the infinite charm of reflective pieces

Casting shine among the shadows, mirrored interiors have dazzled since ancient times. In Rome, Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea – the Golden House – sparkled with fragments of mirror and glass. And a century before the Sun King’s Hall of Mirrors spectacularly showcased the French glass industry in 1684, the Hall of Mirrors at Golestan Palace, with its reflective grid ceiling and elaborate symmetry, shone like a beacon of brightness in Tehran.

In Mirrors: reflections of style, author Paula Phipps traces the creation of mirror-lined rooms to Persia and India where, she says, “small mirrored cabinets were installed for contemplative purposes.” This idea of ​​shiny surfaces igniting self-reflection remains a rich vein among artists, from Doug Aitken and Yayoi Kusama to the Tuscan mirrored work of Niki de Saint Phalle. Tarot Garden.

In Paris (until September 2), South Korean artist Kimsooja covered the vast circular floor of the main dome of the Bourse de Commerce with a myriad of reflective squares. Amplifying the grandeur of the 360-degree murals on the rotunda’s 19th-century ceiling, the effect is both disorienting and clarifying. “A mirror is a fabric woven by our own gaze,” the artist says of his meditation on the mirror as a portal to oneself and the other.

A mirror is a fabric woven by our own gaze

Beyond self-reflection or Liberace-style showboating, mirrored spaces serve a practical – and increasingly popular – purpose in interiors. “Mirrors multiply perspectives and possibilities,” says Nicholas Cullinan, director-designate of the British Museum, whose 1960s apartment in the coastal town of Margate, Kent, designed with his partner, the art dealer art Mattias Vendelmans, is a fun house with elegant mirrors in which reflections take place. the surfaces play with perception and perspective, combining plywood panels and custom-cut strips of reflective acrylic.

“All these surfaces of shimmering light reflect Margate’s street lamps and Turner’s ever-changing sky,” Vendelmans says of the rooms, which reference everything from Coco Chanel’s mirrored Rue Cambon staircase to the remake by Luca Guadagnino of 1970s Italian horror. Suspiria. “From the moment we decided to apply mirrors, we started seeing them everywhere. »

The key is to opt for something slightly watery rather than filling a space with a standard cut glass mirror. Opt for aged glass, which imparts a subtler, softer, more flattering shine. Mirror Works, Rupert Bevan and Dominic Schuster specialize in beautifully hand crafted antique mirror glass.

For more contemporary tastes, Venetian metal plating company Materica creates precision metal coatings in brass, zinc or copper for any material, even fabric. She presented her first collection of reflective modular panels for the home at the recent Milan Design Week. “People usually think that metal is cold, but these experimental surfaces have the power to bring a very special warmth and atmosphere to the home,” explains interior designer Luigi Ciuffreda, one of the creative directors of the company.

But less is often more. “I think you can overuse the mirror,” says interior designer Rachel Chudley. “It can be one of the most powerful tools for transformation, but it must be done with sensitivity. » In a client’s London home, Chudley transformed an awkward corner of an all-white living room into “the perfect party corner for the night” by installing a sumptuous combination of leopard-print upholstered velvet and mirrored paneling. “It’s a complete hoax,” she says of the resulting restaurant space.

“The mirror is very useful in dark rooms to bounce light and play with proportions,” says designer Adam Bray, who added a mirrored wall to his kitchen. He cites as inspiration American decorators Billy Baldwin and Frances Elkins, who created mirrored dressing rooms in the 1930s, and French designer Alain Demachy, who used mirror to line the inside of windows. There’s one caveat: “It can create unexpected views that aren’t always welcome,” says Bray of its frequent use in bathrooms. “I never understood why people add mirrored panels to the sides of the bathtub.”

For Duncan Campbell, half of the Campbell-Rey design duo, the mirrored bathroom should offer a glimpse of the unexpected. “When using a soft Venetian mirror, it’s not about having a view of yourself from every angle, but rather getting a glimpse of the light and objects reflecting and sparkling,” explains Campbell, who is working with Charlotte Rey on the extensive restoration of a 1920s villa on the Ligurian coast. The master bedroom adjoins a living room-like bathroom that will soon be completely covered in mirror panels, right down to the molded glass cornices and architectural pilasters.

“You don’t want their surface to be perfect, but you want them to be reflective, so they have a nice smooth wobble,” says Campbell. “The effect in a bathroom with a view of the Ligurian Sea and the scent of the pine forest emanating from it will be silvery and ethereal.” The space is inspired by the theatrical spirit of English interior designer Syria Maugham, who imagined fully glazed bathrooms and glazed living rooms in resplendent London houses in the 1920s and 1930s.

As the art deco elegance of this era came back into fashion, the popularity of mirrored interiors also grew. Fiona Sutcliffe, co-founder of Sterling Studios in London, a specialist decorative arts company, recently worked on modernizing the mirrored ballroom and anteroom at Claridge’s in London, replicating its amber glass and patterns engraved florals, as well as the magnificent interior. of the Oswald’s private club.

Sutcliffe is drawn to the technical and mathematical demands of the medium. “With a mural, you can paint on it,” she says. “But with glass, once it’s done, it’s done – it’s more controlled.” The company has an archive of more than 20,000 samples ranging from antique mirrors to carved glass to finely etched glass églomisé.

“Mirror has its own rhythm,” she says. “We no longer see the walls and it opens everything up, which is particularly useful in the city where you need a little space.” Sutcliffe advises sticking largely to mirrored dining rooms, downstairs toilets and narrow hallways, and softening their luminescent effect by layering the space.

For those who want to dip their toes into Narcissus’ reflecting pool without going all-in, there’s a proliferation of mirrored objects – from thrones to tables – that provide little touches of light. There is also the efficient but effective option of simply covering two opposing walls with symmetrical mirrors.

Aluminum foil is also a fun, albeit more DIY, option. “It’s all about playing with light,” says Viola Lanari, who has covered everything in foil and reflective vinyl, from the ceiling of her studio and the hallway of her old apartment to the showroom she has created for Milan Design Week in 2022. Although she says it works best in a small space, all you need is some supermarket foil, spray glue and a steady hand. Fortune favors the brave: the true wonder of a fully mirrored room comes to life at night in rooms seemingly without walls and dotted with stars.