From Rococo flourish to pared modernist disc, the mirror has reclaimed its place as the most quietly transformative object in the room. A guide to the styles defining the moment — and how to choose between them.
There is a particular kind of room that announces itself the moment one steps inside: light pools where it shouldn't, the walls seem to breathe a little, and the eye is gently drawn from one considered detail to the next. More often than not, a mirror is doing the work. Hung with intent, a good mirror does more than reflect. It edits a room, lengthens it, lifts it, and very occasionally — in the hands of the right designer and the right maker — transforms it altogether.
What follows is not a catalogue but a considered survey: the mirror styles currently animating the best interiors, and the questions worth asking before bringing one home.
Why the Mirror Endures
Designers reach for mirrors for the same reasons they have done for centuries. A well-placed glass multiplies daylight, lends depth to a shallow room, draws attention to a chimneypiece or a cornice, and — perhaps most importantly — introduces a moment of quiet glamour without recourse to ornament. The trick lies in choosing one that answers the architecture rather than competing with it. A Rococo girandole above an austere modernist console is a conversation no one wants to overhear; a frameless disc on a Georgian panelled wall can look apologetic. Proportion, period, and finish are everything.
The Styles Defining the Moment
The Pared Modernist
A movement away from over-ornament continues in the most considered new-builds and city flats: slim frames in brushed brass or matte black, frameless discs, clean geometry. The discipline here lies in restraint — a single, generously scaled piece will almost always outperform a gallery wall of smaller ones. Hung opposite a window, it does the work of an extra room.
The Hand-Silvered Antique
For period houses and the studied layered interiors that have replaced minimalism in fashion's affections, an antiqued silver mirror is something close to inevitable. The best are still individually hand-silvered to order — a slow, alchemical process that produces depth and irregularity in the glass that no factory finish can mimic. The Convex Mirror Company's Ferrara collection, in antiqued silver, is a case in point: hand-finished, available frameless or set within carbonne black, brushed gold or nero, and made in a tradition that has scarcely changed since the fifteenth century.
The Convex, or Oeil de Sorcière
The convex — known in French as the Witch's Eye, a name it has carried since the Renaissance — is enjoying a particularly visible revival. Its curved surface gathers a whole room into a single glimmering disc and casts light outward, lifting darker corners and lower ceilings with remarkable economy. Whether in plain silver (Stilo), gold leaf (Varenna), rose gold (Ravello), blue (Portofino) or grey (Sassari), the convex reads as both heirloom and quietly contemporary. It is the mirror of choice at The Peninsula in London, Sandy Lane in Barbados and Thirteen at Chateau Denmark — addresses that suggest its trajectory.
The Arched
The arched mirror has become something of a shorthand for the new traditionalism: soft enough to flatter modernist architecture, classical enough to belong in a stuccoed Victorian drawing room. Hung above a chimneypiece or a bathroom vanity, the gentle curve does an enormous amount of architectural work for what is, in the end, a relatively simple object.
The Decorative Statement Piece
Sunburst frames, asymmetrical silhouettes, wavy outlines borrowed from the 1970s — the statement mirror is back, and not always in the places one might expect. A pair of sculptural pieces flanking a bed, or a single oversized example above a console in a hallway, can lend an otherwise restrained room a welcome note of wit. The instinct here should be editorial: one statement per room, generously framed by simpler companions.
The Pagoda and the Chinoiserie
A small but persistent revival continues for pagoda and chinoiserie mirrors — bamboo-framed, lacquered, sometimes touched with gilt — which sit beautifully in the kind of layered, English-eclectic rooms that owe a quiet debt to Nancy Lancaster. They reward bold paint colours and patterned wallpapers in equal measure.
Farmhouse, Craftsman and Mission
In country houses and the more relaxed wing of American interiors, the appeal of an honest timber-framed mirror — distressed oak, hand-planed pine, straight lines and minimal detailing — endures. These pieces are best sourced from artisans and specialist workshops rather than the high street, where the spirit of the form tends to get lost in translation.
A Question of Scale
If there is a single mistake most often made when buying a mirror, it is buying too small. A modest disc adrift on a generous expanse of plaster looks apologetic; the eye reads it as an accessory rather than an event. As a rule of thumb, a mirror should occupy roughly two-thirds of the wall above whichever piece of furniture it presides over.
Bespoke makers such as The Convex Mirror Company will work to substantial scale — up to two metres in diameter, made to commission — which is where the so-called "wow factor" begins to earn its name. In a double-height stairwell or above a Georgian chimney, this is the scale that turns a mirror from decoration into architecture.
On Placement
Mirrors reward thought. Hung opposite a window, they multiply daylight; positioned across from a chandelier, a vase of garden flowers or a fine piece of furniture, they animate the room with a second, considered view. Entrance halls, drawing rooms, dining rooms and — perhaps surprisingly — bathrooms, where curved glass and antiqued silver soften the light, are the natural homes of the decorative mirror.
The cardinal rule: never hang a mirror to reflect something one would rather not see twice.
How to Choose Well
The right mirror is, in the end, a question of provenance as much as style. The questions worth asking of any maker are straightforward. Is the mirror made to order, and by whom? Is the glass hand-silvered? Can the frame be specified — colour, finish, dimensions — to suit the room? What are the lead times, and is bespoke commissioning an option?
The Convex Mirror Company, recognised on the House & Garden List and stocked in some of the most discriminating hotels in the world, offers a useful benchmark: hand-silvered to order by British and international craftsmen, available frameless or within a curated range of finishes, made up to 200 centimetres in diameter, and shipped worldwide. It is the difference between buying a mirror and commissioning one — and once one has seen the difference, it is difficult to go back.
A mirror, chosen carefully, will outlast the trend cycle by a generous margin. Which is, in the end, the only test that matters: that one tires of the room around it long before one tires of the piece itself.
