how far faux florals have come in recent years.
The Bridgerton family’s London home, for example – in real life, Ranger’s House in Greenwich, a somewhat austere Georgian villa – is transformed with swathes of faux wisteria and roses into an idyllic vision of the perfect English house. The transformation, says production designer Alison Gartshore, is no easy feat, requiring a film landscape company to spend three days on a scaffolding rig, anchoring the wisteria in place without actually attaching anything to the outside of the listed building.
Then there is the Four Seasons Ball that takes place in the first episode of the new series, a visual spectacle that sees thousands of flowers in all shapes, sizes and colours adorning the walls, ceiling, fireplace and staircases of Lady Danbury’s ballroom (one of the purpose-built sets that are used to film most of the interior scenes in the show).
In terms of what it takes to put such a look together, “It’s not as glamorous as you might think,” says the show’s florist, Phillip Corps. “It took about two weeks of climbing up scaffolding towers, anchoring things to the sets and stapling bits in. But it was a fun one to do.”
For this particular scene, he used a mix of natural branches and a wide range of faux flowers to represent each of the four seasons. “I tend to get carried away and go heavy on the flowers with a scenario like that,” he says. “I’m not really a less-is-more person, I’m a more-is-more person. We actually thinned the flowers out a bit at the last minute, believe it or not.”
Such is the popularity and influence of the series, the “Bridgerton effect” is contributing to an uptick in demand for artificial blooms. “Our faux flowers and plants are designed to be as lifelike as possible, and have proved hugely popular with our customers; we’re thrilled that they have gained a bit of a spotlight and a surge in sales since the launch of season one,” says Sue Jones of homeware company Oka.
Other companies selling lifelike flowers have sprung up recently, including Ett Hem London, which launched last year selling hand-tied faux floral arrangements, while online shops Edit 58 and Willow Crossley are consistently selling out of high-end paper flowers.
Philip Corps attributes the current popularity of fakes to the fact that the best of today’s crop look far more stylish than the gaudy plastic tulips or dusty roses of old. Also, he points out, if they are reused frequently (as they are on Bridgerton), they can be more sustainable than buying fresh flowers that have been flown halfway around the world only to die after a few days.
His advice, for people looking to invest in good-quality faux blooms, is to go for those made from silk or other fabrics. Peonies, hydrangeas and flamboyant tulips are currently fashionable, he says: “Things like carnations aren’t cool at the moment, but I love them. In Georgian times they were a wealthy person’s flower, because they didn’t have so many of them then.”
Should you be minded to attempt some of the schemes he created for Bridgerton, here are some tips for styling and displaying artificial blooms…