Design Study
RULE, BRITANNIA! The English design scene is awakening to an explosion of creativity, and from the looks of it, the creative powerhouses across the pond are just getting started. Today more than ever, generational style brands and new talent alike are turning out brave new spins on centuries of tradition—here, a look at seven interpretations of the classics, reminding the world what it means to be British today. PHOTOGRAPH BY PAMELA COOK. PAMELA BY PHOTOGRAPH
PRODUCED BY Dayle Wood • WRITTEN BY Ellen McGauley VERANDA 83 Design Study Luke Edward Eight Holland Star Globe Hall Anchovies Street, a bespoke pendant; LONDON’S cushion; therug design gallery hectorfinch.com company.com “AVA N T in London's ↘ → Kensington GUARD” neighborhood — HERE, FOUR OF THE ↓ INNOVATORS LEADING THE ULTRA-ARTISTIC MOVEMENT ENGLISH
→ Face chair; ECCENTRIC lukeedward THE ROMANTIC hall.com Sussex native Matilda Goad’s fresh, Nina Campbell RESH, FEARLESS, AND WILDLY ORIGINAL: feminine imprint began with her Pomegranate Trail now-signature scalloped lampshades; The ultra-layered decorating ethos puts indi- wallpaper; osborne accolades followed, along with table- vidualism at its center, amidst highly Insta- andlittle.com ware and lamp bases in candy colors. F grammable feats of fantastical pattern, color, ↓ and all-around unpredictability. But this madcap form of maximalism is hardly new—it follows in the footsteps
of early-20th-century creatives like the Bloomsbury Scallop Tole Group and Charleston, and later, icons like David Hicks, planter; Geoffrey Bennison, and Robert Kime. The spirited matildagoad.com aesthetic is united by the idea that everything—from the ↓ ↑ walls and mantels to the teacups—should be decorated Tiger Tiger cushion; wicklewood.com with as much intention as fine art. Missing is an attach- THE CLASSICIST ment to perfection, with modern ceramics mixing with Counting Burberry among his collab- Tanjina side table; orations, Luke Edward Hall draws on quirky portraiture and cheeky collections. And the global williamyeoward.com architectural history for his illustra- influence, as in so much of English decorating, is strong: ↓ tions, from elemental line drawings Indian textiles, furniture from the Far East, and other → to vivid portraiture and patterns. Shell Grotto and Abbey exotic pieces are layered into fine elements of long British Stripe fabrics; fermoie.com lineage, from Chippendale chairs to grand, Gothic Revival Daisy bookcase; architecture for looks that are as bold as they are brilliant. julianchichester.com LIVELY ↓ CHARACTERS Cats and candy stripes, waves Floral Silk FROM PREVIOUS PAGE lampshade; 2 and wild fringe: a few of the 1. Versailles fabric; 1 pennymorrison.com robertkime.com. unwaveringly original pieces ↓ THE MODERNIST 3 2. Knurl wallpaper; lighting up the UK Rising to fame with her design of the 36bournestreet 14 famed Farm Girl restaurants, Beata .com. 3. Michaela Gall Heuman marries colorful English Painted Face platters; whimsy with more streamlined influ- theshopfloorproject ences from her native Scandinavia. .com. 4. Navy Embroi- 13 4 dered Flowers and Handwoven Textile 11 12 5 cushions; susandeliss 10 .com. 5. Locharron of 7 Scotland Kidd Ancient 9 throw; largercross.com. 6 and 7. Square stool 6 → and Somerville sofa; 8 Luckdragon georgesmith.com. stool; beata 8. Long Island Stripe ↑ heuman.com rug; vanderhurd.com. broke table; englishgeorgian THE MIX MASTER Corner chairs;
9. Heythrop basket; sohohome america.com. 13. Double Layer STREET; HOLLAND MCDONALD/8 JAMES INTERIOR, GALLERY COOK. PAMELA WALLPAPER, SPRING. SOPHIA VERNON, TOBIAS COOK; PAMELA WALLPAPER, AND PILLOWS, LAMP, Tobias Vernon’s design gallery, Eight maxrollitt.com .com. 10. Lilly cushion; wickle Dot Wiggle vase; wicklewood Holland Street, is a veritable creative wood.com. 11. Unicorn ceramic .com. 14. Abacus table lamp lab, mixing British artwork with candlestick; firmdalehotels and Scrolling Fern Silhouette vintage European furniture, ceramics, .com/shop-kit-kemp. 12. Pem- gathered shade; soane.com. and textiles from around the world.
84 VERANDA VERANDA 85 Design Study
COUNTRY KITCHEN KETTLE HISSES ON THE STOVE, an aroma of a Victoria sponge cake wafts through the aged room: The beauty of British kitchens is that, even in their modern
evolutions, technological trimmings run second to sensory comfort. Authenticity PETITE TASK LIGHTING stands in for shine, and a humble assemblage of wares, collected over time, gives these Pendants with antique A metal interiors cast a cozy well-loved rooms a delightful air of industry. Here at home, Americans are borrowing a page glow over character-laden from England’s flour-dusted playbook, with kitchen-adjacent rooms such as butler’s pantries, cookspaces. Tiber pendant larders, and sculleries (see page 115) increasingly finding their way into stateside architecture. light; hectorfinch.com
AGED BRASS Cabinet knobs and taps come in the form of warm metals. Egerton knob, collierwebb.com
RUSTIC WORKTABLES The prep island in this Shropshire kitchen—renovated by bespoke kitchen design firmPlain English— is designed as freestanding A CAST-IRON COOKER furniture and helps connect the AGA stoves are an English staple, room to its origins as an 1890 warming chilly kitchens day and farmhouse. The top is crafted of night. Total Control 3-Oven Pippy Oak. plainenglishdesign.co.uk range; aga-ranges.com
A SENSE OF EARTHY PALETTES HISTORY Hues reference those found Natural elements in the English landscape and like copper develop range from creams (never true an aged patina over whites) and mossy grays to time; the veining in olive greens. Walls and cup- Arabescato marble boards in Plain English’s Army weaves a story of Camp, plainenglishdesign.co.uk the old quarried stone. plainenglish design.co.uk
ARTISANAL TILES Glazed ceramic tiles emphasize local craftsmanship. Hanley Tube Lined tiles; balineum.co.uk
HAND-THROWN STONEWARE The quintessential English wares are as practical as they are collectible. Ceramic
pouring bowls; devolkitchens.com COOK. PAMELA BOWLS, ENGLISH; PLAIN OF COURTESY KITCHEN
86 VERANDA ROMANTIC GARDEN SPLENDOR
OHN FOWLER WRYLY DESCRIBED the English country aesthetic he mastered with decorating partner Lady Sibyl Colefax as “pleasing decay.” He and other tastemakers of the humble 1930s gave renewed credence to finding J beauty in what’s at hand. Big, gutsy curtains and continental antiques remained even as faded chintz slipcovers dressed old sofas, while potting tables by the door were reminders of owners’ obsessions with their gardens. Today, the love affair continues, as designers update the effusive style with influences from all manner of the outdoors.
1 ↑ 2 CLASSIC CHINTZ APPEAL This Nicky Haslam- designed Hampshire garden room features 3 a wild mix of florals alongside a pair of aged painted chairs.
9 4
↑ DARWIN’S COLOR CODE Check out Farrow & 10 Ball’s new collection 8 with the Natural History Museum, inspired by an early-19th-century color 5 guide used by Charles 7 Darwin in his travels.
6 ↑ 1. Pale Powder paint; farrow-ball.com. CUES FROM A 2. Peter Hone Plaster plaques; pentreath- CONSERVATORY hall.com. 3. Colefax and Fowler Snow The first large-scale Tree fabric; cowtan.com. 4. Lily tieback; growing house to be built charlesedwards.com. 5. Gustavian from metal and glass, the 1820s landmark at ↑ sideboard; chelseatextiles.com. 6. Audrey London’s Syon Park A NATIONAL PASTIME fabric; madeaux.com. 7. William Yeoward is open to the public The Chelsea Flower Show Loxley chair; jonathancharles.com. and has architectural in London is more than a 8 and 10. Mara cachepots; williamyeoward inspiration in spades. century old and the largest crystal.com. 9. Hurlingham vase; soane.com. flower show in the UK.
FRESH GREENERY VIBRANT FLORALS ARE LEANING EVERGREEN, WITH GRAPHIC, LEAFIER PRINTS. 1. Nina Campbell Benmore fabric; osborneandlittle.com. 2. Colefax 4 and Fowler Callista fabric; cowtan.com. 3. Jean Monro Fern Stripe fabric; clarencehouse.com. 4. Cole & Son Maidenhair wallpaper;
leejofa.com. 5. Sanderson Calathea wallpaper; stylelibrary.com. UPTON/ SIMON ROOM, LIVING WOOD; DAYLE BY COOK, STYLING PAMELA SWATCHES, PATTERN FLORAL AND PHOTOGRAPH MAIN MABEE/RHS. GEORGI OF COURTESY SHOW FLOWER CHELSEA IMAGES; FRENCH/GETTY PAULA CONSERVATORY; ARCHIVE, INTERIOR 1 2 3 5 88 VERANDA Design Study
SEATS OF 1 DISTINCTION 2 — TODAY’S FINEST DINING CHAIRS INVITE CENTURIES 3 4 OF STYLE TO THE TABLE.
6 A playful silhouette 5 inspired by its mid-century modernist namesake, Jean 9 8 Royère. Royère armchair; julian 7 chichester.com.
10 12 11 A quintessential English design with hand-stitched horsehair and button- tufts. Salon chair; 14 howelondon.com. 19 13 18 17
A petite, refreshingly 15 colorful take on the traditional oval-back 20 16 chair. Ruby chair; 21 justinvanbreda.com.
DOWNTON
Dyed leather DINING ROOM sheathes a steel frame in this NDEED, THERE REMAINS a dress code for dinner. dapper remake of a 1950s In the style of the aristocratic Crawleys, and Bright classic. Stitched Young Things and Brideshead before, the innate armchair; rose formality calls for Stoke-on-Trent china, ancestral uniacke.com. silver, and linen finery. But 21st-century versions replace the butler’s stick with decidedly more bravado: Mismatched export china is arranged atop vibrantly patterned table- The dining room at Martin Brudnizki and cloths, and heirloom cut crystal pairs with casual colored Hampshire’s Highclere Nicholas Jeanes’s glassware for a relaxed adaptation of evening entertaining Castle, set of the leather seating slims iconic PBS series down the classic club that everyone (save Carson) might readily embrace. chair. Upham chair; and 1 and 10. Lion wine coaster and biscuit barrel; asprey.com. 2 and 12. Coalport Indian Tree vegetable bowl objects.com. and Hong Kong cups and saucers; replacements.com. 3, 8, 14, 15, 19, and 20. Hadley Antiques Antique English silver tableware; 917-545-7775. 4, 5, and 6. Camilla wine glass, Iona goblet, and June salt dish; williamyeowardcrystal.com. 7. Antique George II candlesticks; jrobinson.com. 9, 13 and 18. Royal Crown Derby Chelsea Garden dinner and dessert plates and Imari dessert plate; devinecorp.net. 11. Renaissance Gold sugar and creamer; wedgwood.com. 16 and 17. Pseudo Tobacco Leaf dinner plate and soup bowl;
MAIN IMAGE, PAMELA COOK, PRODUCED BY DAYLE WOOD; DINING ROOM COURTESY OF HIGHCLERE CASTLE. HIGHCLERE OF COURTESY ROOM DINING WOOD; DAYLE BY COOK, PRODUCED PAMELA IMAGE, MAIN degournay.com. 21. GP & J Baker Caldbeck fabric; leejofa.com.
VERANDA 89 Design Study
2 THE NEW 1 ARTS & CRAFTS
AVE NOTHING in your house you 3 do not know to be H useful or believe to be beautiful.” The famed UNSUNG ARTISAN: words of William Morris, MAY MORRIS 4 father of the materials-first — movement that emerged in A new collection of original and the late 1800s, are echoing reimagined designs by Morris & Co. (now owned by Style Library) includes 5 louder than ever in the prints, embroideries, and wallpapers— studios of English makers. many of which were designed by In the last decade, the UK William Morris’s youngest daughter, May. An accomplished embroiderer design community has seen and textile designer, she’s believed 6 a renewed influx of goods to have dreamed up Morris’s iconic designed to be a celebra- Honeysuckle pattern. The new collection, Melsetter, includes Seasons 9 tion of their elements and by May, a printed interpretation craft: the aqueous graining of an 1895 embroidery of hers of English elm, or striking featuring parakeets, stylized roses, 8 7 brushstrokes on slipware 11 tulips, and leaves. that read like abstract art. Unlike its predecessors, this crop of makers doesn’t eschew technology, but instead embraces it as a 1. Seasons by May wallpaper. 2. Brophy meaningful entrée to age- 10 Trellis wallpaper. old applications. Check out 3. Wardle Embroidery fabric. The New Craftsmen, for 4. Wilhelmina fabric. 5. Melsetter fabric. 6. Seasons example, a company that by May fabric. 7. Newill wallpaper. launched in 2012 as a plat- 8. Wilhelmina wallpaper. 9. Apple form to champion British wallpaper. 10. Newell Embroidery fabric. 11. Wilhelmina fabric; stylelibrary.com. artisans and others who
pursue make over mass. COOK. PAMELA SWATCHES, COMMONS; WIKIMEDIA PORTRAIT, WOOD; DAYLE BY COOK, PRODUCED PAMELA IMAGE, MAIN
SHOP CLASS Craft is king as England’s makers double-down on timeless technique and beauty of Another Country’s Old Man’s Beard This Bayleaf armoire Potter Dylan Bowen’s This Gaia pendant materials. Hardy rocking chair and Geranium wall- is crafted of London Slipware bottle is light pairs hand- reintroduces a classic papers by Marthe plane, woven wheel-thrown and blown glass drops with sustainably Armitage are hand English sycamore, hand-built for a bold, with LED lights and harvested wood. lino block-printed. and drawn glass. unconventional form. a blackened nickel anothercountry.com hamiltonweston.com sebastiancox.co.uk thenewcraftsmen.com frame. ochre.net
90 VERANDA Design Study Bucranium mirror; jamb.co.uk. • Regency Storm lantern; vaughandesigns.com. • Waldorf Robert Adam Redux mantel; jamb.co.uk.
Jamb’s new 1. Hyde wall lanterns; jamb.co.uk. English showroom at 2. Hardwick White paint; farrow- Cullinan wall sconce; Ainsworth-Noah ball.com. 3. Large Lattice globe Entablature charlesedwards .com. • Adam mirror; in Atlanta; lantern; jamb.co.uk. 4. Buchanan Spanning early Palladian architecture jamb.co.uk table; jamb.co.uk. 5. Coade Whippet beaumontandfletcher sculpture; jamb.co.uk. 6. Klismos to 20th-century Edwardian and .com. • Kedleston chair; jamb.co.uk. 7. Pear tea beyond, classical elements of manors mantel; chesneys.com. caddies; parcmonceau.com. past seem to have a long and infinite 1 repeat. Look for these six motifs 2 in trim, furniture, and more. ◆ ◆ ◆ 3
7 • DOUBLE GREEK KEY WARMING TRENDS
4 — Retiring to the fire might be the most fundamental 6 • EGG & DART of luxuries. Here, three ways to heat up today’s drawing rooms and libraries, parlors and private quarters in the tradition of classic English manors.
Updated • GREEK KEY (OR FRET) Art Deco Modern Nouveau
• BEAD & REEL
5
Quirky Mod MANOR HOUSE • VITRUVIAN SCROLL
GRANDEUR PLC. PUBLISHING BLOOMSBURY , OUGHTON HALL, CHATSWORTH, BLENHEIM: Once the • GUILLOCHE country homes of the storied leisure class, England’s ancestral estates still hold considerable sway. The legacies of design greats
like William Kent, John Vanbrugh, and Robert Adam represent These illustrations appear in H Rice’s Architectural Primer a sense of history and permanence that remain cornerstones of English RICE’S LANGUAGE OF BUILDINGS OF LANGUAGE RICE’S decoration. Today’s creative class, for instance, is welcoming traditional by Matthew Rice (Blooms- bury), an illuminating guide brown furniture like Georgian tilt-top tables and Regency spoon-back chairs to the grammar and vocabu- MAIN IMAGE, BRIAN WOODCOCK, STYLING BY DAYLE WOOD; ILLUSTRATIONS © MATTHEW RICE, RICE, MATTHEW © ILLUSTRATIONS WOOD; DAYLE BY STYLING WOODCOCK, BRIAN IMAGE, MAIN and refreshing it with modern lighting and fabrics for looks that feel less lary of British buildings. 09/06/2018, Large Metro sconce; guinevere.co.uk. • Grosvenor mirror; Gertrude mirror; portaromana.com. • Fern sconce;
like a rebirth and more a brilliant continuum of an eminent heritage. WOOD. DAYLE BY STYLING WOODCOCK, BRIAN LEFT, TOP vaughandesigns.com. • Rubicon mantel; chesneys.com. villaverdeltd.com. • Manhattan mantel; chesneys.com.
92 VERANDA VERANDA 93