A Manifesto, of Sorts: Diana Phipps's "Affordable Splendor"

"I find almost every house beautiful. But I am quite pleased that I have never had, or been asked to arrange, a really perfect house. By this I mean a classically beautiful house, with correct proportions, the right paneling, doors and windows of the period, perfect floors and ceilings. The duty and respect such a house would demand! Never could its symmetry be vandalized by a funny or improvised piece of furniture, nor its lines ruined by some raffish bit of drapery. In a house of perfect furniture and perfect objects, each thing would clamor for and deserve recognition. Out would go the pleasure of treating a room as a whole." [1]

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." [2]

IMAGE OF DIANA PHIPPS'S LONDON LIVING ROOM TAKEN FROM DIANA PHIPPS'S AFFORDABLE SPLENDOR, 1981; TEXT TAKEN FROM THE SAME [1], AND FROM THE VELVETEEN RABBIT [2] BY MARGERY WILLIAMS; IMPETUS VIA THE HOUSE OF BEAUTY AND CULTURE