'Laura Ashley decorates - A London House'

     This is a slim volume, a mere 88 pages, but does it pack a punch.  I have seen it before on ebay but took little interest. I have a copy of 'The Laura Ashley Book of Home Decorating' and that really isn't up to much; whatever the merit of the text it is spoilt the by terrible photography.  However, last week I was trawling through Youtube and came across a short video by Isla Simpson on this book and I was deeply impressed by what I saw.

     In the early Eighties Laura Ashley Ltd bought and renovated a large terraced house in west London.  This book illustrates the results. (There is a section at the back of 'before and after' shots.) Though this is not all quite to my taste you really have to admire their ambition.  This is a bravura performance, an equal to anything being produced in the more posher end of the interior design business.  The text makes it plain - this is not merely a recreation of a mid-Victorian middle class interior.  There is, after all a modern kitchen in the basement.  Kitchen apart, however, this project really could only have been made in the Post-War period.  It shares the sort of aesthetics that were illustrated in Mary Gilliat's 'English Style' of 1967.   See here for my post on that wonderful book.  In parts there is even a residual 60s/70s bohemianism.  I've always thought that Laura Ashley falls more easily into the Post-war scene than popularly thought.  Modernism's hegemony may have rigidly enforced in the realm of architecture, but failed elsewhere.  Thankfully.
     This project does however mark a change in Laura Ashley's outlook towards the grander and the historically informed, less cottage.  The results here are stunning.

     The research and intelligent text are by art historian Jane Clifford and the excellent photography by Arabella Campbell-McNair-Wilson. 

The Habitat Catalogue I: 1977

     I've always had a soft spot for Habitat, though from my own experience I really I couldn't recommend working there.  Neither it nor I were up to scratch.  Regardless of that, a recent post by Ben Pentreath kind of re-ignited that love and I went and bought an early-ish catalogue on ebay - 1977 - and then another - 1978 - a week later.  Of the two 1978 is much more easy to photograph, the images (I don't mean the designs) just being that bit more interesting.
     So what struck me?  Well firstly there is a sort of cheapness to some of the designs that disappoints, there is also the general sense of brown everywhere - all that hessian and cork tile, which doesn't help.  It is also far more mainstream than I imagined.  And there was a comprehensiveness, not wholly Modernist; perhaps Post-Modernist would be a better description.  Looking at images of Terence Conran's holiday cottage illustrated in two books by Mary Gilliat, 'English Style' 1968?, and 'A House in the Country' 1973 we see the clever juxtaposition of eclectic objects - a rejection of hard doctrinaire Modernism.  It would be just - just! - about possible to furnish a traditional looking home from the contents of the catalogue.  Far easier still to decorate a home and make it Art Deco.  In fact some it was more than decidedly traditional, and I'm thinking mainly of the pottery.  The fabrics (including 'Egyptian Birds' by Collier Campbell) and wall-coverings too are on the 'conservative' end of the spectrum.  There is still lingering the atmosphere of the late Sixties when taste moved away from Modernism; more than a hint of Victoriana and the ethnic (lovely dhurries and batik), Art Deco Revival (viz Biba), Celia Birtwell, and Laura Ashley.  Odd the last one but the influence is there.  So perhaps less 'cutting edge', though newer trends are picked up: a hint of 'High Tech' and also, what Peter York dubbed, 'Chic Graphique'.  (Funny that whole shift in popular culture in the Mid-Sixties from the images of Modernity to something softer, romantic, nostalgic.  Funny because in certain artistic circles it had been bubbling away for years - think of the work of Bawden and Barbara Jones and also the photographers Cecil Beaton and Angus McBean, whose work was influenced both by Surrealism and Victoriana and whose houses were crammed full of old things and wit.  That influence flowed into Pop-Art, a British invention, and suddenly erupting in, among other things the Peacock Revolution of 1966 which was, let's not forget, an upper class phenomena mediated through Pop culture.  That's also why it's lazy to talk about the 'Sixties', or the 'Seventies' etc.  It's more complicated and nuanced. But I digress!)

     As with all the catalogues produced by Habitat in the 1970s, the Art Director was the Australian born Stafford Cliff.

Front and back covers, the former almost looks back, the latter forward.

Love those rocking chairs.

The pornography of abundance

Love the Magistretti chairs and the dresser

Not much Modernism here

Laura Ashley

The regular reader will know that I have a deep admiration for some of the fabrics and wallpaper created by Laura Ashley in the 1970s and early 1980s.  Looking at early editions of the World of Interiors in my collection (alas an incomplete one) Laura Ashley is ubiquitous, to be found in all sorts of places, from the Country house downwards; and there is a sort democracy to that I find pleasing and that harks back to Arts and Crafts theory.  There was also a sort of high seriousness, an earnestness, about those early designs; more than a hint of the Gothic Revival with their heraldic beasts. Colours, fittingly, could be incredibly bold and striking - rich and dark in a way unimaginable today.  At least on the High St.  Looking around Pinterest I found these designs to illustrate.  Apologies if you find an image of yours in this selection.  I hope you don't mind.

As an addendum I'd like to add these images of Laura Ashley designs in my own collection(!)  The first is a piece of wallpaper from a roll I bought sometime in the late 1980s and was never used except to line drawers and shelves.  I rescued this piece, and three others, from some bedroom furniture that had been my parents and I was about to throw out.  The other two, the dark, dark blue 'Lady Fern' and 'Elizabethan Trellis' I bought recently on ebay. 

Potato printing

   I thought it's be fun to print some wrapping paper for the bf's birthday presents.  I've been meaning to have a go for months and needed a reason.  I decided to use a potato as the 'block' and cut out a simple branch motif, and printed it on to ordinary brown wrapping paper.  (I used a charlotte potato which tend to be on the small size.)  It was my first attempt at this sort of thing and I'm reasonably happy with the results.

   The use of potato gives an uneven folksy quality.  I had intended for the 'branches' to be on their sides, but found the design worked better turned at right angles.  I think I will develop the design as trees. My main mistake, however, was to leave too much space around each motif.  It just should have been a tighter design to cope with the size of the presents.  I was inspired by the Edward Bawden, but looking at the design now I see the influence of Indian textiles but also Laura Ashley, and indeed I've become very interested in the furnishing fabrics she produced in the 1970's and early '80s, which I believe are excellent though neglected.  Snobbery?