John Fowler was an interior decorator who set fashions and changed tastes. The English country house style, which he developed with Sibyl Colefax and Nancy Lancaster, his partners in the firm of Colefax & Fowler, has proved a source of continuing inspiration to decorators and home-owners on both sides of the Atlantic and indeed across the world. Today, a hundred years after his birth, his influence is almost as powerful as it was in the mid 20th century, when he was working on many of Britain's finest and most famous houses, including Uppark, Chequers and Buckingham Palace, as well as dozens of more modest projects. Fowler's style has been so widely imitated that it is easy to forget what an innovator he was. In the 1930s and 1940s his style was a breath of fresh country air, sweeping away heavy velvets and damasks in favour of crisp cotton chintzes, replacing glossy mahogany with painted Regency furnishings, elaborate porcelain and glitzy ormolu with modest pottery and painted tin. Even after the war, when he came to specialize in the decoration of architecturally important interiors, he continued to prefer 'humble elegance' and 'romantic disrepair' to pomposity.

The eminent interior designer, John Fowler, was responsible for transforming some of Britain's most important historic interiors. This review of Fowler's work offers an important discussion of the treatment of historic interiors and highlights his concern to create visually successful rooms rather than to merely replicate earlier interiors.

John Fowler emigrated from England to Henrico County, Virginia during or before 1662.

A hungry mouse has a exciting night-time adventure as he searches for food in the house.

"Chintz in glorious faded colours, curtains meticulously swagged, fringed and tasselled, the most comfortable upholstery and expertly applied paint finishes, all set in timeless interiors and discreetly lit to show off beautiful antiques and paintings. These are the hallmarks of the style developed by Colefax & Fowler in the post-war years and currently more fashionable then ever. This informative and fascinatingly anecdotal book tells the story of the firm's founder, John Fowler, and shows his style evolving through his association with Sybil Colefax and Nancy Lancaster and later through his work restoring National Trust houses. It describes the expert craftmanship and technical skills which produce the ageless Colefax & Fowler look, and shows examples of their current work in different types of rooms in a wide variety of locations, ranging from Badminton and Sudeley Castle, large and small country houses, to flats and mews houses in London and abroad."