What has happened to wallpaper?

[Boris Bajic]

We were in B&Q (or similar) yesterday, looking for wallpaper and various other things.

My dearest takes these things very seriously and we have some absurdly overpriced tat on our walls from Osborne and Little and that Biba woman....

It's just wallpaper to me.

But... There we were in B&Q (or similar) and I was thrown into a sweet vortex of memories of early childhood... when I use huge hardback albums of wallpaper samples to cut up for making pictures...

The Sanderson sample books we had in the craft cupboard when I was tiny (late 60s) were full of designs almost identical to those in B&Q yesterday.

Lots of black, lots of fuscia... Lots of huge flowers with a slightly Pop Art unshaded cartoonishness to them... Lots of orange and purple and teal and white and some extraordinarily Gothic-looking stuff with what looked like designs of intricate wrought ironwork over aubergine or slate-grey or dark-purple backgrounds.

Also some floral patters that looked like Auntie Flo's front room....

Were the late 60s so lovely that we have to re-visit?

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

"Were the late 60s so lovely that we have to re-visit?"

I don't remember a thing about it. However, after the death of a relative we acquired a 60's lamp and were staggered to discover how much such items were going for on that well known auction site.

That's really all I know about wallpaper.

 

[Arch]

Fashion is circular, that's the way it goes!

Apparently, dungarees for women are the big thing according to the papers, although I've not seen a real actual woman wearing them, so it might not have made it off the catwalks yet...

I suspect the big bold paper patterns are now being used in feature walls rather than all over, so there is hope.

 

[Arch]

"Were the late 60s so lovely that we have to re-visit?"

I don't remember a thing about it. However, after the death of a relative we acquired a 60's lamp and were staggered to discover how much such items were going for on that well known auction site.

That's really all I know about wallpaper.

We were sorting through some of NT's Dad's collection of stuff brought up when they moved into the granny flat. Among it, a digital clock from the 80's that I rather fell in love with (utterly ugly, but with a switch that gives three different brightnesses of display), and two lethal electric heaters from the 20s or 30s, with highly exposed elements mounted in an gorgeous emerald coloured art deco ceramic body.

Both are going to find their way into our finished home, although the heaters will be adapted to provide safe light, rather than lethal heat!

 

[dellzeqq]

wallpaper design is flourishing because the price of top end residential property in London, New York, Beirut, Mumbai and wherever is booming. That's the market that sets the fashion, and the fashion is being set by people who have big walls and want you to know about it. It gets used in feature walls in new flats, but, to be honest, it's a poor return for the money. Far better to spend the dosh on curtains. Wallpaper on a wall that doesn't have the height for a picture doesn't often succeed

 

[Archie_tect]

Tapestries, that's what you need... brilliant insulation.

 

[smokeysmoo]

Fashion is circular.

Drainpipe trousers were never circular