The Best 1970s Interior Styles
Home & Interiors Special: The best of 1970s interior design & why I’m looking to David Hockney for style tips
I’m kicking off this first interiors episode with a look at the 1970s. Or should I say cherry picking the best bits - the decade still attracts bad press, especially where fashion and interior style is concerned - but for all the bad bits there’s lots to love.
Contrary to general opinion, the ten years that followed on the coattails of mid-century design wasn’t all purple, brown and orange polyester. In the UK we had entrepreneur and designer Terence Conran to thank for introducing the British homeowner to coloured Thonet bentwood chairs, Vico Magistretti, angle poise lamps and sofas covered in William Morris prints via his Habitat shops and catalogues.
Conran launched the first Habitat catalogue in 1970 with his, now iconic, modular sofas, colouful enamelware and rustic Provençal kitchen ceramics. He made wicker cool again and, god forbid, he sold wine racks. This sophisticated homespun style is still very relevant today so much so that heritage crafts, revered by Habitat and his peers David Mellor and Robert Walsh, are having a rightful renaissance.
I lived the majority of the 1970s as a child in jumbo cords or Little House on the Prairie style dresses, accessorised with lacy ankle socks and a centre parting and too young to wear or appreciate sophisticated Halston wraps and Ozzie Clarke dresses, let alone put together a perky ‘70s interior.
But I had my best friend’s mum, Beryl, to inspire the future designer in me. Beryl styled her home on the Biba aesthetic. She painted the entire master bedroom black - fifty years before colour drenching became a thing - and added floor to ceiling yellow velvet curtains. The bathroom had an avocado suite and the kitchen featured a wall papered with pages from old National Geographic magazines, a large Swiss cheese plant and an over-sized rice paper light shade (from Habitat in Leeds). This was when most households were doing beige wood chip and brown sideboards.
Biba founder and designer, Barbara Hulanicki took her inspiration from 1920s & 1930s Hollywood glamour with leopard print, potted palms, peacock feathers and Art Deco appeal. Her current designs still capture some of that magic; evident in hotel interiors such as the Marlin Hotel, Miami Beach.
Cherry picking the best bits
I’m currently obsessed with social media images redolent with interiors from my childhood: avocado bathroom suites, big lampshades with fringing, daring wallpaper patterns and String shelving units. Homeware brands are refashioning 1970s colour palettes to bring them inline with today’s tastes. Brown now comes repackaged as burgundy, oxblood, dark chocolate and caramel and although purple hasn’t basked in quite the same glory, orange has had a rebrand with cinnamon, paprika and the very lovely Huguenot by Mylands - a dark blood-orange-cum-red hue. I’ve listed some paint favourites here together with textiles, furniture and lighting - all with a retro 70s twist.
1970s glamour reimagined
You can almost hear the strains of Roxy Music’s Do The Strand playing in the background of this swish Manhattan apartment. Recalling all the glamour of New York’s Studio 54 mixed with Biba’s fondness for palms and potted plants, there’s a prevalence of choice ‘70s favourites including leopard print, tactile fabrics and oversized patterns.
New York designer Alex P. White creates interiors with more than a hint of 1970s sophisticated minimalism. He does this by mixing textures such as marble, velvet, sheepskin and wood with chunky rugs and plump modular furniture.
“White was inspired by a 1980 picture of Diane von Furstenberg’s bedroom and upholstered the bed in Castel Maison faux fur. Textured concrete, leopard print carpet and a palm leaf Mokum wallpaper featuring a tropical banana-leaf motif designed by the costume designer Catherine Martin”.
Read the full article in the New York Times here.
Why I’m looking to David Hockney for style tips
I once met David Hockney at the private view of a friend of a friend in a Kensington gallery. They say you should never meet your heroes but the friend introduced us anyway and I nervously mumbled something about coming from Yorkshire to study art, as did he. But he really was the most charming person and interested in what I had to say.
I came across this wonderful photograph a couple of years ago and saved it on my camera roll. It was taken in 1970 by Peter Schlesinger and candidly captures Hockney and his great friend Celia Birtwell; two friends, beautifully dressed and enjoying time out together in Paris.
How to dress like Hockney
The Burberry trench. Always a classic whatever the weather and I still regret not buying a reasonably priced vintage version, in navy, from a local shop in Broadway Market, east London. Beige does nothing for me, so if anyone knows of any black, navy or green vintage Burberry trenches please do message me.
The round glasses look great on Mr Hockney, though I’d opt for these Lily sunglasses from French brand Jimmy Fairly; the scalloped edges soften the frame and I’m a sucker for mock tortoiseshell.
The white shirt and tie: classic, clean and very urbane. I’ve noticed a resurgence of men and women sporting both of late - either loose and sloppy like Patti Smith in Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo (below) from her 1975 debut album, Horses. Or classy, knotted tight and worn with a freshly laundered collar.
Next up the knitted tank top and currently everywhere (termed ‘a vest’ by some fashion brands). You can’t actually see a tank under the trench coat but I bet there was one - they were as popular as shoes in the seventies. And either way, tanks or vests, they’re perfect autumn / winter warmers. This one, from Soeur, is on my Christmas wish list.
Thank you for checking in, it’s always great to see you here and many thanks to all new subscribers. I’m currently working on the December paid subscriber post - choc full of vintage news, travel excerpts and an account on how I got published - so please do look out for it in your inbox before Christmas. Until then, wishing you a healthy and happy December, love Michelle x
PS If you’ve enjoyed this post please ‘like’ by clicking on the little heart or restack, from the recycle symbol, as it massively helps with visibility and brings this newsletter to a wider audience.
I really enjoyed reading this Michelle! I too was a child in the seventies, it’s interesting to look back on the era.
So thrilled to read this 🥹 I just spent 6 months writing a dissertation about Britain’s design history, Terence Conran, & Christie’s south Kensington. I love him, even though he was a bit of a lunatic. Terence (the biography) is my all-time favorite book 💙