The foggy morn of 20th November saw me scraping the ice from my windscreen and hobbling over to Dulwich College to take a look at design wonders of the past at the extensive Midcentury Modern show.
Featured image: Beautifully functional nestled coffee table. Image Credit: Deborah Carter for PDD
Dulwich College had been split into 4 sprawling areas to house stands by 85 design and antique dealers. The Lower Hall was the most impressive of the spaces; with larger furniture pieces being grouped together to create clusters of very stylishly arranged representations of rooms.
‘Midcentury’ is a term of ambiguity – for some it describes a period between the 1930’s and the mid-1960’s, or for others it spans across the 1950’s and 1970’s. From the amount of brown on show in the Lower Hall it was clear to see that the Mid-century Modern approach catered towards the latter definition, which suited my retro tastes just fine.
I walked around falling in love over and over again with a multitude of different furniture pieces, all of which were dreadfully beyond my Sunday-morning-casual-spending price range with prices being marked at £600 for an armchair, £300 for a coffee table, £1200 for a sofa.
A range of functioning clocks, adding a flavour of industry to the modern home space. Image Credit: Deborah Carter for PDD.
Conran and Day’s inspired cushions made from original fabrics . Image Credit: Deborah Carter for PDD.
Finely fuzzy and inviting pink 1950’s arm chair. Image Credit: Deborah Carter for PDD.
Day-glo love birds amongst a range of granular imitation wood pieces of furniture. Image Credit: Deborah Carter for PDD.
Although the show was extensive, I did leave shamefully empty-handed, but feeling honoured and lucky to have walked amongst such a gigantic range of furniture classics, which are unfortunately becoming rarer and harder to come by.