The reality of style

“We’re just loving the thought of living in provincial France…here’s some ideas to breathe chic French country style into your home …” Other than memories, the house is of no consequence to Madame. She’s oblivious to how it appears to British eyes.

She didn’t read a magazine, browse a website then order on-line the heavy glass jars in which she puts her home-made apricot jam.

The putty-coloured faience pots, the spade-shaped, wash-worn wooden chopping boards and the chubby, glazed salt-ware jugs were her mother’s and before then, her grandmother’s - she really doesn’t know how old they are.

Madame’s kitchen has flag-stone floors polished by centuries of footsteps. It has high oak beams, rush-seated chairs and a solid cherry-wood table that shines with care. Madame’s kitchen has one window, and the stone floor is cold and uneven. It’s so dark she can’t always see the cobwebs. And she sleeps in a bed in the corner. When it gets cold, the dog gets in to keep her warm.

A neighbour tells her the old bottle carrier beside the door is like the one in the expensive shop in Niort. “Forty-five euros,” she says, “why would people spend good money on things that were meant for the poor? And they beat up new things to make them look old. The world’s gone mad.”

Ask Madame how she created her home and she doesn’t understand. “Create? Sometimes I just put flowers in a jug,” she shrugs.

Things evolved around her; every object found its place. She had a husband and children. There were fetes and celebrations and each left a little mark on her home. It took several lifetimes.

“The British love old French things,” I tell her. “We love ‘beautiful ruins’.”

And nothing delights British eyes more than noble dilapidation. We come to France and every one of us falls in love with wisteria-covered abandoned farmhouses, ivy-covered barns. For us, the French rural idyll is one in which everything is slightly falling apart - a little rusty, a little bit chipped; imperfect perfection painted in Farrow & Ball.

And straight away we want our homes to look like the pictures in the magazines; we go to shops that sell us French ‘provincial style’; instant time-worn, weather-worn neglect, poverty-chic all wrapped up in lavender-coloured tissue paper.

We come away with little zinc buckets, wire soap dishes, wooden scrubbing brushes…and we spend the sums of money Madame can only dream of.

Madame didn’t choose to live in rural poverty. If she could, she tells me, she would move away tomorrow - to a little peach-coloured retirement bungalow with doors that fit, central heating and a level floor.