A Brief History of the Dressing Table: From Toilette to Vanity

The dressing table is the only bedroom piece designed around a seated person looking at themselves, and that single requirement has governed its dimensions for three centuries. Furniture in Fashion traces the form from the toilette, a plain table dressed with a floor length cloth and a portable mirror, through the integration of fixed mirror glass that produced the knee space and flanking drawer stacks still used today, to the arrival of the plumbed bathroom that stripped out the washing function. The report explains why fitted bedroom furniture displaced the freestanding piece, and why the current return is driven by lighting quality and dual use as a desk rather than by storage. It sets out the working dimensions that have not changed, including surface height, knee clearance, stool height and mirror centre height, and why a side window beats every lamp arrangement. Guidance covers siting the table, choosing a stool and planning the mirror....