Your World and Welcome to it : Rogue's Gallery of Interior Design

After paying homage to LES STYLES by Philippe Jullian, an early sixties cult classic which offers a wicked look at the pretentions of domestic decor from CroMagnon man to Wallis Windsor, YOUR WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT traces interior design styles chronologically from the sixties through the nineties. Among the terms skewered by the Mauries/Lacroix team are 'Loft living', that perfect expression of the 1980's wherein 'size bespeaks wealth and location bespeaks independence of spirit;' 'Happy Habitat,' the choice of "people who use Peter Mayle's A YEAR IN PROVENCE as their guide to the art of living," and 'Shaker Style,' described as "an orgy of racks for hanging up stools and utensils, an avalanche of plain wardrobes, baskets, and oval wooden boxes." Styles in design, the authors suggest, encapsulate the hopes, fantasies, and ideals of a particular moment in time and YOUR WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT takes an uncompromising, but never unkind look at the past and present.

Lacroix and Mauries's catalogue of design obsessions teach us to follow not fads but our own fancy, lest we find ourselves the target of their rapier wit.