Josephine Baker Dances the Charleston, from Wikipedia Commons

So, put on your cloche hat, your beads and your bangles and come for a stroll down delicious Art Deco Lane. We’ll listen to jazz on the wind up gramophone, dance the Charleston and the Tango, play tennis and golf, then motor down to the beach to sunbathe. Later we’ll put our feet up in front of the bakelite radio and drink tea from our new bizarre teapot, while admiring the latest Paris fashions in Harper’s Bazaar.

We’ll explore the exotic and modern designs of the 1920s and 30s with their fans, sunbursts, chevrons and ziggurats, the fusion of ancient and modern with the craze for Tutankhamun and Ancient Greece along with trains, planes and automobiles.

Few of us can afford the luxury of the opulent high art pieces that adorned the 1925 Paris "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes" which gave Art Deco its name. Collecting the Lalique glass, the Ruhlmann furniture, the Puiforçat silver and the theatrical designs of Poiret was for the seriously rich until the mid 1920s, with lavish decoration and expensive materials, mother of pearl inlays, oriental lacquers, snakeskin bags and sharkskin compacts. Enamel, silver, diamonds and furs were all to die for.

Where There's Smoke There's Fire by Russell Patterson, from Wikipedia Commons

In olden days a glimpse of stocking,
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes!

(As Cole Porter informed us!)

The sense of freedom and emancipation of the post WWI years meant that everyone wanted a share in the fun.

Style became affordable for everyone with the advent of industrialisation and cheap man made materials made possible by the war effort. Bakelite and chrome became not just functional but cool and fashionable. It was the first age of mass consumerism and advertising. Silent movies had brought Hollywood chic to the masses and the radio and talkies broadcast the sounds of jazz all round the world. Streamlining became the fashion for everything from jewellery to kitchen appliances, for this was the age of motors, aeroplanes and liners and everyone wanted a part of it.

So live the Decolish dream with me and scroll down to find your Art Deco favourites….