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Article: FRENCH FANCIES The HOUSE OF Laura Ashley Twenty-five years ago, the designer gave David Hoppit a tour of her beloved chateau. Now for sale, he revisits the fantasy French market
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- October 7, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2007 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Laura Ashley would have loathed the growth of our throw-away
society. Showing me around her beautiful French chateau three years
before her untimely death in September 1985, she told me: "I like
things that last forever." This hatred of ephemera was the canon on
which she built a multi-million pound empire: from making her first
screen-printed tea towels on the kitchen table in Pimlico in the
1950s, to becoming one of the world's most recognisable British
brands.
When she and her husband Bernard bought the exquisite Chateau de
Remaisnil, near Lille, towards the end of the 1970s, it was a
continuation of her passion for doing up old properties. It was a
brief affair. When I visited in the ...