A festive season of tinsel and nostalgia
Brace yourself – this Christmas, it’s all about the Seventies, whether it’s on your tree or your table, writes
It was once an integral part of Christmas. Yet, long ago, tinsel was dismissed as irredeemably naff. Too brash, too sparkly, too Bet Lynch; it had no place on our tasteful Nordmann Fir decked in Scandi-chic wooden decorations, thank you very much.
But now, the sparkly stuff is back as part of the festive line up – and that’s not all. Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking this was Christmas 1977, rather than 2017. For not only will our houses be draped with tinsel, we will be tucking into black forest gateau and fondue, in our polyester reindeer jumpers, an artfully placed copy of the new Vogue on the coffee table – with its Seventies-inspired cover. Even sales of instant dessert Angel Delight have shot up 30 per cent in the last six months. Think Abigail’s (Christmas)
Party without the wallpaper.
John Lewis, that barometer of middle class taste, agrees that the decade is back with a bang. Sales of tinsel are up 90 per cent so far this year. It is proving so popular that the department store is introducing tinsel-tutorials in some of its branches to teach shoppers how to best style it. Dan Cooper, John Lewis’s Head of Christmas, admits that tinsel is viewed sniffily: “Like many things that were popular in the Seventies – dahlias, chrysanthemums, swirly carpets, orange, brown – people thought ‘I’ve had enough of that’.”
But he insists that it deserves to be rehabilitated: “You get a lot of bang for your buck with tinsel. It’s colourful, it’s shiny. It’s a very inexpensive means of decorating. It’s quite versatile, and it’s fun.”
He argues that an increasing number of consumers are bored of monochrome interiors, stripped of all nick-nacks. “People have really embraced the decorative again. We were in a real Scandi place three or four years ago, but plainness is no longer a big thing.”
Maybe it’s the threat of looming nuclear Armageddon, or just a squeeze on disposable incomes, but many people are taking comfort in childhood nostalgia this Christmas.
The shops are full of multi-coloured decorations that would look at home on the set of Tiswas – sparkly aubergines and hamburgers at Paperchase, flamingos and watermelons from West Elm, and both Hema and the Conran Shop are selling those honeycomb paper decorations that you fold out to make a large colourful balls to hang from the ceiling. Remember satin-covered acid-coloured baubles? Gisela Graham has a range at Harrods.
Austere, finely crafted, wooden or felt decorations are being slowly pushed out by a rainbow of bright colours and sparkles.
Celebrity fans are cock-a-hoop, including one Kirstie Allsopp. “I adore tinsel, I always have,” she says. “I think a tree is naked without it, how else do you hide the electric cables and bounce light around the tree?”
And tinsel is not, its fans argue, an invention of the tasteless Seventies, but has a long, noble history. Hannah Fleming is a curator at the Geffrye Museum, in East London, which chronicles the history of interior design. She is in charge of its annual Christmas Past exhibition, which displays how Britons decorated their festive homes during different eras.
Fleming explains that tinsel is believed to date back to 17th century Germany. “It was originally very precious, very expensive – little shreds of silver,” she says.
Eventually, this was replaced by copper, tin, and then lead. “It takes off at the start of the 20th century and then really picks up in the Fifites and Sixties, mostly because of the development of plastics.”
Today, tinsel is made from sheets of PVC, which has been metalicised.
“I love tinsel, it’s the sparkle,” says Fleming. “Traditionally, decorations were all about light and the reflection
of it – that moment of light in the darkness. That’s what Christmas is all about.”
The surge in sales is certainly a boon for Festive, a company based in Cwmbran, South Wales, which makes John Lewis’s tinsel as well as supplying Selfridges and most of the supermarkets.
It makes an astonishing 12million metres of tinsel a year (about 7,500 miles) by cutting vast rolls of PVC into strips, twisting it into garlands, which then need to be fluffed up in a special machine to give the tinsel its “bounce”.
It’s one of the benefits of John Lewis using a British supplier, explains Dan Cooper. “The main reason we get it made in the UK is that tinsel does not travel very well.
“If you pile it up in a box and send it halfway around the world it will arrive all squashed. But not if you make it down the other end of the M4.”
Cassie Hedlund, at Festive, explains that for many years, basic gold or silver were most popular, but increasingly consumers want “luxury” tinsel that incorporates not just many different colours in one length, but patterns too. The best selling variety at John Lewis is “iridescent bubble”.
“It is a see-through tinsel, with an iridescent finish to it, like mother of pearl,” explains Cooper. “It’s very pretty, very winter palace – think
War and Peace, babushkas and jewels. It’s a luxurious look.”
Other popular varieties involve strands in the shape of holly leaves or berries.
Indeed, those nervous to embrace tinsel can opt for a more modern, matt green finish with strands in the shape of leaves.
“It’s like a garland of evergreen, quite understated,” says Cooper.
There is one Seventies decoration, however whose return it is too soon to herald: lametta, those single strands of tinsel that you drape over your tree, turning it into an enormous disco wig.
“You need a really big tree for lametta to work,” Cooper says. “It needs to be able to hang, otherwise it looks a bit of a mess.”
But an elegant garland of tinsel woven around the branches can only add joy to a home.
And, remember, it all comes down in the first week of January, so you can get your tasteful Scandi living room back.
‘It all comes down in January – when you get back to your tasteful Scandi look’