HE thrice-yearly Decorative Fairs in Battersea Park were launched in 1985 by Patricia and Ralph Harvey, who had begun as antique dealers from a Porto-bello stall in the 1960s. Accustomed to showing at fairs she thought drab, Mrs Harvey wanted her exhibitors to be ‘actively encouraged to decorate, paint and arrange their stands, styling and stock in a way that people can see how they might look and be used in their own homes’. Thus, the fair’s unique selling point is, in her words, that it is ‘an antiques and art fair with “design in mind”’. In 2008, she sold it to David
