Sometimes don’t you just yearn for a touch of old-fashioned glamour?

Oh, to return to the days when women were feminine.  When you didn’t have to be a size zero to be considered beautiful and when the female shape was moulded by beautiful lace undergarments and not hours spent at the gym.

I can remember my grandmothers bedroom as being a haloed place from where she would emerge freshly powdered and smelling of Chanel No 5.  Her dressing table was a temple of glass jars and beguiling trinkets, hair brushes and sweet-smelling potions.  Her lipstick was always blood-red.    

So let’s try to replicate some of that intrigue and return the bedroom to a place of romance and secrets and womanly allure.

• A dressing table is de-rigour, with a chair on which to perch and a mirror in which to primp and powder.  Decant your creams and perfumes into pretty glass jars and surround yourself with family photographs in sparkling silver frames.
• Display your jewellery, don’t hide it away.  Hang it from mirrors.  Pile it in dishes.

• Surround yourself with sensuous fabrics.  Satins and silks, fur and velvet.  Be generous with curtain fabrics.  Let it pool on the floor.  Celebrate an abundance with swags and tiebacks.  Forget minimalism.  We are looking for plumpness and hushed silence.
• Consider mirrors and reflections your friend.  Hang mirrors but also use mirrored furniture.  We all look good by candles and lamplight and twice the reflections means twice the allure.

• Swap the modern task lighting for lampshades and chandeliers dripping with crystal droplets.  There’s nothing more feminine than sparkle and shine.
• And remember that tomorrow is Valentines day.  Light the candles, fill the room with roses and celebrate with some old-fashioned glamour.

Sources:1 Colefax and Fowler 2 The Gloss 3 Tumblr 4 Ralph Lauren Home 5 Black Orchid Interiors 6 Tumblr 7 Ishka Designs 8 Raines and Willow 9 Felix Lammers 10 Lauren Conrad 11 Tumblr 12 House of Hackney 13 This is Glamorous 14 India Jane 15 The Sartorialist 16 Architectual Digest 17 Butik Sofie 18 Flickr