Have you ever wondered what City lawyers, bankers and TV journalists do in their lunch hour? Well, it seems more often than not, they are to be found perusing once sunken treasure as well as other ancient artefacts such as the captivating turquoise hues of 12th Century Persian ceramics. These carefully curated treasures are to be found amongst the antique vessels and furniture that make up Hilary Fisher’s antique shop in Gray’s Inn Road, Fisher London.
London is packed with inspirational art and interior design exhibitions at this time of year. You really have to put on your jogging shoes to keep up with them all but there are a few I really don’t like to miss and The House and Garden Festival (incorporating The Art & Antiques Fair) is one of them. This year’s show didn’t disappoint. It was full of bright summery colour and design – much of the best was from a few ‘stylish hunter gatherers’ who make it their business to bring international style to our shores. Here’s my choice of Best in Show: Continue reading “Best in Show at the House and Garden Festival 2018 London”
Calling all home owners/renters, interior designers, art directors, stylists, set decorators and window dressers! Welcome to my new online interiors shop. If you are looking for a gift or unusual interiors accent piece for your home, interior design scheme or set, White Vintage is a one-stop shop. The stock will be a carefully curated mix of vintage/antique but there will also be a few new pieces too.
These are exciting times for small businesses because with the advent of Instagram, many people can now control their own advertising/marketing campaigns (on an hour by hour basis if they so wish!) as well as use it as a selling platform for their fledgling lifestyle brands. One such person who is not only an inspiring new fabric and wallpaper designer but extremely adept at social media and new marketing ideas is Northumberland designer Charlotte Gaisford.
Continue reading “Charlotte Gaisford British fabric and wallpaper designer”
A recent visit to Rome was a last-minute decision and a treat which sent me into Instagram overdrive (many apologies!) with snaps of frescos, classical architecture and palazzos. With no time for planning, you can imagine my intense delight when we got there to find a retrospective exhibition of Fornasetti design on at the 15th Century Palazzo Altemps. So – lovely readers – because there were no photographic restrictions, I am excited to be able to share with you a tailor-made blog tour of the exhibition …
The art world has seen some eye-wateringly expensive pieces being sold at auction recently but Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler’s current Art for Living exhibition (6 – 21 December 2017) at their Pimlico Road showroom is exciting for two reasons. Firstly, the selling exhibition shows how to use contemporary art in room sets with both antique and contemporary furniture and secondly, the prices are in the more affordable region of (£1,500 – £15,000) – think high street sofa to budget kitchen.
Continue reading “Art for Living exhibition at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler”
Sunday night rituals in the winter for me entail putting the fire on and settling in to watch the season’s best period drama. I was so excited and, if I am honest, a little worried that I would be disappointed with the current BBC 1 TV serialisation of Howards End. Continue reading “Interview: BBC1’s Howards End set decorator, Tanya Bowd”
Since November 2017 when I first published the following post, B****n has become the nation’s favourite interior design bauble. And even though I don’t wish to fuel the creation of a design cliche, I thought it might be timely this Christmas to see how what might be considered a micro trend can become something much bigger.
If you are one of the dedicated Instagram followers of Gear Antiques (IG @gearantiques), you won’t need me to tell you that the King is alive and er … barking on Lillie Road in Fulham. Elvis has not only been entertaining clients with his gregarious stage presence but he is also proving to be Gear Antiques’ secret weapon, when it comes to marketing. His patch – more regal in style than rock and roll – is an antiques shop run by his owner Marc on Lillie Road in South West London. If miniature schnauzer Elvis isn’t posted in an Instagram photo by Marc – either sitting on a Jacobean chair on the pavement outside the shop or mannequin style in the window – there follows an outcry from IG followers asking ‘where’s Elvis?!’ So you see, he does live on … just in Schnauzer form …
If you want to experience a cross between a magical midsummer night’s dream whilst entering the secret walled garden of a genteel country house (one whose Victorian glass house has charmingly ‘seen better days’) – then Richmond’s Petersham Nurseries is the place for you!
Continue reading “Petersham Nurseries: Midsummer styling ideas”
Charis White Interiors 