The World of Interiors

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The World of Interiors

Editor’s Letter • December 2022

ANTENNAE

What’s in the air this month

Twine Appreciation • Time to put your eggs in one basket? Let David Lipton weave his magic

Medley Makers • Britain has always had a strong track record in creativity, but the very range of things being made has rarely been so diverse. Whether the medium is papier-mâché or metalwork, clay or bamboo, you can be sure someone, somewhere is busy exploiting it with utmost skill. Amy Sherlock takes a crafty look at the new face of artistry.

The Royal Touch • When the newly wed Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, moved into Clarence House, they were surprisingly glad to mix paints, hang pictures and the like. In his 1949 book about the renovation, architectural historian Christopher Hussey tantalised with such charming domestic titbits, while detailing just how taxpayers’ money had been spent.

An English Rose • Marzipan’s dashing good looks have consecrated it as a traditional favourite, but not everyone’s sweet on the sugary showpiece. Come Christmas, though, it still reigns supreme: the perfect robes of state for any fruit cake. Daisy Garnett rolls out the praise.

Take a Stand • Does your bakeware leave you in tiers? David Lipton’s whipped up a set that really take the cake

Holiday roundup • Illustrated non-fiction, recommended by Damian Thompson

Still Lively

Beyond Borders

Digest • Amy Sherlock’s pick of the best exhibitions around the world

Serious Pursuits • Auctions, antique fairs and diverting activities, chosen by Ariadne Fletcher

Network • Busola Evans chooses the best merchandise and events worldwide

VISITOR’S BOOK

BIER BONES • Antique dealer Emma Hawkins always had a love for the long-dead; but, even so, saving a dilapidated west London villa from extinction proved a mammoth task. For her, breathing life into this old fossil meant recapturing the soul of the place, while fortifying its unlovely frame with steel and ebony. The result: a gloriously sparse menagerie for the dealer’s countless curios, objets and ossified artefacts. Kate Jacobs marvels at Hawkins’s bazaar.

DAY-GLO IN THE DRIZZLE • Bright colours work brilliantly as décor in the rainy climate of Northern Ireland. So when in the 1970s James Hamilton, Fifth Duke of Abercorn, invited chromatic iconoclast David Hicks to redecorate his family seat in County Tyrone, it was an inspired decision – daring, too, as Barons Court already had architectural pedigree, thanks to luminaries such as George Steuart and Sir John Soane. Mitchell Owens delights in purple-, buttercup- and scarlet-tinted spectacles.

HOME ALONE • Miles from any other habitation, this 1840 cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, seems to spring like a stony outcrop from its rugged terrain. Though still off-grid, it has become increasingly domesticated during recent decades, thanks to the attentions of owner Alex Willcock, co-founder of high-end homeware and furniture brand Maker & Son. Even so, as Amy Sherlock reports, far from being a hermit’s retreat, the dwelling has long been a site of connectivity, drawing family and friends to its lonely bosom.

SHELLFISH INTERESTS • Stirred by policy-makers’ short-termist degradation of the environment, Alon Schwabe and Daniel...