Darpana Dressing Table
A dressing table that is not a desk with a mirror
Darpana — a mirror. The mirror is the piece's reason, so it was drawn first and the chest was drawn to carry it, rather than a chest of drawers with a mirror added on top.
The brief is a bedroom corner holding a dressing table that does two jobs badly — too little storage to be useful, too much surface to keep clear.
The storage should disappear into the piece: everything in drawers, nothing on show, and a mirror at a height you can actually use standing up.
A bowed front, not a flat one
The front face curves gently across its width. A flat front of this size reads as a slab in a bedroom; the bow catches light differently across the day and takes the hard edge off a piece that is nearly as wide as it is tall. It costs more in drawer-making, because every drawer front follows the curve.
Fourteen shallow drawers, not six deep ones
Two banks of seven. Deep drawers on a dressing table become a place things are lost; shallow ones mean one layer of things, visible the moment the drawer opens. It also gives the front its horizontal rhythm, which is what stops fourteen drawers reading as a filing cabinet.
Pulls that do not stand proud
Slim brass pulls, set flush to the eye and centred on each drawer. Anything larger would break the curve of the front; anything recessed would make fourteen drawers a nuisance to open in low light.
The mirror on posts, clear of the top
The mirror stands on two posts above the surface rather than hinging off the back. It leaves the whole top usable, keeps the glass at a fixed height, and means the chest could be made and finished as a piece in its own right.
Chosen in the hand
Built in our own factory, with the timber and the finish chosen as physical samples before anything was cut. A version for your room would be drawn to your dimensions.
The visible corner joints at the top of the sides were left as a detail rather than covered. On a piece with a curved front, a square, honest corner is what tells you the curve was made rather than pressed.
Made in our own Hyderabad factory. The bow was set out full size before any drawer was cut, because every one of the fourteen fronts has to follow the same curve or the front reads as a series of facets. Drawers were fitted to their own openings and marked, so each returns to the opening it was made for. The mirror frame was made and finished alongside the chest so the two match in sheen.
In a bedroom, the top stays clear and the front catches the morning light along its curve.
Your room is not this room. Bring photographs and we will draw to it.
- Type
- Dressing table
- Drawers
- Fourteen, bowed front
- Hardware
- Brass pulls
- Made
- Our own factory
Fourteen drawers, and a front that is never flat.
Darpana Dressing Table · Signature Collection