Deco rationale. (View).

A sleek streamlined car imported from America, the Auburn 851 'Boat Tail' Speedster (1935), pulls up at the entrance to the Strand Palace Hotel in London. A bright young thing steps out, resplendent in her Elsa Schiaparelli scarlet taffeta coat which trails some four feet behind her as she glides into the internally lit chrome and glass-walled hotel foyer, designed by Oliver Bernard in 1929.' A doorman follows with her Louis Vuitton travel case and an abundance of other luggage.

Half an hour later she sweeps into the cocktail bar, bedecked in a sleeveless sequinned dress designed by Chanel, topped off with a Cartier diamond necklace. Strains of Noel Coward waft past as she orders a cocktail and lights a cigarette, held a foot away from her mouth in an ebony and jewel-encrusted holder. She puts down the chunky chromium-plated Ronson lighter and regales her friends with tales of her sojourn in America, where she saw the amazing black dancer Josephine Baker, and of her return crossing on the luxury ocean liner the Normandie, just launched in 1935, and fitted with stunning interiors including Jean Dunand's lacquer wall panels in the smoking room.

Such hedonistic images arc conjured up at the Art Deco 1910-1939 exhibition, (2) claimed to be the most comprehensive ever staged on the subject. The style permeated many spheres: architecture, fashion and textiles, sculpture, art, graphic design, photography, music, jewellery, industry, appliances, interior design, and had been evolving for a decade or so before the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes from which its name was coined. (3) The sweeping plant-like curves of Art Nouveau had given way to the streamlined aerodynamic curves of aircraft and cars, and, more emphatically, a hard-nosed geometric angularity reflecting industrial engines of the early twentieth century.

It was a movement of contradictions: products could be painstakingly handcrafted or mass produced; luxury or popular; tasteful or (perhaps more frequently) hideously kitsch; monochrome or garish; chrome or Bakelite; tribal or futuristic; borrowing from a classical past or from the avant-garde. In fact Martin Greif believes, 'the term "Art Deco" should really be "Art Decos"... and that the term embraces at least ten to fifteen mutually exclusive "styles" each of which ... can be separated from the others'. (4)

Unlike the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, and indeed Art Deco as it began, later Art Deco embraced mass production which meant that the style could reach all classes, countries, and consumers. Boldly coloured pottery by Clarice Cliff was sold very cheaply in Woolworths, Rene Lalique's factory made glassware in the thousands, Doulton & Co and Wedgwood mass produced porcelain figurines, industrially moulded Bakelite radios were manufactured in huge quantities.

The exhibition bears witness to the global character of the movement, which could be found in cities as far apart as Shanghai, Bombay, Paris, New York, Sydney and Brazil. Emigration, Hollywood, colonialism, archaeology - the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt, leading to what the Daily Express called 'Tutmama' - and revolutions in transport and communication brought with them exotic influences (especially from Asia, Africa, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica) and fired artistic imagination. Designs with dancing girls, lotuses, tropical birds and animals proliferated, products used materials such as tropical woods, mother of pearl, ebony, shark shin, zebra skin and lacquer. Eileen Gray experimented with Oriental lacquerwork, designing screens, furniture, bowls and plates with traditional Japanese inlays such as crushed eggshell and mother of pearl. The flapper dress echoed the flattened forms and straight seams of the Japanese kimono. Round necks, tubular sleeves, dragon motifs and jade jewellery echoed Chines e fashions.

The end of the First World War and advances in technology led to a feeling of optimism which was reflected in cheerful colours and themes of fantasy, fun and youthful energy. The sunburst signified a new dawn. Angular decorations, chevrons and zigzags evoked syncopated black American jazz rhythms. The Garage Marbeuf in Paris by Albert Laprade, with Bazin & Ravaze (1928-29), was a showcase for five floors of cars seen from the street through an enormous glass window in a zigzag series of cantilevered balconies. New York skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building (1929-1930) by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, and the Chrysler building by William Van Alen (1927-30), became icons of interwar optimism, reflecting the rise in consumerism. Buildings started to look like machines as opposed to Modern Movement ones, which were supposed to look as if they were made by machines. Skyscraper forms were also used in product design.

The streamlined look, often with horizontal chrome strips as on cars and trains, became popular for toasters, furniture, radios, clocks, fridges and tableware. Architecture adopted the same streamlined elements, as in the entrance to the McGraw-Hill building, New York by Raymond Hood andJ. Andre Foulihoux (1931), the Johnson Wax executive offices, Racine, Wisconsin (1936-39) by Frank Lloyd Wright, and, in England, the Midland Hotel in Morecambe designed by Oliver Hill (1934), the Daily Express building by Owen Williams (1929-3 1), and the Odeon chain of cinemas.

The exhibition is a treat. In the background, jazz vies with the dulcet tones of Charles Trenet. There is a mesmerizing film of Josephine Baker dancing, and of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the floor in the Hollywood film The Gay Divorcee, the set of which epitomized and helped to popularize Art Deco. There are more than 300 items in the exhibition, covering every facet of the movement. But the highlight is the restored entrance foyer from the Strand Palace Hotel, saved from destruction by the V & A and shown for the first time in 30 years.

(1.) With as an assistant, the young J. M. Richards, shortly to become AR assistant editor.

(2.) At the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington, London until 20 July.

(3.) The name did not come into general usage until 1968 when Bevis Hillier published his book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s, before then it was known as 'Moderne', Jazz Moderne' or 'Streamline Moderne'. The movement then experienced a revival, and in 1971 a huge exhibition, The World of Art Deco, with over 4000 objects, was shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

(4.) Martin Greif, 'Defining Art Deco', Art Deco Society of New York News, vol 2, no 1 (January-February 1982), p2.