Habitat

I have just heard that Habitat is to close down. Well, three shops in London are to remain, and the trading name and website have been bought, but for folk like me, out in provincial Britain, it would appear that Habitat is no more.

I remember hearing that the Bank of Scotland was getting subsumed within Halifax, and being saddened that something that seemed to have been part of my life forever was going. Along with my brother and sisters I had a little Bank of Scotland piggy bank, in the shape of a globe. It did not hold much money, and they all had an identical key, but it was a hint of a world of finance and sophistication that seemed beyond my everyday life.

For me, Habitat has always been an icon of design and style. Habitat was the first port of call for furniture and household items. Granted most of the time I was looking rather than buying, but with its white walls, and iconic products, it felt like a museum for hushed reverence at good design.

That is not to say that it was perfect, I bought a mug there in the eighties, the handle fell off almost immediately, often they followed taste, rather than setting it. They did make misteps, forever producing mountains of matching stationery, selling it off at the end of the season. The catalogues were either a design bible or slipping over the edge into impractical style over substance, entire furniture ranges displayed on a French beach.

But for me, it was impossible not to love and admire Habitat, and because the shops felt like museums, it seemed to stand apart from retail, just there, iconic and tasteful.

I am not sure where I will go to now. IKEA is okay in so far as it goes, but it is basic, cheap and cheerful. Although the quality is improving, there is very little there that you would look at in hushed reverence, awed by its perfect design credentials. It is a sad day when places like Marks and Spencers, John Lewis and the departments stores are where you go to buy furniture.

I write this sitting on a Habitat bed sofa that we bought in the eighties, it is getting a little worn now. There is a garland of blue lights around the mirror above the fireplace. I loved the box they came in so much that I kept it for weeks. The room is lit by Newton lights, two floor lights and a desk light. They have a simple minimal design, the shape of the shade balances but does not duplicate the counterweight, the base is reasuringly weighty, while the switch is placed on the shade, where logically your mind thinks it ought to be. The packaging was a masterpiece of understated ingenuity, that so much care had gone into designing something that would just be thrown away.

There is something about really good design that lives on, something that has a sense of rightness larger than itself, that hints at some alternative world where thought precedes action and less is always more.

[I have illustrated this posting with some photos of things I've bought from Habitat that I really love.]