A vanity table is a table designed for sitting at while applying make-up, arranging hair and dressing, usually fitted with drawers and a mirror. The term is largely used interchangeably with dressing table, though it is particularly associated with twentieth-century designs and with American usage.
Dressing tables developed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when lowboys, kneehole tables and elaborate fitted pieces with hidden mirrors and compartments were made for fashionable bedrooms. Sheraton and other designers published ingenious designs with rising mirrors, folding tops and fitted interiors. Victorian and Edwardian dressing tables generally had a mirror supported on a superstructure above a base of drawers. The vanity table as a distinct form came into its own between the wars, when Art Deco designers produced glamorous pieces with large circular or stepped mirrors, glass tops, veneers in burr walnut and sycamore, mirrored surfaces and lacquer, often en suite with a matching stool. Collectors look for good veneers, original mirrors and handles, sound drawers and well-preserved finishes. Hollywood Regency and mirrored vanity tables are also popular in contemporary bedroom and dressing room design.
