For centuries, looking into a mirror meant looking into a dark, warped blur. Venice changed that — and guarded the secret with daggers and assassins. The story of how France stole it, and turned an act of industrial espionage into the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
The earliest accounts of the Shakers speak not of furniture but of bodies that could not be kept still. Two and a half centuries later, the same word sells kitchens. This is the story of everything cropped out in between — the loud colours, the factory chimney, the trademark — until all that remained was a style.
