Taken at Fashion’s Night Out on the 8th of September at the Emporio Armani Store in London.

Photographer: Dave M Bennett, Getty Images

Nicky is in the throes of working up a piece on English drawings rooms for the Financial Times and we have been swooning over these tables recently.

This one is for sale with Christopher Hodsoll. Provenance: Bought by the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava for her Drawing Room at Hans Crescent from Montague Marcussen Ltd in July 1964, quite probably at the suggestion of her decorator Felix Harbord, a man with a penchant for the theatrical. In fact his work was largely theatre and set designs.

Now Nicky and I have long been big Felix Harbord fans and I don’t think there has been enough written about him and his career. Any experts out there? He worked for Lady Bute and I have often quoted her charming custom of leaving her curtains open at night so passersby could enjoy her glittering interiors. There is another book idea! Nightime voyeuristic pleasures – wonderful…

I have been eagerly awaiting this latest Acanthus Press publication on Syrie Maugham, titled Syrie Maugham: Staging the Glamorous Interior. Not only does Barry Cenower at Acanthus always produce the most beautiful tomes, but I was terribly pleased to be asked to be included in this particular one. See page 262 for my Syrie-esque contribution.

Two days in to Decorex and the city is buzzing with events! If you are in town for the show, I think you will be pleased to see some new faces, and definitely some inspiring ideas.

A couple personal faves are Ben Whistler‘s champagne bar (naturally) where he has installed a revolving tree (very Tony Duquette-ish, though I personally would have painted it white) with blossoms made of Ben Whistler leather swatches.

Also, Fromental has installed a prototype walling they are developing based on the famous Jean Michel Frank/Christian Berard room. They have recreated the painterly architectural effects with embroidery on velvet…definitely food for thought.

Another ‘find’ is Tracy Kendall who is truly pushing the boundaries of wall coverings by using found objects, embroidery and sequins in very bespoke ways. She has even created a wall covering made of puzzle pieces. Very much in the spirit of what i was trying to say yesterday about seeing things in new ways!

Decorex is just around the corner and I am still in the throes of putting pictures together for my talk on the Creative Process…boy could I go on! I love this topic, in fact I live this topic. I have just been looking at snaps of the booth we did for last year’s Decorex for Ben Whistler, a talented upholsterer we use here in London.

Marc Jacobs had beautiful window displays (here we are back to shop windows again!) just filled with flowers of all colours. It was such a treat, and a great movement away from the staid and tailored approach many have aimed for in their gardens in past years.

And as September passes, so do the riotous bouquets of nature that we enjoy all summer. Well that became our inspiration for the booth, and as you can see we used a similar idea to create fresh flower letters that spelled out ‘Ben Whistler’ for his display. We filled it with custom designed furniture in our trademark shapes using chintz and some of our NH fabrics and we were thrilled with the results!

Really looking forward to seeing some creative surprises next week. Let me know what your favorites are! And please do come listen to my talk, Sunday the 26th of September at 16.15.