REARVIEW MIRROR | Katharine Hepburn at an old-school vanity in 1942's 'Woman of the Year.' Everett Collection


I'd given up trying to solve this decorating conundrum when, on a recent trip to India Jane, an affordable furniture shop in London, I spotted a silver-framed, three-sided stand-up mirror. It got me thinking: Why not assemble a stripped-down, tomboy vanity by pairing this mirror with a low-key desk or dressing table—a solution that wouldn't flood our bedroom with estrogen?

Pairing a standing mirror and a table to create a vanity is hardly a new idea—in fact, it's how the earliest designs were constructed. "It wasn't until around the 1730s that mirrors were built into dressing tables," said Nick Humphrey, curator of the furniture, textiles and fashion department of the Victoria & Albert Museum. "Mirrors were relatively small before then because the technology wasn't there." The French word for dressing table, "toilette," he added, "actually came from the word 'toile,' which means cloth. This is because in the French tradition, they would drape hugely expensive white linen damask over a simple walnut table and place a silver mirror on top." Draping a simple but luxe fabric over a nothing-special table and topping it with a sparse sterling mirror is a charming idea—and a gender-neutral alternative to the Laura Ashley floral fabrics that smother so many vanity tables.

Valerie Wade, owner of a London interiors shop, remembers such a froufrou style from her childhood. "I had a horrid kidney-shaped dressing table covered in toile," she said. Now, Ms. Wade has set up a more subdued or "butch," as she calls it, dressing table—a '50s American desk paired with a 19th century mirror—in the bedroom she shares with her husband and urges her customers to similarly mix periods. "When I first opened my shop in the '80s, people were outraged by mixing antiques with modern pieces," she explained. "But for dressing tables, there really are no rules. It's like fashion—you want a little new and a little old."

Manhattan interior designer Elissa Cullman, of the firm Cullman & Kravis, likes a mismatched combo for both aesthetic and practical reasons. "Mirrors built into vanities are never the right height," she said. She likes throwing a burlap cloth over a table, and adding a self-lit mirror paired with antique crystal lamps and a small-scale, American Federal chair. "My vanity at home is my life desk, not my work desk, said Ms. Cullman. "It's where I write my notes and take my phone calls." A vanity in the bedroom is a boon for couples, she added. "It allows us to get ready together, a lovely time for my husband and me to catch up before we go out for the evening."

Here is a variety of unprecious pairings of tables and mirrors from a range of eras that will yield a vanity that's anything but vain.