Wallpaper...

Today my design firm hosted The History of Wallpaper. As I am a lowly studio coordinator, I was not invited. So I had to imagine what the lecture was like.

I think it may have gone exactly like this...

Hello everyone and thank you for having me here today...otherwise I might have to go out and get a real job. So let's begin.

Wallpaper… What is it, where does it come from and how can I convince you people to pay me upwards of $45 per square foot of it. These questions and many more will be answered by the globe-spanning, time-vaulting epic of a story I like to call:

The History of Wallpaper.

291,267 BC…somewhere in North America

Oog works hard at creating the first living room. A place to kick back and relax after escaping from other neanderthals looking to smash his head open and feast on his tasty jelly-like brains. After exploring the other potential design elements of the room: the floor, the bay window and of course the prehistoric port cochere, he stumbles upon “the wall”. Yes, the wall…now he has a way to keep out unwanted guests as well as pave the way for his next great discovery, a way to hold up the ceiling.

1433…France

Francois Guy Richelieu de Poisson du Camembert de Champagne du Louis the XIV makes his way around his well-appointed 73 room summer home. Here in the grand opulence that he has become accustomed, here in a place so decadent that the walls are insulated with the feathers of a million endangered baby white geese stands Francois. As he sits down on his one-of-a-kind baby harp seal fur upholstered chair festooned with silk pillows he remarks to himself “What we need here is ta git some stuff up on these here walls”.*

*Probably sounds better in French, I imagine.

2009…New Jersey

Francine is crouched down on the floor scrubbing vigorously and vainly in an attempt to remove the permanent marker and jelly stains from the wall. They were left there by her obnoxious 6-year old son who clearly fancies himself the next Picasso. As she stands and looks back she thinks, wouldn’t it be great if I could just cover up this disgusting display of ink and foodstuff.

And thus was born the practice of smearing smelly and potentially cancer-causing adhesive all over our walls and covering them with sheets of paper often bearing patterns the likes of which must have been conceived in the hazy fever dream of an opium den addict.

The End