Lighting Book

Human history is an epic tale of imaginative interior designers and their eternal battle against the sheer blithering incompetence of black-hearted window makers. Well, maybe. In The Curtain Design Source Book--sure to become a bible for designers for at least the next 10 years--Caroline Clifton-Mogg makes a jolly good story out of window fashions past and present. And to her lasting credit she is not slow to apply her findings to contemporary interiors, captured with predictable skill and sensitivity by Conde Nast regular James Merrell. This is a timely book: having extracted ourselves from the festooned and scalloped hell that was the 1980s we have waited too long for a decent, objective reappraisal of passementerie. And if the more English-than-thou shadow of Colefax & Fowler looms large over this volume, there are sections enough on shutters and blinds to satisfy the most brutal minimalist. It is her taste which holds this volume together. Eschewing the facile Blue Peterish can-doism that blights so much of this genre Clifton-Mogg has written a guide that is reliable and exhaustive, if a little bombastic. There are shades of Charlie Higson's 'Fast Show' car salesman--for whom every mundane activity is "like making love to a beautiful woman" in her declaration that "the window should remind you of a beautiful woman at a party whose understated gown ensures everyone finds her as enchanting as her dress". Gosh. --Simon IngsRead More