The World of Interiors April 2021

1 Plaster ceiling roses and light fittings go together like a horse and carriage. Radar has taken the pairing a step further, transforming the mouldings into lamps. The artisan-made ‘Haussmann’ collection consists of three models available in various sizes (from £478 approx for 30cm across). Ring 00 33 6 95 22 84 62, or visit radar-interior.com. 2 Colville, the fashion brand founded by former Marni design director Molly Molloy and Luc inda Chambers, sometime fashion director of British Vogue, has a new string to its bow – homewares. Shown: made-to-order vegetable-dyed organic goat- and sheep-wool ‘Turkish Shag’ rugs; from £1,680. Visit colvilleofficial.com. 3 Chippendale’s success is credited in part to his huge furniture directory, from which designs could be ordered. Jump forward some 260 years, and a country-house owner has commissioned Jona…

ANYONE who walks through a door in his south London council flat and announces, ‘This is the winter bedroom,’ deserves to be immortalised. So began my visit to lampshade designer Mark Betty’s intriguing home. ‘The summer bedroom is antique moths a-go-go,’ Betty continues with an airy wave and a theatrical pulling back of the bed hanging (a deconstructed men’s costume, vintage Syrian) to reveal a wall of jaunty moth prints, that, in the warmer months, are paired with a greeny botanical chintz. It is clear that Betty has, with the pragmatic instinct of the true aesthete, refused to be defined by the constraints of his surroundings. The sprawling estate on top of which Betty perches was designed in the 1930s as part of a mass slum clearance. The maze-like blocks were…

ON THE TIBETAN Plateau undulating grassy hills are ringed by snow-covered peaks that stretch to the horizon in every direction. It’s an awe-inspiring but fundamentally unforgiving place. Summers are short, while winters are long and brutal. It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely spot for a luxury brand to make its base. The nomads of this region have always faced an unrelentingly harsh life, their existence closely tethered to the survival of their yak and sheep. These animals provide the nomads’ milk, butter and meat, as well as wool and leather for their tents and clothes. Long days of manual labour quickly take their toll on the health of these people, and it has become ever harder to scrape a living, so young adults often drift away to the cities, steadily…

I WAS 18 WHEN I went to Italy for the first time, making the long journey from Britain by rail. As we rattled across the Italian border there were lemon trees growing beside the track, and I’ve never forgotten the excitement of seeing the pale fruit blazing among their dark leaves. Johann Christoph Volkamer was only 16 when he left his home in Nuremberg in 1660 and made his first journey to Italy. After crossing the Alps he may have lingered on the shores of Lake Garda, for it was here he saw lemon trees for the first time. I suppose he never forgot the experience either, because the rest of his life was dominated by a fascination for lemons and all their citrus relations. Volkamer left Garda and went to…