Product Description

The essence of this eclectic style is the combination of beautiful old fabrics and textures with modern comfort. From the living room and kitchen to the bathroom and outdoors, Cath Kidston shows how the elements work, from big-picture ideas to the details. Vintage Style transforms the charms of the past into a fresh, contemporary approach to decorating for today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #820528 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Amazon.com Review
With its floral prints, chintz fabrics, and flea-market finds, vintage style is a popular one. Cath Kidston introduces us to her variation by taking us on a tour of her own home--bedrooms, bathroom, living room, kitchen, and home office--in her new book, Vintage Style: Creating a Compete Look for Your Home.

Kidston's original love of this style stems from the patterns and fabrics she grew up with. When she started her own design shop as an adult, she realized that these same fabrics hadn't lost any of their freshness and comfort, and she began designing around the patterns and items she found at thrift shops and flea markets. Her vintage style consists largely of rose prints in chintz fabric as well as comfortable linen and ticking. Lavish details abound--velvet curtains, tassels, and bobble fringe, for instance.

Liberal in her use of color, Kidston often recommends mixing clashing colors for a vibrant feeling in the room. Her walls are usually painted white, and color is added with fabrics, furniture, and accessories, which makes it easy and inexpensive to change the color scheme if you get tired of the old one.

Resourceful decorating ideas include the use of old scraps of patterned fabrics and striped linens, ribbon, and haberdashery flowers to create padded clothes hangers, ironing board covers, and stitch lavender sachets--all of which would make excellent homemade gifts as well. Kidston is practical about her flea-market finds--she never buys anything she can't use. But as she points out, there are lots of unusual uses for items you already own--you just need to use a little ingenuity. A chipped china cup becomes a laundry detergent scoop; old curtains are turned into tablecloths. There's something very refreshing about such resourcefulness in an age of disposable items. Kidston's Vintage Style is all about cheerful, well-worn rooms that are as comfortable as they are pretty. --Kris Law

From Library Journal
This London shop owner, whose designs have been featured in Better Homes & Gardens magazine, describes her own design style as a blend of Rachel Ashwell's faded, worn, and comfortable look (Shabby Chic, LJ 9/15/99) and Mary Engelbreit's bright nostalgia-inspired look (Crafts To Decorate Your Home, LJ 5/15/99). With photographs of her own home as well as those she has designed for others, Kidston describes how she came to develop her style, using flea-market and thrift-store finds and taking inspiration to create color schemes from favorite pictures, vintage fabric, etc. Purchase where there is a continued interest in this style.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful photography and some good decorating ideas!
I really liked this book, but I would like to have seen more "content" ... Perhaps more detailed instructions on how projects were created. Also, there were some lovely descriptions of design elements of rooms that were not pictured. While the photographs were very artful and pretty, many did not fully show things that were described in the text. I felt this book demonstrated a unique style that was different from Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic style...but I think if you enjoyed the Shabby Chic books, you will enjoy this one too!

What to do with flea market finds
Unlike many of the other reviewers, I adore this book... to the point that I have had it out from the library for six months! (Yes, I know that I had better buy it soon, and, no, it's not overdue yet.)

Yes, this book is a bit precious. Yes, every single photo in the book features a 100% perfect room (right down to the eerily cute clothes hangers). But Vintage Style makes for delicious eye candy, and, more than that, it does have some nifty ideas.

For example, I've been using it to get ready to go out antiquing, as it has all sorts of ideas for making over old bits and bobs. Like me, you may see lots of old towels, old blankets, and old trims, but never seem to know what to do with them. Of course, you want to buy them any way. But if you also buy this book, then you'll know just what to do. You'll edge plain white towels with strong old cotton lace. You'll use old linen to make a crazy 50's roller towel.

The other aspect of this book that I enjoy is the fact that this book IS a bit precious. I respect the fact the Kidston wants to make every part of her life beautiful. Imagine that you had a lovely, vintage fabric covered ironing board. Imagine that you had charming slippers. I bet your life would be better! Mine certainly would.

Pretty, but a disappointment
I was really looking forward to this book, but was disappointed by its narrow focus. I wish Kidston had shown more examples than just her own home. And while I did like her decorating style, it was most irritating to keep flipping back and forth between text and photos, trying to figure out if the picture next to the text was an example of what she was describing (and often it wasn't) or if the photo 3 pages ahead was really what she was describing. I came away feeling that I really hadn't gathered any usable information for my own home.