Dear Reader,

This author must confess a small amusement at watching the world rediscover, via a rather popular television drama, an obsession Cairo perfected a century ago: the art of being watched while pretending not to notice.

Long before a certain silver-haired narrator began cataloguing London's ballrooms, Cairo's own high society had already mastered the choreography — the strategic entrance, the borrowed jewel, the marriage negotiated over tea and never once mentioned aloud.

The furniture we source from this era was built for exactly this kind of theatre: settees angled for conversation and observation in equal measure, mirrors placed to catch an entrance from three directions at once. Every piece was a prop in a performance that ran continuously, season after season, in drawing rooms from Garden City to Zamalek.

One does wonder whether the costume designers researching "historical elegance" have ever looked east of Paris. This author suspects they'd find rather more material than they expected — and considerably less need to invent it.