Design
This V&A show, about fashion’s fascination with the natural world, will seduce and appal
One of the prettiest pieces in the V&A exhibition Fashioned from Nature is a man’s cream waistcoat, silk and linen,…
Hobbit houses and 3-D homes – everything about these videos should be intensely irritating
Since 2006, someone called Kirsten Dirksen has been posting weekly videos on YouTube about ‘simple living, self-sufficiency, small (and tiny)…
Are cruise liners the solution to the housing crisis?
Looking at the sketchbook of William Whitelock Lloyd, a soldier-artist who joined a P&O liner after surviving the Anglo-Zulu War,…
Ferrari – heavy, expensive, wasteful, dangerous and addictive
Has a more beautiful machine in all of mankind’s fretful material endeavours ever been made than a ’60 Ferrari 250…
Design everything for the disabled and you can’t go wrong
About 30 years ago, BT introduced a telephone handset with enormous keys. It was intended for people with serious visual…
How cool is your fridge?
Mrs Thatcher once explained that she adored cleaning the fridge because, in a complicated life, it was one of the…
The forgotten history of the Tube’s ‘poster girls’
Every weekday, I travel by Tube to The Spectator’s office, staring at the posters plastered all over the walls. I…
The art of persuasion
It’s hard to admire communist art with an entirely clear conscience. The centenary of the October revolution, which falls this…
The old ways
I’m sitting across a café table from a young man with a sheaf of drawings that have an archive look…
The art of the football shirt
Part canvas, part sandwich board, club kits don’t always work – but their designs can be addictive
Perception vs objective reality
I hate to tell you this, but every time you watch television you are being duped. In fact there are…
Vital signs
Exhibit A. It is 1958 and you are barrelling down a dual carriageway; the 70 mph limit is still eight…
iAddicts
For many years The Spectator employed a television reviewer who did not own a colour television. Now they have decided…
Grain of truth
We routinely feel emotional about materials — often subliminally. Which is why new substances and techniques for manufacturing have provoked…
Britain is absent from the V&A’s new Europe galleries. Are they trying to tell us something?
Before cheap flights, trains were the economical way to discover Europe and its foibles. Personally, I enjoyed the old fuss…
The rise and fall of Sony
Sony was the Apple of its day and more. Stephen Bayley charts its years of creativity unrivalled in the history of consumerism
The bicycle may have triumphed over the car but it’s far from perfect
The bicycle may have triumphed over the car but it’s far from perfect, argues Stephen Bayley
The Heckler: why we must stop Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge
Thomas Heatherwick is the most famous designer in the United Kingdom today and has an unquestionable flair for attention-grabbing creations.…
The couple behind the world’s most famous chair
Peter Mandelson, in his moment of pomp, had his portrait taken by Lord Snowdon. He is sitting on a fine…
Edmund de Waal’s diary: Selling nothing, and why writers need ping-pong
On the top landing of the Royal Academy is the Sackler Sculpture Corridor, a long stony shelf of torsos of…
The only art is Essex
When I went to visit Edward Bawden he vigorously denied that there were any modern painters in Essex. That may…
Why the boffin behind the Brompton is Britain’s greatest living designer
Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James…
Bubble-wrap, berry-picking and the secret pleasures of destruction
The secrets of bubble-wrap and other delicious little sensations
The new adventures of the adventure playground
Are adventure playgrounds set to make a comeback, asks Maisie Rowe
Luxury isn’t the opposite of poverty but the opposite of vulgarity - but don’t tell the V&A
Different concepts of luxury may be inferred from a comparison of the wedding feast of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault…
