Art Deco  by comparison to its younger sibling, has been unappreciated; I say sibling but really Art Deco is more of the grand dame of Modernism. I’ve been sitting on this Art Deco piece for months but with the re-opening of a true grand dame of the period the Savoy Hotel,  its seems timely to post this.

So here are a few products that have either been re-issued or have features  reminiscent of  the period.

Lee Broom One Light Only. Launched last month at the London Design Festival the work is inspired by Art Deco jewellery and also decadent 70’s photography. Stylists from the 70’s weren’t averse to referencing the Wiemar years (think of the film Cabaret) so you can see the connection. The use of facets and gold are certainly Art Deco 

Himmeli Chandelier by Paul Loebach  for the new American lighting manufacturer Roll & Hill

The inspiration for the piece actually came from a traditional Finnish craft of making Christmas ornaments but I certainly feel that the geometry, facets and particularly use of the glass lanterns gives a certain Deco-ness to the work even though the intention lay elsewhere. That said; Artek (mentioned below) is a Finnish company and the classic chair uses a traditional bent wood technique  -so there is a connection of sorts!

Two Art Deco classic were dusted down, re-issued and re-worked earlier this year. I doubt they’ve ever been out of production but the were both given the attention they deserve.

Artek re-issued the 1936 Armchair 400 by Alvar Aalto but in a new spectacular Missoni cover. The chair was shown a Spazio Rossana Orlandi amongst the eclectic mix of beautifully designed products that span all eras of design history.

Vanity Fair by Poltrona Frau is a reissued classic from 1930. An original that spawned a thousand copies it seemed appropriare that little minatures were dotted about the stand to emphasis its classic status.

Glas light from  Diesel  and  Foscarini is a work that has a more of an industrial Deco feel. Although personally I prefer the rather wonderful original examples you can find over at Skinflint Design

Finally still on the industrial tip heres Tom Dixon Pressed Glass Light Bead . The glass has been produced in a factory more used to manufacturing industrial glass. It was launched last year as part of the Industry Collection.

Shown at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2010 Paul Smith has taken a series of wood frame chairs and recovered them with stunning floral digital prints. We’re used to seeing this kind of “brown” furniture upholstered in floral damasks of different eras. The fabric not necessarily matching the era of the furniture. They’re the inherited pieces passed down or sold on for the next owner to recover in their own way. Smith has just done exactly this, but in an exaggerated form. Detailed, close shot, naturalistic images with saturated colour as opposed to the stylised rather more dainty fabrics of old. 

Reglo by Sophie Hedderwick. Having majored in both weave and experimental textiles Hedderwick’s work  reinvents traditional pieces by combining ancient techniques of weaving with sophisticated new material.  “it is an ancient art that can be endlessly re-invented and interpreted to produce new and exciting forms, although a 2D craft it can be rendered as almost sculptural in form depending on the materials used.  My work is now a fusion of the 2 disciplines. In the last 5 years I developed this experimentation further using wire with lights which adds another dimension to the weave. Also in this project I am weaving off-loom which is a challenge for any weaver. The idea was to produce a new weave structure that was strong enough to sit on without using a traditional woven seat style” .Using reclaimed vintage chairs Hedderwick has  re-woven the seat base with bright electo-luminescent wires that light up for 5,000 hours. New work currently in development will be shown in Milan this year at Designersblock at Zona Isola  

Richard Hutten -Playing with tradition for I+I Milanshown at Object Rotterdam 2010. Richard has taken a complex Persian rug design and stretched the pattern out. Prior to computers we’d find this quite a shocking treatment of the design.  Now we’re all used to whizzing down a web page and dragging the pixels along with us, it doesn’t seem peculiar at all.  

“For already many years I had the idea to do something with traditional oriental carpets. I have an antique Persian carpet at my home, which I still find the best carpets to have. The idea behind the carpet was to build a bridge between the old and the new, east meets west. From this starting point I looked at various ways to give a reinterpretation.

In my previous work I also used existing forms which I than reinterpret. For the carpet I did research in the various patterns available. Than I came up with the idea to stretch the carpet a certain point. I found out it’s very important where to start the stretching. On the traditional side I kept the fringes, on the contemporary side I made a clear cut.”

Portmanteau After Thonet by  Mathieu Lehanneur. Mathieu has taken a familiar coat stand and gone a little wild with the hangers. I’m  guessing but the advantage over the original may be that it can hold a little more. I seem to remember my parents old fashioned version was always so completely covered,you wouldn’t know what was under the mass of coats. Its certainly a witty remake of a familiar piece and I hope it will go into production. Apologies for the photo, I think I was a little phased out by Maison Objet at this point and as it is a proto-type I can’t find better images at the moment.

Heres two pieces that were given a make over by a Swedish charity store as an example of what can be done.  

Below: On a slightly higher budget Vernor Panton chair mixed with French antique table and Astier de Villatte tableware spotted at Designers Guild – so yeah, theres only three people left in London who can afford this mix…

Left: Heres a chest of draws made by the Berlin firm Schubladen. They use reclaimed draws to create unique pieces of various sizes. http://www.schubladen.de 

 BelowLeft: Spotted at Maison Object a vintage rocker given a radical but beautiful revamp. Below Right: Spotted at Stockholm Furniture Fair vintage chair recovered by student Elin Jensen Langaard.

It’s safe to say we’re fed up of drab beige and neutral living; could colour be the antidote to our current malais?

We’ve had a shift in perspective, looking at what we already have and adapting to our environment. We’re looking at ways to reconstruct our living space with maximum effect. Colour, whether through vintage pieces or new design, is mixed up and mashed up. It’s not the clean aesthetic of modernism, real life is more messy, more colourful, more beautiful. We live with pieces around us from different eras; different generations have added to the mix of stuff we all have in our homes. We have a new respect for colour mixing and a new attitude to splashes of colour. We’re being more playful and witty with ways of using colour.

To follow: 3 different themes featuring this colour trend coming through into interiors.

Image by  http://mwmgraphics.com/