John Fowler: Prince Of Decorators: Martin Wood

It is said that legendary English decorator John Fowler was so fastidious in his standards that he had a wall painted 17 times in different layers of paint, and then sanded and repainted to achieve a certain "alabaster-gloss" effect. It's a fantasy of mine to one day have such a wall (if not such a decorator). In the meantime TI will make do with Martin Wood's long awaited book on the life and the decorating style of one of the founders of the Colefax and Fowler design firm. It is no surprise to find out that Fowler climbed his way up from working as a painter for Thorton Smith to being the veritable inventor of the "English Country House Style", a style often imitated but never duplicated by generations of followers. One of Fowler's great secrets was his manaical devotion to historical accuracy in the way rooms were decorated. This led detractors to wonder if he really was 300 years old because how else could he know exactly what a Adams music room in some venerable country house would or would not have looked like in 1782. In any case, so convincing was Fowler's taste, he peddaled it all the way to Buckingham Palace. Then there was Fowler's incredibly complicated window treatments, where a basic tie-back could run a client in the five-figure range. Now imagine your pile had hundreds of windows that needed to be done in a similar style. Indeed Fowler was the king of the million dollar thing that looked very 'nothing": his version of shabby chic being all the more ironic given the price tag it carried. If you love the "money-is-no-object" school of decorating then this book is a well timed Christmas treat.

John Fowler: The Invention Of The Country House Style