THE BIG PICTURE
Art Deco Never Dies
Travel anywhere these days and it’s increasingly clear that Art Deco — that bold, brassy aesthetic movement born in the 1920s and ’30s — endures as the world's shared language of progress and panache.
The design style is everywhere: in fashion — geometric chandeliers dangled over Prada menswear show in January; architecture — Art Deco Mumbai recently launched "a visual diary of all that's Deco" in the city; and interior design — the French architect Joseph Dirand created custom brushed brass furniture for Bar Bastion, the cocktail bar above New York’s Le Jardinier.
There, too, it is in jewelry — Phillips just announced an inaugural Geneva auction of Art Deco objects from the likes of Cartier and Tiffany & Co; pop music — Taylor Swift currently wears bedazzled flapper looks on her “Eras” tour; and dance — the historic Crest Theater in Los Angeles is set to reopen in September as a state-of-the-art performance space.
At this point, hospitality will likely never have its fill of Deco. Just look at the freshly-restored turquoise facade of The Georgian, a 1930s gem on Santa Monica’s Ocean Avenue; the retro straight lines with sweeping curves of Apollo Palm, which opened last month in Athens; the slatted checkerboard boiserie of the new Hôtel Dame des Arts in Paris; or the jade geometric-tiled floors of Hotel San Fernando in Condesa, the Art Deco mecca of Mexico City.
Elsewhere, a post-pandemic revival of the Roaring Twenties continues apace. Over in London, Claridge’s Restaurant "has gently opened its Art Deco doors onto Davies Street" with mezcal-spiked Peach Picantes served at a tortoiseshell bar. The Aman New York's subterranean speakeasy is, quite literally, called The Jazz Club — a nod to old-school watering holes like Piano Bar Fitzgerald in Cap d’Antibes, a French Riviera favorite of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, which just reopened in April after two years of renovations.
In Oslo, the bar at Sommerro House, a Norwegian design landmark that is now a lavish hotel, features a mural by Per Krohg depicting Norway’s exhibit at the the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the 1925 Paris world fair where Art Deco reached its apex. Today, a cabochon bracelet displayed at that very expo can be seen at “Garden of Green,” an exhibition of Van Cleef & Arpels gemstones at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Why so much Deco? And why now?
