TABLES ARE THE NEW IT BAGS...

I took Duckie for a spin to the Midcentury Modern design fair held in the 60s dinner hall at Dulwich College boys' school.

What I really wasn't expecting when I tootled up was first of all to bump into and almost drive over an old friend who it turns out is getting married next week - it always freaks me out when people tell me they're getting married, in all sincerity it's such an alien concept to me. But good luck to them!
And then to see the other folk who'd come to fawn over Danish rosewood sideboards and Cherner chairs. Well, my attempts to interest anyone I knew in this as a day out were a resounding failure, although I did present the opportunity in a somewhat defeatist manner. Like "Oh yeah there's this thing, you probably don't want to go, no, probably not your sort of thing, ok, fine don't worry about it." But haha! I joined a motley assortment of arty chic young, hip things with apartments to furnish and an aching nostalgia for the latter part of the 20th century. All dressed as if on their way to Brick Lane (for want of a better place), not a furniture fair in South East London. If the Sartorialist had been there he would have been kept busy snapping all afternoon. As it was I kept tripping over various film crews.

As well as furniture there were ceramics and smaller items for sale like Lisa Stickley's printed tea towels, ceramics from People Will Always Need Plates and Donna Wilson's super cute knitted creations which were cleverly suspended like a giant interactive mobile for grown ups. I gotta get me one o' them there doughnuts. Yum. And slimming.

As for the furniture itself, it was mostly of the "Bugger it, I bet my dad's thrown those curtains/that coffee table/ that Midwinter pottery away variety, and confirmed that I am not insane for wanting to have my inherited (no one else wanted it) 60s Heal's dining table refinished for roughly the same price as a new table would be.

In the collectables section was a great selection of Russell Wright American Modern ceramics in the signature soft sludgy pastel palette that's become so collectable I didn't dare look at the prices.

Although when I left, my bag did mysteriously contain a Lisa Stickley teatowel and some drinks coasters from Ella Doran; had I bought them four years ago I wouldn't have ruined the aforementioned table in the first place.