Old World Glamour
Design cues from the past are injecting old world glamour into our interiors. Make a luxurious style statement and bring a little French antiquity or Victorian manor into your world.
Chic chandeliers
It doesn’t matter if your home is all downlights, hang one from the rafters anyway – just for the romantic effect. Glamorise a plain bathroom, accentuate a dining table or enchant a bedroom. Whether Phantom of the Opera crystal drama or candle styles, chandeliers are the cliché of timeless class. Identical versions of the classics are illuminating lighting stores everywhere.
Claw foot and slipper baths
A ‘have to have’ for a glamorous-era bathroom, they are pure luxury to look at and to soak in. New versions of this past-century style come in varying lengths and designs. And some can be colour-matched to your décor.
Antiqued fittings and fixtures
Ironically, modern techniques can be thanked for the large inflow of antique-style allure. Today’s tapware for bathrooms and kitchens is not just a chrome affair. They are expertly antiqued, or shiny in copper, brass, gold, and pewter effects. This finishes a chosen theme, as much more than a functional necessity.
Magical mirrors
If nothing else, the gilded mirror is the epitome of yesteryear glamour. Double up a view of the garden, city or seascape by facing one out to the window. Lighten a dim hallway, make your bathroom feel like The Ritz, and romance up the bedroom. Old-style options enchant – round mirrors, bevelled edges, thick ornate framing bearing grapes and cherubs, through to art deco geometric in silver.
Recline in grandeur
The classical chaise lounge is a charming Victorian-inspired piece to fill a purpose in any room. The decadent deep-buttoning on couches to cushions, originally hails from the 1700s, as in rolled-armed Chesterfield couches. This immortal style is now very in vogue.
Curtain glamour
Curtains can draw in the dramatic feel of an opulent era. It is imperative to drape generously down to the ground. Choose luxurious linens, sumptuous velvets, or baroque-themed prints. Embellish with pompoms, fringing and gold tassels, and tieback with brass crystal-knobbed brackets.
A floral throw-back
Victorian floral wallpapers make the finest of feature walls. Damask-pink old French roses through to granny’s garden bouquets enhance everything from vases, vintage crockery, paintings, to tablecloths and throws.
Time travel
Aboard the Orient Express. A brass luggage rack in the entrance way, an antiqued globe or map, a purposeful pile of leather vintage suitcases secreting a long journey had. Perhaps include a dome-studded pirate’s chest, nods to Jules Verne, or gilt-framed paintings of old sailing ships. It’s escapism through historical adventures from the comfort of home.
