Sunday 25 May 2008

Just as one is happily going about one's business..

quietly building a collection, Hatta Byng has to go and spoil it.

I recently decided to stop taking House & Garden (UK edition) as it has been a while since anything that has graced those venerable pages has piqued my interest. That is until I saw the recent post, Object Lesson, that An Aesthete's Lament did on Thomas Wiggins's house in Epsom. Low and behold the spread was not disappointing. Except for maybe the dining room curtains. Perhaps they just didn't photograph well...

Also included in the June issue was a spread on retail legend Joseph Ettedgui's new flat. No surprises here. Seamlessly perfect and tasteful as one would expect. Just like one of his former shops. What one did not expect to see were vases by Constance Spry being highlighted. Not just in the spread but also in Hatta Byng's feature Copy That. The title says it all, don't you think?



Until now these esoteric objects have been the province of the die hard collector. Undoubtedly, every bored design dilettante from Chelsea to Notting Hell will now be in search of them. Not because they get them, but because Joseph has them. Thanks Hatta Byng. Should one of said dilettantes get in my way, let their fate be on your head. Trust me, it will make the Celine bag incident at I.Magnin look like child's play.


Mantel Vases, 1937, Constance Spry.

----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Murder on the Dancefloor
via FoxyTunes

3 comments:

Pigtown*Design said...

Unfortunately, I am well out of your way!

The Peak of Chic said...

It always irks me when something like that happens. Somehow, I missed the Celine handbag incident.

An Aesthete's Lament said...

I bought one last year on Ebay for about $40; now I see them being offered retail for about $500. The designer Ou Baholyodhin is/was a mad collector of CS vases, since at least the late 1990s.