It will have to be hooked up to a status and aesthetic aspiration in a way that pleases even those who disapprove of mere consumerism and detest marketing. In London, it seems to me, designer paint is the class signifier of the millennium. Of course, paint has been aspirational before. In consequence of Brickwell telling me his wife was working wonders with the new Pinkford's enamel paint, I determined to try it. I bought two tins of red on my way home . . . went out into the garden and painted some flowerpots . . .
American shoppers have no status codes for paint.
Thus I was embarrassed to discover in London last summer that my enthusiasm for Dulux was considered as tacky as a taste for Madame Tussaud's. The only aesthetically satisfying and socially acceptable wall colour, I was informed, comes from Fired Earth. Connoisseurs, moreover, have a paint merchant, just as they have a wine merchant. At one end of the spectrum, J.W. Bollom on the Old Brompton Road caters to the masculine museum and exhibition trade. There are no concessions to frivolity - nothing in the windows, no little samples, no reason to browse.