Thursday 26 September 2013

Chasing Rainbows


I've spent the last week going to London Design Festival exhibitions (not enough - there was so much more I wanted to see) marching around 100%Design, meandering around Decorex, and finally mooching around the LAPADA Fine Art and Antiques Fair.  That last is where I found this glorious painted cupboard, which I want more than anything.  It's enormous, so I also need a new house.  I'd keep it on a landing so that I saw it every single time I walked up and down stairs - it's so beautiful that I would want to see it as often as I could.   It's not even that expensive, all things considering (although, after years spent writing for luxury titles, my sense of expensive is somewhat skewed.)   It's early 19th Century, but there's something about it - I think the geometric painted rainbows - that make it seem very modern, too.  It reminds me of Peter Blake's Babe Rainbow:


It's possible that the Peter Blake connection came about because Dovecot Studios were showing handwoven works that he did for them at Decorex, which I also fell in love with (I want the Rainbow for Esmeralda, obviously):


There were more rainbow stripes on the Missoni Home stand (Missoni Home being something I've got a bit of a weakness for - not so much the dressing gowns or the towels, but I have long coveted a pouffe, and look at those lights!)

Missoni Home

And then I discovered these from Twig UK, and realised that, even though the sofa and every single chair downstairs has already got at least one blanket/throw/ reindeer pelt/ whatever on it, I might need to get more . . . .


Now, I was (before you point out that this particular post is a bit thin) going to segue seamlessly from a whole load of products which are vaguely rainbow reminiscent to a selection of images from Tricia Guild's new book, Colour Deconstructed, on the premise that there is a not too tenuous link.  However, I've been so busy running from show to exhibition to fair etc., while also trying to remember to occasionally shove a fish finger into a child and to meet my various deadlines (Vogue Russia and American Express Centurion since you ask, no wonder I thought stuff at LAPADA was cheap) that I totally failed to download the images that I was sent for that purpose in time, and now the zip file is past it's sell-by, and I can't get at them.  I'm hoping that they will be re-sent.  Something to look forward to next week, maybe . . . . 


www.dovecotstudios.com (must go next time I'm in Edinburgh)
www.missonihome.it
www.twiguk.co.uk
(You might spot that I've not given any information regarding the cupboard.  That's because I'm hoping that I'll suddenly make loads of money, like, next week, and be able to buy both it and a new house.  All together now:  Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up hiiiiiiiigh . . . .)