The World of Interiors December 2021

The World of Interiors never set out to corner a market, and the concept of a sales strategy or – worse – a focus group was anathema to the founding editor, Min Hogg, from day one. Though its publisher and initiator, Kevin Kelly, was as commercially sharp as a decorator’s tack, there was nothing crass about the elegantly laid out, refined and slyly radical magazine that first appeared on news-stands in November 1981. Yet Interiors, as it was for its first year, was an immediate success, appealing as it did to a sensibility starved of such an all-encompassing design and decoration title. Of course, first-rate house magazines could be found before WoI burst (albeit sedately) on to the scene, but none quite matched it for – what exactly? – breadth,…

Not all magazine writers can flatter but still convey a measured sense of honesty. Carol could, and as The World of Interiors’ New York editor, penned some of the shrewdest and wittiest pieces we’ve published. Her style was distinctive, a carefully wrought American/English blend of the picturesque and the penetrating (and often distinguished by One. Word. Sentences). Re-reading the house features and book reviews she wrote over 32 years has been as much a joy as a sadness. For here she is, vivacious, smiling and beaming a searchlight on her subjects and herself while never taking either too seriously. She made writing about houses and their creation look effortless (it isn’t), but once told me she’d get up in the middle of the night to jot down a word or…

1 Peggy Angus (WoI March 2017) made her hand-blocked papers the hard way, with rolls of lining paper and emulsion paints. But it takes only a click to come by Cambridge Imprint’s (WoI Oct 2020) new patterned papers, which reproduce eight of Angus’s bold designs at a reduced scale. This slim box containing three of each costs £35. That will be Christmas all wrapped up then. Ring 07732 131135, or visit cambridgeimprint.co.uk. 2 Light up your dining table with these ‘Colorblock Squiggle’ hand-painted candles from Misette. Made with food-grade paraffin and lead-free wicks, they are burnable artworks. From $36 for a pair. Visit misettetable.com. 3 They’ve been producing glasses in Lebanon since Phoenician times – but surely never anything reminiscent of those screwball ice creams from the 1970s with a gobstopper in…

DUTCH ARTISTS Gijs Frieling and Job Wouters, who together make up the Amsterdam-based atelier Freeling Waters, are talking about the joy of painted surfaces in a world of bland minimalist design. ‘Decoration has a strange, old-fashioned connotation, but we believe it can be very vital and it has a specific power and if you use it right it can be super-modern,’ explains Job. ‘But we don’t see much competition in that realm.’ Their exquisitely painted cabinets were a ‘lightbulb moment’ prompted by Sebastian Wrong, industrial designer and founder of The Wrong Shop, who picked them to be the inaugural collection for his new venture, Wrong Shop Projects, which brings together creatives and specialist manufacturers to produce a series of bespoke commissions. ‘These cabinets are really very decorative. Hardcore decorative,’ Job continues.…