GLASS AGE RETURNS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 19

GLASS AGE RETURNS

NEW FASHION IN THE HOME Glass, which :has .temporarily been slightly eclipsed by pottery and plaster for flower containers, is to stage a come-back. Not only are glass vases being designed again for groups of flowers and leaves, but glass is to be predominant on the dinner table. The new synthetic, glass, that is transparent and unbreakable and as light as cardboard, is being made into napkin rings by Lady Gertrude Crawford (says a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph"). These Victorian accessories to the dinner, table—which caused a former Duke of Devonshire so much surprise because he could not conceive of anyone not having a clean napkin at each 1 meal—have returned to favour and'look very attractive, with napkins in pastel shades of. fine-linen., Dessert knives and forks have handles of this glass, and it is used on'the tea table for teapot stands,.muffineers, and cream jugs.

Some of the newest ideas in glass flower" vases lare really old ones revived. Hostesses, have asked again for the vase with a "flare"; because it is so much easier to arrange blooms in it than the > tank or tumbler, shaped l vase. Containers in gold and silver lustre especially destined for lilies and tawny gold chrysanthemums all ihave this flare. One flower expert, has invented a rubber device which .holds

the flowers in position and prevents them falling out of a shallow bowl or vase when the latter is being refilled. Containers like gelatine and-potted meat jars which have been copied from eighteenth century milk "pans are made in very thick glass and * are intended for stocks, marigolds, or asters) which are massed in together.

Also-dating from the eighteenth century, • are candle "protectors" made from thick glass in the shape of an inverted bell, and placed upon antique wooden stands on the dinner table. Inside should stand coloured candles. The flames cannot flicker or gutter upon the table.

Large lumps of glass nave a fascination for many women, who like the deep greenish colour of the waste pieces of glass that are often left in the bottom of moulds at the glass factories. These can now be bought for table decorations or for door-stops, or they can be made into solid glass globes with a flattened base and used as supports for round plate-glass coffee tables. Many hostesses like these tables, which are supported on three or four ■ glass globes; they are just ankle high, and are easily moved from place to place in the room. A glass table is the modern equiva-lent-decoration in the drawing-room to.the Victorian silver table.- On a table which consists of a sheet of plateglass mounted on ironwork legs, painted white, are placed blown glass animals, glass fishes, glass bubbles, and coloured glass fishes in a miniature aquarium.