Plum equals Posh

After having watched about a 100 by now utterly indistinguishable episodes of '60 Minute Makeover' 'How not to decorate' 'House Doctor' etc I have colours like plum, taupe, teal, duck egg etc. coming out of my ears and way too often out of my mouth.

Well for the un-initiated plum is just another name for purple. As a word it serves two purposes - it sounds terribly posh, and for those who hate the thought of the colour purple in their rooms its a conveniently ambiguous term for someone selling a design scheme to you.

As it happens the colour 'plum' or 'purple', if you prefer, entered our home when I decided that my master bedroom needed, as a final touch in an ongoing decorating effort, large statement bedside lamps. I had some throws and cushions made up on the cheap in India in a nice purple and gold fabric and we had copperish, silverish organza curtains which were quite a statement. So I decided I needed a bit more purple in the room and lamps were the best way to add the colour in.

I had noticed that glass bobble lamps seemed to have been making an appearance consistently on high street shelves (John Lewis, Habitat, Heals etc) for a few months now but in most cases they seemed rather pretentious or just plain boring (apart from not being purple). Until I happened to spot this lamp on ebay.

Answering quite literally to the description purple glass ball lamp on ebay it drew my attention for being stylish and contemporary and yet classic enough to not risk becoming last season's fad very soon. The lovely black silk shade really gave it a classy touch. The attractive price tag at £45 (including shipping) helped even more.

Further research revealed that this was probably inspired by Graham and Greene's original (much pricier at £89 per lamp) version alongside. Beautifully styled in this photo with the vintage telephone. What I happened to pick up in the G&G picture was how thick and solid the metallic silver base was - it gave a sense of balance to the top heavy design. Couldn't quite spot the thick base in the Ebay pic and that quickly put a question mark on the cheaper cousin.



And then appeared contender number two a lovely sleek table lamp by Dar, called the Dillon lamp and also available in some really bright and fruity colours like yellow and orange - with a thin and tall purple glass base and a fabric shade in the identical colour. The pics will almost have you think that the shade and base are all made of one piece of glass. Which I am sure they are not but its a beautiful lamp all the same. Available at a variety of prices in several online lighting stores its currently available from www.lights4living.com on sale at a rather attractive £48.27.


I have to say though that the option that finally made it into our bedroom was one that I found online but bought in a store. The NEXT plum bobble lamp (on the right hand side in the photo) stands tall at a proud 60cms and will make a great statement whether in the bedroom or living room. The shade in the picture looks like a quite dark purple but in reality is a much more subtle and pleasant colour. At £45 pounds each it didn't break the bank either. I was also delighted to see that it has a lovely thick metallic silver base just like the Graham and Greene lamp automatically giving it style and solidity. But probably what I liked the most were the quite quirky bobbles in increasing sizes - like a fat old lady settling in comfortably onto a sofa - making it just the right combination of stylish and fun.

And the absolute final ace in the pack ofcourse was the fact that it was called 'The Plum Bobble Lamp" not purple - obviously I was only having the poshest one of them all!