Art Deco kitchens: How a touch of 1920s glamour and dash can lift your most-used room

(Image credit: Chiselwood Kitchens - chiselwood.co.uk)

published 8 May 2019

In 2003, under the stewardship of the brilliant Sir Mark Jones, the V&A staged an exhibition that succeeded in rehabilitating Art Deco, a style that had, for too long, been associated with bingo halls, junk shops and tired south-coast resorts.

Almost overnight, the stately Claridge’s, which had previously laboured under a reputation as the grand dame of West End hotels, became rather cool. Within a couple of years, Urban Splash, an achingly trendy Manchester property developer, breathed new life into the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, Oliver Hill’s Art Deco masterpiece that — to bastardise a phrase from a former editor of Saga magazine — had for many years been ‘more hip replacement than hip’.

The Art Deco era offered a deep new well of inspiration for designers working across a wide range of areas, from tableware and furniture to interiors and architecture. This was no stylistic flash in the pan; the effect of the show was more about dusting off Art Deco and welcoming it back into the mainstream than precipitating any breathless ‘Art Deco is the new Georgian’ vacuity.

Almost two decades later the influence of the exhibition is still responsible for simple, beautiful variations on a theme that combine the modern affection for clean lines and crisp details. It has also impacted on kitchen design, notably in ranges by Smallbone — such as Macassar — while another kitchen brand, Chiselwood, completed a project a couple of years ago with another exciting variation on a pleasing theme.

Martin Moore, which launched a 'New Deco' kitchen a couple of years ago that was inspired by the luxurious look of the 1930s, with marble finishes as well as metallic and ceramic detailing — plus the option of discreet banquet seating that wouldn’t look out of place in one of the great classic cruise liners of the era. Almost a century on, Art Deco is the stylistic revival that just keeps on giving.

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Giles Kime is Country Life's Executive and Interiors Editor, an expert in interior design with decades of experience since starting his career at The World of Interiors magazine. Giles joined Country Life in 2016, introducing new weekly interiors features, bridging the gap between our coverage of architecture and gardening. He previously launched a design section in The Telegraph and spent over a decade at Homes & Gardens magazine (launched by Country Life's founder Edward Hudson in 1919). A regular host of events at London Craft Week, Focus, Decorex and the V&A, he has interviewed leading design figures, including Kit Kemp, Tricia Guild, Mary Fox Linton, Chester Jones, Barbara Barry and Lord Snowdon. He has written a number of books on interior design, property and wine, the most recent of which is on the legendary interior designer Nina Campbell who last year celebrated her fiftieth year in business. This Autumn sees the publication of his book on the work of the interior designer, Emma Sims-Hilditch. He has also written widely on wine and at 26, was the youngest ever editor of Decanter Magazine. Having spent ten years restoring an Arts & Crafts house on the banks of the Itchen, he and his wife, Kate, are breathing life into a 16th-century cottage near Alresford that has remained untouched for almost half a century.