Vintage View: Get into the swing of things with art deco

Right now we all need some Benny Goodman art deco roar and swing, according to Kya deLongchamps

That jazz feeling. Rich colour, gilded metal and a decidedly salon feel. Art deco can be stirred up in a number of delicious cocktails of old and new. Picture: Audenza

There was a time when art deco, for all its tailcoat and trombone chic, was not regarded as truly antique. It didn’t tango over the 100-year-old mark for starters. Today, it seems to be one of the few areas of era-specific styling to have maintained its standing with collectors, sparking the interest of younger buyers otherwise hypnotised by mid-century certainty.

The look strode onto the national stage in 1925 following the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes) in Paris. Aesthetically lighter and fundamentally younger in spirit than its safe, mahogany antecedents weighed down by 19th-century expectations, deco is a well-educated girl, hair bobbed, throwing off her stays, but still high society-acceptable. Watch Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby (2013) — the look is all there in iridescent, decadent drama and detail with a pulse-racing score.

Bathrooms take to deco like a 20s duck to water. The Divine Savage twist on the classic art deco fan motif is teamed with classic Edwardian brassware and a great chrome finished stand-sink. Deco Martini Arsenic wall coverings from

The rush to rediscover the best expressions of the seductive intimacy and colour of the 1970s and 1980s has segued into a new appreciation of where it all began —that brave, sexy early 20th-century modernism we know as deco. If you’re looking for some lush, comfortable formality, mystery and sophistication to perk up neutral planes of nothingness (where us style cowards hide), take a look at both old and new deco pieces without any silly pastiche.

Starting from the floor up, herringbone parquet is seeing a revival and can be set up both in tile or more traditional woodblocks. If you’re lucky enough to pull up the carpets and find hardwood parquet — don’t start prying it up before a full professional survey. As a new addition, parquet has a firm architectural feel.

Chevron geometry will visually prise open a narrow room. Look for lighter shades to be in the mood for 2021, and stay with long, wide boards (no less than 20cm) to be period correct. The Konig range of engineered herringbone floor offers an affordable in at just €36 a yard, woodfloorstore.ie.

Real fans of early 20th-century glam have demurred to wall-to-wall deco devotion in pistachio or ashes of roses carpeting in the bedroom for decades. Belted in gold and mirror accents, it’s an adult, feminine, sugared almond indulgence that never really went away.

Rugs allow us to throw down jazzy decorative arts anywhere, celebrating a startling revolution in painting, sculpture, architecture, fashion and textiles. Pick up a rug in any high street retailer with abstraction, cubism, geometrics and the stark fascination of Bauhaus, generally dubbed “modern” in a good wool mix to anchor groups of furniture. Glass-topped furniture will frame it under your feet.

The influence of modernism in art and design is neatly illustrated in the deconstructed style cushions and faux furs. Leopard print velvet,

To train your eye look up the magnificent Mainie Jellett collection (1897-1944) at Ceadogan Rugs in Wexford, ceadogan.ie, still startling for the freedom of rhythm, line and colour conjured in the ’20s and ’30s by an iconic Irish painter. My alternative choice would be a huge hide rug, recalling Paris salon chic which often included domestic and decadent exotic pelts on floors and furnishings, and used as upholstery. Try irishhidedesigns.com for a five-square metre cowhide from West Kerry from €450.

More accessorising? Art deco can be stirred up in a number of delicious cocktails of old and new. A single elegant cocktail trolley or a mirror might be all you need for a flash of early 20th-century generational revolution. Mirror taken to the frame itself is typical of the ’20s — look for patterns Greek key deployed to put a spin on a classic motif in a new age reflection. I really like the Claridges mirror, €567, artisanti.com.

If you fancy mirrored furniture, examine the carcass as there’s a lot of cheaply made tat’s around the market. For its avant-garde fun, Joanne Hynes’ “I Waited So Long For You/Muse Lady Mirror” is a real cheer-up with its deco wink and crystal detailing, €73.80, dunnesstores.com. Homestore, Sostrene Grene and Jysk carry decorative glass pieces including faceted candlesticks from €5.

Furniture for the coming season is rounding off — a response to designers exploring that seductive 1980s softer South Beach (Miami) curve made popular by big fat suite styles by makers like G-plan in Ireland and the UK. This again leads right back to art deco pneumatic sofas and padded shells served up in velvet and framed or supported in metal bars and tubes.

Velvet deployed at a kitchen bar is exactly the sort of committed decadence Deco explored a hundred years ago. We love the hug to the back of these Heather stools with their gold frames and comfortable footrest. Practical?

Hercule Poirot’s fictional furniture might have been veneered in palisander, but deep-sprung or slung-on leather, it was exquisitely comfortable. Deco influences reach forward and back as the new look would rarely be dropped wholesale into an old house. Try layering the late Victorian and comfy Edwardian with its more radical excesses.

If you can run to “art de vivre” Roche Bobois’ sectional Intermede by Sasha Lakic is a striking blow-up of the art deco cloud form with its soft ribs and returns. Edwardian high-sided sofas, chaise and armchairs are also art deco appropriate — just leave any leather for a nice Chesterfield. Finline (still taking orders online) offers a Holmes & Sherlock Collection which nicely strides the turn of the century with a touch of modernity. It’s sumptuous in a three-seater Holmes in Forest Green with a brass caster leg, finlinefurniture.ie (POA depending on fabric).

Bathrooms take to deco like a ’20s duck to water. Stick to white sanitary ware and Edwardian (heritage-style) brass-ware. Sinks on chrome cradles, ideal. Just look at the superb fan motif Deco Martini Arsenic wall covering with a simple heritage set-upfrom €158 a roll, divinesavages.com. Scale style tiles would do the job equally well: don’t be shy of going nightclub metallic.