These coloured retro desk lamps are a fairly inexpensive way to liven up a home office.
Three colours available (the blue, pink and brown pictured above), all anglepoise and made of a combination of chrome and painted metal, with both continental and UK plugs fitted.
Complete with a 50w bulb to start you off, the 35cm lamps retail for £26.
Another variation on a classic design with the House of Fraser Sputnik ceiling light.
Being a ceiling light is probably a good thing if you don’t happen to have the high ceiling required to hang a Sputnik pendant light. This version features six individual lights coupled with six chrome-finish balls, as well as a chrome frame.
And it retails online for £99.
We like to do high brow on Retro To Go, but we’re not afraid of going a bit cheesy now and again – and it doesn’t much more cheesy than this Michael Caine Italian Job talking card.
With the phrase ‘Have an explosive day’ on the front, you also get a black and white Michael Caine image, plus that all-important bit of speech inside – the classic "you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" line.
Guaranteed to raise a smile from any Caine fan, it retails online for £4.95.
Eileen Gray is most famous for her Bibendum Chair which we’ve featured previously, but here is another striking design, the Sofa Monte Carlo.
Gray was one of the few wo men designers involved in the Modernist movement and this sofa is a good indication of how she caused a sensation with her designs back in the 1920s. The sofa has distinctive curve and an unusual backrest that gives it an idiosyncratic look. It still looks stylish today, although perhaps not the most comfortable sofa we’ve ever seen.
Livingroom 24 are selling the Monte Carlo for 2887 Euros (approximately £2,000) which includes free shipping within the EU and a free gift of an Eileen Gray occasional table.
I’m always fascinated by the forward-thinking designs of the modernist era – 80 years on and they still look every bit the contemporary piece of design. And this Laccio L table is a perfect example.
Designed by Marcel Breuer as a Bauhaus apprentice in 1925 as a low table to sit with the Wassily chair, it used tube steel, based on the tube frame of a bicycle, with a white or black laminate top.
Both the Laccio L and the smaller Laccio S table (also pictured here) are still in production by Knoll, with the Laccio L priced at £405 and the Laccio S selling for £241.
When I hear the name Royal Festival Hall, I instantly think of the Festival of Britain. So it’s only fitting that its new Skylon Resturant is inspired by the building’s origins.
The Skylon has been designed by Conran and Partners, with a colour scheme and fittings that pay tribute to the 1950s, without actually taking it back to that era. So expect some mid-century-inspired furnishings, big chandeliers, an olive, bronze and gold colour scheme plus walnut and limestone floors.
As for the food? Well, we can’t comment as we haven’t eaten there, but looking at the online menu, it’s certainly not ration book cooking.
Find out more at the Skylon restaurant website
