"Designs for Interiors" 1986 Calloway, Stephen

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CALLOWAY, Stephen

[40] pp.

w/ 85 lots

Victoria & Albert Museum

1986

8 1/4" x 6 7/8"

Stapled wraps

A … Read more CALLOWAY, Stephen

[40] pp.

w/ 85 lots

Victoria & Albert Museum

1986

8 1/4" x 6 7/8"

Stapled wraps

A decade ago London's Victoria and Albert Museum presented an interior design exhibition of decorators' drawings entitled ''The Way We Live Now.'' Nearly everything on view was sleek, modern and minimal.

But interiors have changed. And ''Designs for Interiors,'' an assemblage of 60 drawings, pieces of furniture and fabrics on view at the Victoria and Albert through Oct. 12, shows just how dramatic the changes have been.

''In no previous era has such a diversity of approach to the creation of interiors been possible,'' said Stephen Calloway, curator of prints at the museum and the exhibition's organizer. ''It is impossible to do this kind of show now without showing how people use antiques. And modernism is now just a small part of it.''

The designers hail from London, Paris, New York, Milan and Rome and include, among others, such traditionalists as London's Nicholas Haslam, John Stefanidis and David Mlinaric and New York's Mario Buatta, Mark Hampton and Keith Irvine.

Also featured are the post-modernists Stefano Mantovani of Rome and Charles Jencks, an American working in London. French modernist designers represented are Pascal Mourge and Jean-Michel Wilmotte.

The show points up stylistic differences, grouping the designers' works into loose - and often whimsical -categories such as new baroque, grand luxe, moderne, and haut decor, the last being the room equivalent of haute couture, as Mr. Calloway puts it.

It also covers a wide variety of settings. On view are drawings by the British designer Ron Arad and a plaster draped figure used in the window display of Bazaar, a stylish London fashion boutique. Nearby hangs David Roos's little pen-and-ink rendering of his recently completed neo-classical bedroom for the actress Faye Dunaway's London house. Mr. Mantovani's watercolor rendering of a dizzily striped bathroom features a medicine cabinet built into a big blue chair.

As expected in an exhibition devoted to interiors, details are given a starring role. An inked design for a tassel by Imogen Taylor of London's Colefax & Fowler details every facet, from the preferred fabric to the proper way to construct the rosette. A collage of details - table legs, curtains, ceiling moldings - intended for a Portuguese villa is an example of the work of the British designer David Hicks.

While some designers relied on professional draftsmen for their presentation sketches, the best are those executed by the designers themselves. The show also offers a wealth of information about working styles. The London designer John Fowler, who died in 1977, usually scribbled quick sketches for his clients. But the pencil sketch in the show, long ruffled curtains for a bedroom at Chevening, once considered by Prince Charles as a country house, rated a careful presentation drawing. The curtains were never executed.

There are also several examples of designers' working sketches accompanied by finished products. An entrance to the show is draped with a buff-colored screen-printed fabric by the London designer Jane Wildgoose. Next to it is her pencil-and-crayon sketch for the original pattern. The design ideas behind Mr. Jencks's ''Danae'' lamp, a post-modern fiberboard construction, are neatly documented in his accompanying notebook.

Despite the wide variety of styles, Mr. Calloway says taste and in some instances humor are unifying forces in today's interior design. He finds this latter quality a welcome surprise, as Mr. Mourge's 1984 rendering of a boxy writing table set on triangular legs and Mr. Wilmotte's 1985 presentation drawing of the sleek furnishings for the French Ambassador's office in Washington.

Indeed, the show is intended to spotlight the design trends coming from different countries. ''Paris is a center for modern, and the Government is actually promoting it,'' Mr. Calloway said. ''The British decorate with antiques and from Italy come the zany, colorful post-modern things. In New York the obsession seems to be with English country house style, chintz and everything English.''

The show is also meant to point out interior design's current popularity and cachet. ''Interior design as we know it has existed since around the turn of the century, but only recently has it joined fashion as a designer-dominated commodity, a sphere where name brands count,'' Mr. Calloway said.

''Design today is all about status and chic,'' he continued. ''Rooms by certain designers are instantly recognizable, and everyone knows what they cost. Many clients don't want something that is not in character with what the designer they've hired is known for.' See less