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The interior Introduction
The interior Introduction
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My colleagues at Vogue House have needed to give me plenty of"space of late; it turns out that the only way you can select the most outstanding rooms from The World of Interiors4 30 - year history is by going through every issue page by page, photocopying each place you might wish to include, and spreading out the resulting mountain of pictures on a very large table. Only then can the real head - scratching begin. Its an effective if low - tech way of working. But it means Ive hogged the second - floor boardroom for months.
Of course no one supplement can hope to cover the ground the magazine has managed to in three decades. But 1 hope the following nine chapters will at least give a sense of the enormous variety of places weve brought to light. The decision to divide the project room by room was easy; the decision of what to include was more difficult. Distilling 350 issues, 54,000 pages and 3,000 - odd features into 92 pages was as challenging as it was ultimately rewarding.
Set up in 1981, Interiors reflected and thrived in that era of stippled wall finishes and swags with everything. But the counter - current of eye - wateringly colourful Postmodernism and the all - white minimalist look were also given room, as were more humble vernacular styles from every corner of the globe. The aim, as founding editor Min Hogg said, was to bring together things thai were all the best of their kind. So however different the places seemed, they would thus be united by a sense of authenticity. Then as now, where else could you hope to find an adobe dwelling sitting happily alongside a no - expcnse - spared decorator makeover?
But there has also been a consistent seam running through the magazine of what could be called classic Interiors interiors, those places that define the title by being precisely of their time yet simultaneously of enduring relevance, inspiration and charm: the cobwebhed English pile; the forgotten French chateau; madly inventive Baroque palaces; farmhouses; follies. Every month the tradition continues as we bring readers the most up - to - the - minute thinking alongside decor that is beyond fashion. I have tried to include such classic schemes here, along with places that have yet to stand the test of time.
Its actually pretty extraordinaiy that so many of the houses weve featured have survived long enough to be photographed at all. Decoration, its fair to say, is the first thing that gets swept away when a new broom arrives or theres enough money to make improvements. Thus, a number of the rooms in this selection have already been destroyed; the photographs here are the most lasting reminder of the care and creativity their one - time owners lavished on the places they loved and called home. As such the images offer a glimpse of these individuals, too, and to my mind are a more revealing portrait than any likeness rendered in paint, wood or stone.
Interiors has always endeavoured to make a faithful record of the places it features. Its true that in order to get the perfect shot we may have to move a chair or tweak a table. But unlike many publications, the idea is not to standardise what we show, to bring in armfuls of lilies and different furniture in order to impose a house style. No: we remain committed to allowing places to be what they are.
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