MidModMadness

Members of the lifestyle press often ask if we have been inspired by “The Mad Men effect”. And even though we love the programme as much as the next vintage-obsessed person our answer I’m afraid is “No”. Seeing that we started eleven years ago, back in June 2003, and that Mad Men did not burst onto the screens with fag-smoking booze drinking gusto until 2007 we feel Mad Men could not really have existed without a hardcore base of mid-century fans champing at the bit to watch it already.
“But you must have seen a difference since Mad Men appeared on TV? I mean surely you get loads more people at the shows?” says eager journalist, determined to fit the mid-century trend that has been happening here since Twenty Twenty One first set up shop in Islington a couple of decades ago into the Mad Men story that must be filled on their pages. Nope, we still have the same amount of ardent furniture fans coming to our shows. It really hasn’t changed what we buy, love and lust over. But hey, the Erik Buck teak and vinyl barstools my kids have been sitting on for years, seen in Don and Megan’s flat in Season 5 have gone through the roof, so I for one am doing a little jig around my walnut kitchen.
And yes, that is Aussie Brunch king Bill Grainger sitting next to the drainer in my kitchen for a shoot he did for Delicious magazine in front of a backboard painted in the hue Arne Jacobsen used for the library he designed at St Catherine’s college . Sadly you can’t get it any more from Farrow and Ball. Let’s lobby for a reissue of this master-architect’s favourite green. But lest we forget check out the barstools. Bring tears to your eyes don’t they? If you love them as much as I do nip over to Elliott and Tate at Midcentury Modern Marketplace who do the originals and reissues. You won’t tear me away from my bad boys.