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BBC Four

BBC 4

Glamour's Golden Age

Toby Stevens

Bill MacLeod

Hermione Norris

Glamour's Golden Age: Episode 1: The Luxe Experience

Documentaries

Factual: History

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

The Luxe Experience

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Luxe Experience

BBC Four - Glamour's Golden Age, The Luxe Experience

How 1920s and 30s architecture and design created and reflected the spirit of the age.

How the architecture and design of the 20s and 30s created and reflected the spirit of the age, with the fun of Art Deco next to the functionality of Modernism.

Hermione Norris narrates a three-part series on the 1920s and 30s, which creates a portrait of a golden age so daring, so influential, so exciting that it still shapes who we are today. 

The decades between the world wars saw a cultural revolution in music, fashion, design and the arts. Mass media, mass production and the resulting mass exposure to an alluring, seductive glamour saw the world changing at a dizzying pace, amid which many of our modern obsessions were born.

The first part looks at how architecture and design both created and reflected the spirit of the time. The fun and frivolity of art deco sat alongside the pure functionality of modernism and helped democratise style. Streamlining followed, making sleek, sophisticated, elegant design part of ordinary people's everyday lives. At home, the radio became a beautiful object. In the urban environment a new aesthetic changed the way buildings looked, while planes, trains and automobiles started to shrink the world.

Featuring photographs of the Hoover Factory, Saltdean Lido, the Midland Hotel, the Savoy Theatre, the De La Warr Pavilion, the New Victoria Palace cinema, plus archive newsreel of the Mallard, the Queen Mary, the Schneider Trophy and Bluebird.

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series looking at the 1920s and 30s, an age that was daring, influential and exciting

Series looking at the 1920s and 30s, which creates a portrait of an age so daring, influential and exciting that it still shapes who we are today

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