MIXING THE OLD AND MODERN

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31381, 29 May 1967, Page 2

MIXING THE OLD AND MODERN

Once you furnished your house in either ancient or modern, and if the twain did accidentally meet, the result was usually disastrous.

But not any more. A pleasant mixture ot modern and traditional furniture is no longer even tolerable —it’s almost compulsory. That is, if you want to be up with the latest trends. Slickness is firmly out this year. People are going for pretty, charming things, veering away from "sophisticated” drab interiors. Colour is running riot—vivid upholstery in colours like screaming

pink, turquoise, sharp greens or yellows, i& selling well. The strangest assortment of objects which "on paper” could not possibly blend, get on famously when actually placed together in a room. To prove it can be done, a young designer has put a solid, Spanish walnut sideboard with an aluminium and plate glass table, a Spanish leather chair, a Victorian lamp and an Edwardian desk. It works, too—much to everyone’s surprise, including, I suspect, the designer’s. What it all boils down to is being different, and although I do not agree with this purely for its own sake, familiar objects often look better for a face-lift.