Deknudt Mirrors

Who Deknudt are

Deknudt Mirrors design and make in Belgium. Of what we stock, 83 pieces carry a Made in Belgium origin, 35 are made elsewhere in Europe and two in China, and the specification table on every product page records which. That matters more than it sounds: a mirror is glass, a frame and a hanging system, and the difference between a good one and a poor one is in the silvering, the edge work and whether the fixings hold. Deknudt back theirs with a seven year warranty, and two years on the LED units, which is stated on each page rather than implied.

Full length and floor mirrors

The full length pieces are the heart of the range. They run from 166cm to 190cm tall in widths from 40cm to 106cm, which covers a narrow hall strip through to a mirror wide enough for two people to stand at. American readers will know these as floor mirrors or leaning mirrors; the principle is the same. Some hang, some lean and three stand free on their own feet. Height alone does not make a mirror full length, so we measure: a mirror needs to be tall enough to show you head to toe and proportioned so it reflects a standing adult rather than a slice of one.

Bathroom and backlit mirrors

Deknudt rate a good part of the range for bathroom use, and the LED pieces are built for it. The backlit designs fall into two arrangements worth telling apart. Some light the wall from behind all four edges, so the glow sits around the glass and the reflection itself is never lit. Others carry a lit band across the face of the mirror, shining forward through a partly mirrored strip. The first is softer and better for a hallway; the second puts light where you need it at a basin. Several add a heating mat behind the glass, which holds a clear patch while the rest of the room mists.

Printed, leafed and partly silvered glass

A large part of what makes this range unusual is what is done to the glass itself. Patterns are printed into it rather than onto it, so nothing on the surface can lift or peel. Gold and silver leaf is applied by hand, which means coverage varies and no two panels are quite alike. Partly silvered and partly transparent panels let the wall read through in places, so the wall colour becomes part of the piece and the same mirror looks different in two rooms. These reflect less than a plain mirror the same size, which is the trade for the effect.

Shapes, sizes and where they hang

Beyond the rectangles there are circles from 65cm to 200cm, squares, arches, ovals and a number of genuinely irregular outlines. Thirty three hang either way up and twenty four in four directions, so the same piece can work portrait over a chest of drawers or landscape above a sideboard. Two pieces mount across an external corner, one half disc on each face. Every product page records the hanging orientations, the fixings supplied and the weight, because those three decide whether a mirror is a one person job or a two person one.

The designers, and the pieces that are not mirrors

A number of pieces are credited to a named designer rather than the studio, and the credit sits in the specification table where you can check it. Esther Everaert has the most pieces in the range at twenty three, then Studio Segers at thirteen and Annemie Vanzieleghem at ten, with smaller groups from Jeffrey Huyghe, Louise Mertens, Karim Rashid and Maarten De Ceulaer among others. Those tend to be the pieces where the shape is doing the work rather than the frame. The range also includes a few things that are not wall mirrors at all, including mirrored glass console tables on metal frames, which sit under console tables rather than here. Where a piece was designed in house the table says Deknudt Mirrors, and where the supplier records no designer we leave it blank rather than guessing at one.

Hanging and caring for a Deknudt mirror

Most of the range arrives assembled with two fixings in the box, either screws with washers and plugs or hooks and plugs. Hooks suit plasterboard, screws and plugs suit masonry, and anything over about 20kg wants two people and a wall you have checked. Clean the glass with cleaner sprayed onto a soft cloth rather than at the mirror, so liquid does not run into an edge or a sensor. Keep damp off applied finishes: hand applied leaf and rubbed silver are the parts of a frame that wear first, and a powder coated metal frame is the most forgiving.