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The New Thai Style

One evening late in the 20th century, movie director Roman Polanski arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with his stunning young actress wife Emmanuelle Seigner. Her radiance was rivalled only by the single and singularly large luminescent pearl suspended like a sun-kissed dewdrop round her neck. Polanski was later to say that "the mixture of traditional handicraft and sophisticated elegance" of the Thai jewel was superb.

Of the same Bangkok-based boutique which made the one-off piece for Polanski-Lotus Arts de Vivre-fashion designer Kenzo Takada has noted its "plainness modernity and discreet references to the past". One can imagine the admiration of guests at Kenzo's Phuket villa when champagne is presented in an ice-bucket made of car tyres and sterling silver or wine in a rattan holder once used to store hill-tribesmen's seeds.

Thai style lies at the confluence of time-honoured handicrafts and contemporary tastes. It is the tension between Eastern ornateness and Western relevance; between palatial splendour and pared-down simplicity.

One only has to gaze at the kaleidoscopic colours, glittering and gilded finials and myriad decorative devices at Bangkok's Grand Palace to realise that traditional Thai style is one of Asia's most flamboyant and also one most permeable to outside influences. This is probably just as well, because the current global emphasis on clarity and simplicity in interior design has required significant streamlining by artisans traditionally employed to present the most intricate and elaborate treasures to the temple or palace. Methods and materials once reserved for royalty such as gold-leaf stencilling, lacquerware and the finest silks and celadons are now being utilised with an eye for their modern form and function. Presentation counts but not at the expense of practicality. Thus, a heavily carved and gilded altar table inspires a clean-lined, versatile side console by Thai furniture designer Ou Baholyodhin, whose clients include Donna Karan and Madonna. Modern aesthetics also apply; hence the neutral colour palette for silk ordered from Jim Thompson by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for No. 10 Downing Street.

Cold-leaf work on this maroon lacquered panel at the Lanna Spa, Regent Resort Chiang Mai, depicts the tree under which the Buddha was meditating when he attained enlightenment. The puppet is in Burmese style. Stencilling and spa designed by Lek Bunnag, Bangkok.

It is also useful to remember that furniture was not customarily found in Thai homes apart from those of the upper classes. Indeed, while meticulously crafted, village objects had practical designs fashioned from local, sustainable materials. In a reverse take, the new Thai style elevates the simple to satisfy the sophisticated. Bamboo and rattan furniture, upholstered in the latest washable, rotatable natural fabrics, is now as presentable in the parlour as it was on the patio. Tribal kbit and yan lipao baskets, encouraged by mentors like Queen Sirikit's Support Foundation, are now elegant vases, lamp shades, napkin holders and trinket boxes. Contemporary Thai style incorporates both ends of the local design spectrum, mixing colours, patterns and forms to create new styles suitable for modern living.

Suite dreams are made of silken walls and homespun cotton bed linen at this suite in the Peninsula Hotel, Bangkok.

Derived from Pwo Karen hill-tribe baskets used to store pumpkin seeds, the design of this wicker wine holder from Sop Moei Arts, Chiang Mai, took nine months to perfect.

Certain basic tenets, however, remain unchanged. Thai style has always revered the natural and the supernatural; many of its expressions reflect both. A simple lotus, when folded and placed in a stem vase or grown in a glazed water jar, becomes both an exquisite floral decoration and an offering to Buddha. A path flickering with candles in tiny terracotta bowls (tien prateep) or a pool studded with floating candles are not only fabulously festive uses of fire but also forms of worship.

While not all of us can live in a rarefied wooden enclave on a Bangkok klong, a converted rice barn in the Chiang Mai mountains or an idyllic seaside retreat off Krabi, a rustic ambience can be achieved through the use of basic elements in the home. Natural fibres such as cotton, hemp, linen and silk and quick-growing, renewable resources such as mangowood, water hyacinth and bamboo are experiencing a renaissance, just as recycled pieces have gained new respectability. A feeling of sabai (well-being) is as close as your hand-hewn teak coffee-table or the stack of cinnamon sticks in the corner pot.

Just as the West has become wistful about its increasing removal from natural beauty, so too is it suffering from a lack of the spiritual solace which has always been central to Thai style. This may be as simple as lighting incense to evoke a meditative mood or as complex as appreciating a dinner-set design derived from ancient temple murals.

While a sense of fun (sanuk) is intrinsic to a culture which exults in the mystical and the magical, there is still a seriousness associated with honouring certain traditions. Most followers of Thai style, such as singer Elaine Paige who was in Phuket recently to source a Buddha image for her home, are aware of the need to treat such objects with respect (and not place them in the bedroom or bathroom, for example).

Another factor affecting Thai style is the fragility of the very handicrafts on which it relies. There is a feel-good factor in knowing that the purchase of a fruit basket shaped like a Pwo Karen rice-thresher, a jute mat woven by Narathiwat Muslims or a television cupboard consisting of old Buddhist scripture-chest panels contributes directly to the survival of its producers.

King Chulalongkorn, who ordered no less than 14 bencharong tea sets in different hues for each of his 77 children, might have been bemused by the minimalism of Emmanuelle Seigner's necklace. But his commitment to modernisation as a means of preserving Thai ways would surely have caused him to embrace the latest design accents in the ongoing dialogue between his nation and its global partners.

High life. Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired furniture is juxtaposed with a 19th-century, miniature architectural model for a temple. The 600-sq-m grand salon with its sweeping, 11 m-high teak ceiling is the second largest residential living room built in the last 100 years and designed by a major architect. The Johnson house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the '30s is the largest.