Britain Swings ahead

In the mass market London led by the 196os. Newspaper colour supplements, introduced in 1962, helped to spread awareness of contemporary design. ‘Swinging Sixties’ people — whose taste in clothes included shift dresses, miniskirts and flared trousers — admired furnishings with a compact look spiced with novelty. British manufacturers were generally keen to explore plastics, glass fibre, fibreboard, PVC, smoked glass and spun aluminium. Robin Day’s moulded polypropylene stacking chair on a steel-rod base was first seen in 1963 and still has not dated.

While the first ventures into space triggered by-products of bizarre futuristic design — in clothing, furniture and toys — there was a contrary interest in traditional skills. Studio pottery gained in status as Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie and others made pottery into an art form. Studio glass-makers benefited from 1960s research which devised new formulas for glass with lower melting temperatures. This enabled small studios to operate their own furnaces. Glass-makers created sculptural pieces with flowing forms that showed off the beauty of the glass itself.

Antique Collector Magazine

Consumerism versus Flower Power

A close link grew between design and the art world. Pop Art, entwined with consumerism, touched clothing, furniture, posters and the sleeves of records with its brash colours and forms. Consumer-objects became fit subjects for art, as in Andy Warhol’s soup-tin paintings — which as prints and posters themselves became popular consumer objects.

Mass production created, and to a degree depended on, obsolescence — a short life for goods creating a need for more. Designers in all fields, in furniture, clothes, tableware as well as industrial goods, experimented with disposable goods, such as furniture made of corrugated cardboard or cheap plywood, giant beanbag seats and inflatable plastic chairs.

Modernism failed to win over the public as far as buildings were concerned. Grand urban redevelopments, with tower blocks, multistorey car parks and flyovers, were not comfortable to live in or among. Thoroughgoing Modernism was being spurned in all design fields by the late 196os. Indeed, the views of experts and authorities generally were being spurned, especially by young people.

Gentler ways and less conformist lifestyles appealed to the ‘hippies’ and ‘flower people‘ anxious for an ‘alternative society’. Some sought a more human scale of values in the unmodernised regions of India, Africa and South America. One result of this was a vogue for ethnic clothing, ornaments, hand-woven rugs, big floor cushions and wall-hangings. Others took a rosy backward look at rural life in Britain and ch0se a Victorian country style in clothes and furnishings. Yet others tried to express the drug culture of the late 1960s in frantic ‘psychedelic’ designs that often used Day-Glo luminescent colours.

High Street Style

As in all periods, many people in the 1950s and 60s remained largely unaffected by fashion’s whims. In their homes the well-to-do tried to combine hist0ric styles with modem comfort and convenience. Interest grew in genuine antiques and in furnishing old houses in historically appropriate styles. Country- house style was especially popular and was applied even to small urban homes — through wallpapers and fabrics, for example.

In the high street the wilder manifestations of 1960s design were squeezed out towards the end of the decade by a greater appreciation of good industrial design and of high quality. Inventiveness alone was no longer enough. As more and more people sought well-made goods, high-street retail chains proved powerful channels for mainstream taste.

Some of the chains were long established: Waring and Gillow had originated in an 18th- century Lancaster firm of cabinet-makers, and Marks & Spencer had been founded in 1903, for example. One of the most influential retail chains in the postwar period has been a newcomer, Habitat, founded by the designer Terence Conran in 1964 to bring ‘go0d taste’ to a mass market.

Habitat’s success has lain in a careful selection of good modem industrial design, more homely, craft-based goods and a sprinkling of self-assembly furniture for young home-makers. Modernist furniture, stainless steel cutlery, ‘high-tech’ lighting and plastic furnishings and fittings, well-designed and in bold primary colours, are offered alongside more traditional enamelled cast-iron cooking utensils, Indian scatter rugs, hand-made glassware and terracotta pots.

Another chain that has satisfied a broad- based but identifiable band of customers is Laura Ashley. It played a large part in the 1970s revival of Victorian and Edwardian country styles in flower-sprigged, subtly- coloured clothing, furnishings and wallpaper.

Tomorrow’s Antiques

A curious mixture of styles has existed in every era; only with hindsight can the style that gives an era its distinctive tone be detected. It is too early to say what will encapsulate the flavour of the 1970s and 80s, but it is clear that greater manufacturing output and greater purchasing power for most people have generated more objects for collecting. Furthermore, the time lag before any new object becomes collectable is shortening: articles from the 1940s and 50s, and even some from the 60s, are already collectable.

Beautiful objects made by skilled craftsmen will always be cherished, but these may be joined by industrial products such as hairdryers, calculators and compact-disc players. Any object, no matter how humble, may one day be prized if it embodies the spirit of its time or fits a very particular slot in the story of style.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
High Stylish Furniture and Decor for Everyone continue…