Product Description

Fiftiestyle is a fascinating and colourful guide to all aspects of decoration and design in the 1950s home. A compendium of contemporary iillustrations and photographs, the book shows the choices available to consumers during this period. Lesley Hoskins has drawn on MoDA's extensive collection of retail and trade catalogues, domestic magazines and household manuals to produce a vibrant and beautifully illustrated guide to the 1950s interior. Comprehensive in its coverage of the features of a home, detailed sections include: bathrooms and kitchens, fixtures and fittings, furniture, wallpapers and paints, carpets, cushions and upholstery, fireplaces and heating, lighting and finishing touches. Each area is covered in a way that is highly informative while at the same time hugely enjoyable to read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39691 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Alison Oldham, Hampstead & Highgate Express
"The text has a good balance of facts with comments on the
illustrations, making Fiftiestyle an instructive and entertaining read."

Customer Reviews

A little gem
This collection of style guides just gets better and better. I bought Turn of the Century Style because because my house was built in 1900 - I never found 1950s style attractive but, having read this new guide I am now hooked. the pictures are so evocative and the introductions to each section are so interesting that I could become a 1950s addict! A lovely book.

A vivid evocation
I found this book very evocative as I was brought up in the 1950s and remember many of the furnishings and decorations featured. Most books about the 50s feature Elvis and Cadillacs but this is a far more British view of 50s style and captures the essence of home life and the details of the family environment. I love the way the book is laid out, it is very original and the use of colour is superb.

The guide to the 1950s house
I cannot recommend this book enough. I have been renovating my 1950s house in a 1950s style, especially the kitchen and living room. I found this little book to be the most useful guide as it is historically accurate and very well illustrated. In effect, along with a few books from the period by authors like Gordon Russell, it has become the bible of my project as it concentrates on what was actually in the 1950s English home rather than "retro" as a modern design style or the American diner style which is too often taken as being genuine, even for England. It is very different from Marion Haslam's Retro Style -- The 50s Look which is not greatly concerned with historical accuracy (although it is also good). One major strength of this book is the juxtaposition of idealised pictures presented in advertisements with personal photographs of genuine homes from the period. I found Madeline March's Millers Guide to Collecting the 1950s is a good complement to this book.