Shabby Chic....Still Cool?

Threadbare carpets, grubby walls, creaky floors? Don't fret - the shabby chic look has never been more fashionable

Shabby chic is top of the style charts, at least according to eBay. The online auction site says it is the most searched for term in homes and gardens this summer, and that more than 3,000 shabby chic items sell every single day.

The moniker, coined in the Eighties by the newly launched World Of Interiors magazine, is a catch all for comfortable, cosy, worn, informal interiors.

Min Hogg, founding editor, sums it up as 'characterful, colourful, used but not abused' and thinks people like the look because it's safe, fashionable and has an ancestral feel.