Manor house tastes on a suburban budget: it's look, don't buy, at London Design Week

William Morris, that giant of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, celebrated the beauty of simple  objects from the hands of true craftsmen.  He dreamed of a world of art for all, but the hand crafting part of his vision meant he was creating a world only the rich could afford.  (I've written about this before here.)

I thought about that again yesterday, as I stood in awe in the showrooms of Lewis & Wood, trying not to drool over some of the most exquisite wallpaper I've ever seen in my life.  Extra-wide, hand printed, designed by a woman who paints murals.  A lush yet pale blue undulates behind delicate branches occupied by doves so real they look as if they'll take off any minute.  It was the paper of my dreams.  Specifically, of my dream entry hall.  That is the big, oval one with the sweeping staircase, the wall behind which is done in a magnificent, mural-style paper.  (Well, it's either my dreams or a stage set for Gone With the Wind.  It's all merged together.)

My actual stairs don't sweep, they just go up.  But they do offer an unbroken expanse of wall seen from the front door.  This paper, I thought, was exactly what I needed to complete my fantasy of the dream entry.  The kind of place that sets the tone for a whole house, by making you gasp at the beauty when you walk through the front door.

Problem is, when I got home I did a bit of measuring and mocked up a rough cost, based on the retail price.  With the labour to hang it?  Probably well over £1,000.  Crazy.  It might be a valid investment for a manor house but is ridiculous overkill for a suburban home on a lovely but middling estate.  And if the dogs bit a piece out of it, I'd collapse with the tragedy.  So I won't be doing it.

But it got me thinking about the William Morris conundrum again.  More than a century after his death, in a world of digital printing, global outsourcing and armies of workers in developing nations driving down costs, why can we still not produce the beautiful and unique at a reasonable price?  Why does exquisite elegance have to be the province of the rich?

No answers to be had, but plenty of examples of the trend as I wandered around the trade day of London Design Week with my mother-in-law.  Carrying on from our visit to Decorex last autumn (covered here), I saw more evidence that there is no mid market in this world.  The well-heeled can put a unique stamp on their homes, the common man will look like everyone else with this year's selection from Dunelm Mill.

This is a world where fabric is considered cheap at £40 a metre and twice that isn't unusual.  An average chair could take three or four meters to dress, the average window the same.  Then you need to pay an expert for hours of his time to transform material into finished product.  You do the maths.  And yet, there's clearly a market out there as the design magazines keep flying off the shelves and these trade shows are filled with people working at the customised end of this world.

Should you decide to invest, what trends did I pick up yesterday?

Continuing on what I saw in September, bright colours are still hot.  As we roll into summer, they're even hotter.  I saw a lot of neon florals and oversized tropical patterns that would be perfect for kitting out a house in Florida or Hawaii.  The seem a bit surprising for the British.  (You think I'm kidding?  Check out the flower arrangement one of the design houses did to match their wallpaper.)

There's a heavy seam of the exotic that's flowing one of two ways.  First, an 18th century explorer vibe that plays off botanical drawings, sailing ships and old maps.  Second, a resurgence of Chinoiserie.  Although, picking up on the first trend, it's in colours that fans of the original Georgian trend might not recognise.  (You can get these Chinese Imperial horsemen from Colefax & Fowler in bright pink, too.)

Sadly, the exotic trend has not extended to Moorish/Arabic, which is what I'm looking for to offset some artwork along those lines for the guest room.  Maybe next season.

Everything is BIG.  I lost track of the wallpapers and fabrics I looked at and thought "If that were 30% smaller, it would be lovely.  Check out the scenic wallpaper from Cole and Son, below, to prove the point.  In fact, it brings together all the trends I spotted yesterday.  It's big, it's bright, and it's drawn from 18th century explorers' adventures.

This might work on a sweeping staircase in an ante-bellum mansion, too.  But I prefer the doves.  I will be living, however, with a marvellous shade of Dulux paint that happens to be called … dove grey.