Everyone knows that all the best ideas for anything, ever, have been jotted down on beer mats first. Always seeking to be topical rather than typical, we want to make a valuable contribution to the endless public debate about our giddy drinking culture. Here is some culture about drinking. Know your limits. It is time to celebrate all that is good about having a tipple. Stuff by artists, stuff by the good people of Halifax.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Here, amidst the thoroughly English surrounds of wooden panelling, beautifully executed watercolours of British landscapes and floral arrangements in muted colours, men in white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels are ushered into the dining room where they are seated in high backed chairs around tables dressed in crisp white tablecloths and set with sparkling silver and gilt china.
Seated at a table for two along the periphery of the main dining room, Lettice and Selwyn are served their roast beef dinner by a carver.
Lettice is being taken to dinner by Selwyn to celebrate the successful completion of his very first architectural commission: a modest house built in the northern London suburb of Highgate built for a merchant and his wife. Lettice has her own reason to celebrate too, but has yet to elaborate upon it with Selwyn.
