Decor

Today

Although the flat in Brighton is Regency in origin, Paul & I (more especially Paul) have rather a hankering for the Art Deco. We do have Art Deco style uplighters in the hall but that's about it. Or was until yesterday. Paul has been longing for an Art Deco "Lady Lamp" for ages, but all that we looked at were naff or the wrong colour or shape. Yesterday we wandered into the Snoopers' Paradise in Kensington Gardens, ostensibly so that I could try to find some nice handbag clasps and there she was: 7ft tall, white porcelain, holding aloft the torch! At half-price, bargainaceous as well. "Shall we go and have a cup of tea and think about it?" I asked Paul. "There's nothing to think about", he said.

And so Aphrodite came into our lives, a "lady lamp" with a difference.

In My Day

Fashions in home decor come and go much like everything else and when I was a child anything from the '20s or '30s would just have been seen as hopelessly dowdy and old-fashioned, although I believe we had a steel-framed couch inspired by the Bauhaus. In fact, none of our furniture was at all stylish and had mostly been acquired with economy and child-resistance in mind.

In the early days of our marriage, Paul introduced me to his Auntie Norah. She had recently inherited a house, fully furnished, from an elderly relative. The house was perched on Telscome Tye and was absolutely crammed with art deco. There was any number of lady-lamps, little wall-planters shaped like picture hats and completely meaningless plaster wall plaques of ladies with attenuated necks gazing into the distance,

There were mirrors whose perimeters were gently stepped in traditional Art Deco fashion and coloured a light salmon pink and cupboards with equally sloping shoulders and little fan-like decorations on their fronts. Paul and I thought it was all hideous and were surprised that Norah gave it house room.

Of course it would all be worth a fortune today and I can't track the moment when our tastes changed.

But Aphrodite looks absolutely wonderful and I'm totally in love. I hope that those who come after us will take good care of her.