Inspirational Interiors: Beds With a Bonus

1970s, cosmopolitan, interior design, Robert Perron, Sante Forlano

The bed is built up on a plywood base that doubles as bookshelf and storage space. The mirror behind the headboard makes the whole room seem larger and the light box over the bed gives a modern canopy effect by allowing lights to glow through stripes of glass fibre. The cushions are appliqued in vivid colours to make extra seating.

If you think your bedroom is only for sleeping, look at these ideas for creating a total living environment.

Photographed by Sante Forlano (above) and Robert Perron (right).

Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, May 1973

Bedroom or living room? It’s hard to tell which, with a platform bed built up on a stair and completely carpeted. Luxurious bedspread (make your own with fake fur fabric from a selection at John Lewis) and cushions add to comfort for guests who want to loll around. Create your own graphic design with glossy coloured paper or remnants of felt.

Inspirational Interiors: Join the Gatsby Girl at Home

1970s, art deco, cosmopolitan, Inspirational Images, interior design, Lois Chiles, Robert Perron, the great gatsby

Lois Chiles relaxes with a glass of white wine, looking every inch the rising star. Bed strewn with cushions acts as extra seating, huge mirror tiles make the room look twice as large. Glass dressing table shelf laden with old scent bottles, lovingly collected over the years.

What every working girl deserves is somewhere pretty and peaceful to come home to — especially a girl who has been slaving from six a.m. in front of studio arc tights. Lois Chiles, a beautiful brunette cover girl now making ripples in the film The Great Gatsby, has created the kind of apartment — from an ordinary two-room flat – that is as soothing at the end of the day as a glass of pink champagne. The secret of the film star glamour is simple, and not expensive to copy; Lois chose pale, pretty colours that do as much for the complexion as Elizabeth Arden. So forget the drab browns and beiges of our current good taste era! Sugar pink softens the walls and clear yellow makes the standard windows found in blocks of flats something worth looking at — as well as out of. Lois adds her own handwriting with rows of framed photographs. A few junk shop finds — like the Odeon—style chair and old scent bottles — banks of flowery cushions and more flowers and plants than most career girls can afford. Still, a film star deserves her perks…

Photographs by Robert Perron. Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, May 1974

Odeon-style chair and art deco ashtray make a stylish duo: Lois reupholstered her junk shop find in this pretty pastel shade.

Latticed windows in the living room let in lots of light. A gallery of favourite photos and a vaseful of roses add film-star glamour.

Inspirational Interiors: Flocked Fantasy

1970s, Christopher Ward, Fanny Brown, Inspirational Images, interior design, Stan Peskett, Tim Street-Porter, Vogue

Christopher Ward , Daily Mirror writer, and Fanny Brown, model, inside a magically flocked flat. Sweet dreams jet trail across the bedroom ceiling, the living-room has tall forest glade, fuzzy fruit marquetry, low mirror pond, a mossy green bank to hold stereo and grow plastic mushrooms while you lean back and watch the painted dawn. All flocking by Stan Peskett.

Photographed by Tim Street-Porter. Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Vogue, August 1971

Vintage Adverts: Very Robert Carrier; very Sanderson.

1970s, art deco, biba, interior design, Robert Carrier, sanderson, telegraph magazine

Photographed at Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk

Oh I do love this series of Sanderson adverts, including Diana Rigg and Britt Ekland, and this four poster bed with its most extraordinary Biba-esque Art Deco inspired fabric is just a dream. I am not ashamed to say, I love spending time in bed; lolling around and generally keeping the real world well and truly out. And this would be the most perfect haven of a boudoir…

Scanned by Miss Peelpants from The Daily Telegraph Magazine, 4th May 1973

Mensday: Bachelor Bedrooms

1970s, Bevis Hillier, caterine milinaire, cosmopolitan, Duggie Fields, interior design, Mensday, patrick lichfield, Sandy Whitelaw, Victor Lownes

Victor Lownes

Come now Cosmo, why so coy? Surely we all know they’re actually known as ‘Shag Pads’? I love all of them, but I’m particularly fond of Mr Lownes’s Casa Pupo bedspread, walnut headboard, push-button ‘gadgets’ and array of, ahem, ‘etchings’… Now we can see exactly how he managed to snare Roxy cover girl Marilyn Cole.

Scanned from Cosmopolitan, January 1973.

Duggie Fields

Vintage Interiors: Thea Porter, Ricci Burns and Antony Redmile

1970s, Antony Redmile, biba, cosmopolitan, Inspirational Images, interior design, Ricci Burns, thea porter, Tim Street-Porter

Photographed by Tim Street-Porter. Shimmering dress, cap and necklace at Biba.

Needless to say, I desire all of these interiors but particularly Thea’s incredible mirrored dining room. Phwoar. And yes, it is also another insight into the mysterious Mr Antony Redmile – who we have met before…

Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, December 1974

Cosmo Gets Delayed at the Office

1970s, cosmopolitan, Diane Logan, Lloyd Loom, personal stuff, Santa Raymond, Studio, Tessa Kennedy, Tim Street-Porter

Photographed by Tim Street-Porter. Scanned from Cosmopolitan, February 1973.

Still slowly settling into my lovely studio space; trying to avoid the pitfalls of the ‘I must fill it up, it must look exactly how I want it to immediately‘ mentality, to which I know I am vulnerable. Slowly, but surely. My beloved Lloyd Loom table and chair are out of storage and awaiting a respray from their slightly grotty boudoir pink to… I don’t know yet.

I am on a promise for an original ladderax bureau unit, inherited indirectly from my grandparents, to store my reference books, magazines and paperwork. The framed pictures are stacking up in the corners, waiting for locations. The last thing I want is for it to feel like an office. I want it to feel like a creative, comfortable studio space. I discovered a long time ago, whilst temping, that a ‘trad’ office environment is really, really not for me.

So while I am developing things slowly, I am also taking inspiration from this fantastic Cosmopolitan feature on businesswomen and their office spaces. The chaos of Diane Logan’s millinery studio is probably closest to my natural style:

“You have to create a look like this out of rubbish*. It doesn’t just arrive.”

But there is plenty to admire and covet in all three.

*I don’t approve of the word ‘rubbish’, but I approve of her sentiment.

Scanned from Cosmopolitan, February 1973.

Vintage Interiors: G-plan, 1972

1970s, G-Plan, Inspirational Images, interior design, sunday times magazine, Vintage Adverts

Scanned from The Sunday Times Magazine, March 1972

Phwoar. Such a sexy sofa. In fact, I want everything in that photo. The outfit she’s wearing, the dog, the shagpile carpet, the sofa, the glass doors and so on…

One day, it will be mine!

Bright Ideas For The Home, 1978

1970s, haute naffness, interior design

There are too many brilliant photos for me to scan from Bright Ideas For The Home by Per Dalsgaard and Elisabeth Erichsen (1978), so I’ve restricted myself to six of my favourites.

Scanned by Miss Peelpants