Magical mystery store
Every prop fit for a colonial drawing room or the Mad Hatter’s tea party is on sale at Bucharest’s Anglophile emporium, the British Gallery
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Sometimes is needed a foreign perspective to understand the style of a nation. Most British people would sum up their country using images of chicken curry, Kate Moss, beer-bellied kids and the threat of the next Islamic fundamentalist attack.
But this is a world away from the ideals of garden parties, Scottie dogs, Victoria sponge and high tea that many non-UK citizens foster, and which is now on sale at interiors boutique British Gallery.
Run by ex-stage designer Irina Solomon, now a decorator of private houses, and a group of Romanian partners with a passion for the UK, the store combines formal and eccentric styles at generous prices. There is sober furniture from Nina Campbell, fabric furnishings and wall-coverings from the Designer’s Guild, 18th century-vogue Wedgwood porcelain and deep-buttoned leather chairs in the Georgian Chesterfield style, offering no better way to support a tired gentleman, his cigar and single malt. There is also a working toilet and bath that doubles up as a showroom – and that most absurd British tradition, inspiring hysterical laugher in both Americans and Continental Europeans - a sink with two taps.
Model planes and ships, tea things and photos of the Beatles make this boutique a dazzling bazaar for the end of Empire. It’s enough to make a bulldog weep.
British Gallery
14A Strada Paris
