Polo & More 2014
Polo & More 2014
The view from Marienlyst (now Samambia) on Mustique
Photo courtesy Thomas Messel
Paradise
Mango Bay, Barbados
Photo by Derry Moore
FOUND
Polo & More follows the career of famed stage designer
Oliver Messel, his escape to Barbados to become one
of this island’s most prolific decorators and the boutique
that brings his legacy back to life.
Mango Bay, Barbados
Photo by Derry Moore
T
By Carlie Ester
rying to define Oliver Messel is like putting
together a master puzzle where the pieces are all
theatrically oversized, draped in silk and painted
an elegant shade of green. But truthfully, try as you
might to define him, there is no box that can contain his
impervious force.
Oliver Messel is the man that went from painting
portraits in pencil and water colour to designing
grandiose holiday mansions for the grossly wealthy.
He reconstructed Italian towns for Hollywood sets and
outfitted the preferred hotel suites of Elizabeth Taylor
and Sylvester Stallone. He’s gob smacked theatre goers
with his exquisite costuming and now his childhood
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home Nymans is protected as a British National Trust
site. Though he was English born and bred, he left such
a significant fingerprint on Barbadian society that we
hungrily claim him as one of our own.
If you’ve been fortunate enough to admire the intricate
ornamentation of an Oliver Messel home, you may
feel as though you’ve been spelunking the depths of
an overactive but beautiful imagination. His interior
design favoured motifs of fantasy and illusion, a telltale
throwback to his years as a theatre stalwart.
Though he started as a painter, Messel’s inner
virtuoso emerged when he was commissioned to
orchestrate costume and set designs for London’s rich
theatre industry from the 1920’s onwards. During this
time, he used his ingenuity with fabrics to breathe life
onto London stages. Oliver knew how to stress every
seam, match every texture and fix every fold work in his
favour. This is where his creativity took flight, as many
of the works he developed won or were nominated for
Tony and Academy awards. Oliver poured his soul into
operas, musicals, ballets, plays, and films including
Caesar and Cleopatra (1946), Romeo and Juliet (1936)
and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935). Many of his remaining
set and stage pieces have now been absorbed by the
Theatre Museum in London as artifacts of substantial
historical interest.
Any thespian worth his salt knows that the backbone
of set design is the illusion of fantasy. Behind the scenes
Messel worked like a practiced magician, masterminding
tricks with the most bizarre of materials; plastered
string, cut metal, cellophane, leather, even dishcloths
and sponges would hypnotize audiences as though
they were glistening gems, gold trinkets and faux high
society opulence. As he once said, he attempted to use
every device to make as much magic as possible.
Oliver worked feverishly, endlessly seeking perfection
in his work, with each assignment he studied texts,
architecture, plays and paintings to steep himself in the
visuals of the period he was recreating to maintain
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