Autumn Decorative Fair 2015

This year marks The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair's 30th Birthday, launched by Patricia Harvey, and which has made Battersea Park its home since 1997. We are relatively new converts but it is a fixture in our calendar along with every discerning interior designer and collector around the capital. The thrice-yearly event opened its doors for autumn purchases on Tuesday and runs until the end of the weekend. On our walkabout we noticed delicious pieces of art, an amazing pair of mid-century Czech bookshelves and a ravishingly-red Chinese console table. I wore a favourite vintage velvet jacket, last seen in 'Red on Red', a pair of  Armani navy pinstripes (previous outing: The only real adventure is me...) with a simple white linen shirt, neon-pink Miss Sixty belt, satin wedges by Castañer, and an Italian leather bag from Brixton Village Market.

Winter Decorative Fair 2015

It is always a pleasure to hotfoot it to Battersea Park to wander and wonder around the thrice-yearly event, which is the The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair. 2015 marks the 30th anniversary of the Decorative Fair! This year's foyer theme, Chalet Chic, suited the season with its skis, sledges and snowy scapes, along with reindeer fur and boiserie. If there was simply nowhere else to shop in the world for interiors, you would likely find everything you desired for the fashionable home. There are commodes and chandelier aplenty, French day-beds and chaises to languish upon, Swedish Gustavian pieces, art and collectables, and magnificent one-offs, such as a submarine-shaped beaded light, reminiscent of a Jules Verne story and the charming in the form of Barbudian shell valentines, made for passing Victorian sailors. All in all, a marvellous feast of interior styles!
Save the dates for the Spring Fair: 21 - 26 April.

The Winter Decorative Fair 2014

January is a fine month for inspiration: to be found on every stand at the Winter Decorative Fair which opened on Tuesday in Battersea Park. The thrice-yearly event gathers the great and the good for an extravaganza of extraordinary covetables - from the skeleton of a Bengal tigress, lightly gilded and cased in a former V&A vitrine (stand 118) where Alex MacArthur's theme is 'gold, bling and bone', to Drennan Edinburgh's ornately carved early Victorian table, topped by the loveliest Irish green marble, from Connemara - a real showpiece at stand 12. The six-day shopping event closes on Sunday evening. You can always pencil in your next spree, for Spring, towards the end of April. Our last visits can be found at 'The Decorative Fair' or 'Decoratively Battersea'.