RETURN OF CHINTZ

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22461, 3 July 1936, Page 3

RETURN OF CHINTZ

COUNTY HOME OF DUCHESS

Every window in the Duke and Duchess of Kent's new home, " The Coppins," at Iver, will be dressed with modern ".printed calico," or, if you prefer the original Hindoo plural, " chintz," states a writer in the London Telegraph. Their choice in this fresh and picturesque fabric has been for lavish colouring and gaiety of pattern. The walls have been stripped and modernised. Where there are cupboards they have been let into the walls and painted in keeping with the general colour scheme. And against this smooth, severe face the Duke and Duchess are using hand-printed chintz boldly patterned and prolifically coloured.

In the Duchess' drawing-room the handsome curtains are the key to the colourings of the entire room. The walls and the ground of the chintz are both of soft, pale parchment, suggesting space and coolness. Trailing across the material are large blossoms and stem designs in rose, blue, green and old gold. The same shades are used in plain tones for quilted upholsteries on the furniture.

The Duko of Kent has the family trait for collecting fine pieces of antique furniture, and the mahogany drawing-room pieces will have perfect mounting in this new background. Olio of tho most delightful rooms — the Garden J{oom —makes an enchanting retreat during the spring and summer months. Hero the walls are of Naples yellow and the windows are draped with curtains of yellow chintz quilted with red. The adjoining music-room has warm beige walls and the red of the Garden Room quilting is introduced as a contrast with tho beige. In the rooms chosen for her personal use the Duchess reveals a taste for warm and vivid colours, especially in the rose shades. With the help of an artistic decorator the Duchess lias found a glorious shade tliat suggests both peach and pink in her bedroom. It is used in its most delicate shade on the walls and is repeated in tho large (lowers on the curtain chintz mingling in a Chippendale pattern with tones of green, black and grey "on a creamy background. A similar warm shade is used against* the broken-white wall of the Duchess' bathroom, but the chintz has a fascinating toffee-stripe pattern and is bountifully gl<v/ed. Tho tradition of choosing blue for a baby boy has been followed by tho Duke aiid Duchess in decorating the dav nursery for their son.

Tho curtains are in plain blue chintz quilted with white borders. It is a happy shade of blue, and when Prince Edward sees the nyrrv blue line-; on the walls and the delightful blue and white furniture, I imagine that his blue eyes will open to their full and wondering roundness.