Art deco

Some time in the next few weeks, a great ocean liner will be lost at sea. One of the greatest, in fact. When the SS United States made its maiden voyage in July 1952, it was the last word in transatlantic liner design. In an age of ocean-going elegance, the ‘Big U’ was the newest, the sleekest and the swiftest. To this day, it holds the Blue Riband – the all-time record for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger ship. Now, after five decades rusting in dock, and a series of unsuccessful preservation attempts, the United States is about to make its final voyage. Stripped of masts, fittings and

The jazz style was the blowsy filling between the noxious crusts of two world wars. More than 30 years passed between its flourishing and its remonikered second coming as art deco, no longer gaudy ephemera, now a legitimate addition to the inventory of fashions. The coinage was initially ascribed to the antique dealer John Jesse. It is, more probably, Bevis Hillier’s. He was a scholar of the style, then organiser of its first retrospective, far ahead of the game, in Minneapolis-St Paul in 1971. The Twin Cities rival Tulsa in their abundance of ziggurats, sunbursts, sans-serif signs (favoured for appearance rather than function), streamlined-everything to effect a quick getaway, bas-relief