Mirrors have been around since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In those days they were a disc of highly polished metal and they sometimes had a design on the back. They also usually had a handle.

Glass mirrors date from the Middle Ages and were made extensively in Venice in the 16th century. They had a thin coating of tin mixed with mercury on the back, but in 1840 this was changed to silver. Mirrors began to be manufactured using plate glass as far back as the 17th century and it was then that they began to become commonplace in the home.

In recent years, aluminium has become used in place of silver because it is almost as efficient from a light reflective point of view but is less subject to oxidation. Today, mirrors are an important part of the exploration of space as they are used to a great extent in astronomical telescopes. It is also possible to create a mirror using several very thin layers of reflecting material which alternate in their refractive indices, alternating from low to high, and of a thickness and spacing that reflects almost all the light emanating from the subject.

Many mirrors are what is known as planar: in other words, they are flat. But it is also quite possible to have concave or convex mirrors which will give a very different reflection. If you have been to a fair or showground you may well have seen these mirrors designed to create different reflections and display your body in unusual shapes. All a good bit of fun.

In a convex mirror the mirror bulges towards the object and this makes the object appear smaller than it is. In a concave mirror the opposite is true, and the object appears larger than it is. Fairground fun mirrors are made of alternating convex and concave glass which makes your body appear smaller in some areas and larger in others.

Mirrors have long been associated with witchcraft and magic, and it was once believed that what you saw in a mirror was a reflection of the soul. Mirrors were seen as "soul catchers" and if they were in the room of a dying person would be draped in black. The myth that breaking a mirror results in seven years bad luck emanates from these beliefs. The ancient Egyptian word for mirror also means "life", and in Buddhism it is claimed that our existence is like a reflection in a mirror.

All sorts of folklore surrounds mirrors. In ancient Egypt it was claimed that a young woman can tell how many years it will be before she gets married by looking at the reflection of the moon in a hand mirror and counting how long it takes before a bird flies across it or a cloud passes it.

American folklore has it that if a woman looks into a mirror by candlelight at midnight on Hallowe’en, she will see the reflection of her future husband looking over her left shoulder.

In ancient China, dreaming of seeing your reflection in a mirror – or for that matter, water or any polished surface – was an omen of death – not necessarily your own but of someone you held dear.

Mirrors have featured in literature too. In The Canterbury Tales, the mirror of Cambuscan reported misfortunes to come, while in Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs the Wicked Queen has a magic mirror in which she can see Snow White. There is a considerable amount more to be found about the origins and use of mirrors.

However, today we largely use them to check our appearance before leaving home or while using makeup and so on. There are lots of different wall mirrors such as the Kartell Only Me Wall Mirrors which are either square or rectangular, and the latter can be hung either vertically or horizontally. Kartell Only Me Wall Mirrors can be found with a number of different frames to complement the style of the contemporary home. In fact, even the name is quite clever because when you look in the mirror, although you can see reflections of things behind you, what you are looking at is just yourself. "Only me".