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The World of Interiors

Editor’s Letter • August 2023

ANTENNAE

What’s in the air this month

Welcome to the Fold • To make your relaxation special, some spatial wrestling must first be faced. David Lipton puts his own construction on the finest deck chairs

Plains Sailing • When you get hot under the collar, sometimes a calm, unpatterned fabric in a cool weave is just the ticket. And let’s face it, situations don’t get much more high-pressure, meteorologically speaking, than the steamy Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean. Here, in his hammock, Max Egger lies back and thinks of linen.

Luscious Cargo • It’s not hard to see why tropical fruits were always such adored imports. All those rebellious rinds and raucous colours – and, back in the day, their real exotic rarity. Even now that they tend to survive the ocean voyage into our palms and punch bowls, they still succeed in seducing us, whether baked or barbecued, caramel-coated or cocktail-bent. Roll on summer, cries Daisy Garnett.

Tutti Fruity • Is your exotic party paraphernalia getting a bit… bruised? These punch bowls, pineapple plates, plus more, are ripe for the picking, says mover and shaker David Lipton

Estates of Grace • It’s hard not to raise an eyebrow at blurbs that seem to beatify their authors. A happy occasion, then, to discover a long-worshipped work that still merits all its praise: Georgina Masson’s Italian Villas and Palaces (1959) is one such study. A courtly poem of pink pages and gleaming silver photogravures, this peerless patrician survey is divine on every level, finds Mitchell Owens

The Spare Room

A Constellation of Leo

Sitting Ducks

Network • Clare Holley chooses the best merchandise and events worldwide

VISITOR’S BOOK

ROMANS LEGION • Riccardo Priolisi and John Hooks are confirmed Classicists, as their Sicilian masseria makes all too manifest. Over three years, the couple converted this fortified farming hamlet into a vast holiday home, then steeped it in allusions to the great empire based in Italy. Nor have they neglected the illustrious figures, from Goethe to Picasso, who subsequently drew inspiration from the ancients. Marella Caracciolo Chia conducts her own Grand Tour.

NEON LIBERAL • Dayglo colours, in the form of cushions, faux-fur bags and patterned dresses, raise the temperature in a cave-like shop in Tangier’s old town. The pink pop-up is the latest venture of Topolina, aka Isabelle Dallemang, whose life began to hot up as soon as she abandoned the French bourgeoisie for bohemian Morocco. Now she’s branched into bamboo and bronze furniture – a collection, says Marie-France Boyer, that’s set to rock the kasbah.

OPEN AND SHUT CASE • Much of Geoffrey Bawa’s design is about the interplay between interior space and exterior setting. But ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka and, later, the eruption of violence meant that the architect’s house in the capital increasingly took on the air of a small fortress, as if keeping the warring world at bay. Staking out the grounds, Niru Ratnam plays detective in Colombo.

MINDYA BUSINESS • Photographer Tim Clinch could always be found nosing through some European flea market or other. These days, though, he mainly slakes his purchasing passion in the Bulgarian village of Mindya, where he’s been living for the past two...