It's going to be all white: shimmering, angular and clean-cut bathroom style at Quebec Wharf in Hackney

White is modern, white is clean, white is 21st century and white is a singularly inappropriate colour for furnishing fabric, wall covering or carpet in London in particular, one of the filthiest, greyest cities in the world.

In the distant past, when cleaning products had yet to be invented, homeowners would dutifully whitewash every spring, but the introduction of coloured paint and patterned fabric was quickly welcomed as a more durable solution to home maintenance. It wasn't until the late 19th century that the Arts and Crafts Movement reintroduced white into the home and, not until the 1920s and 1930s, that the great masters of the Modern Movement dictated that white should be one of the commandments of contemporary design, symbolic of everything simple, pure and light.

Unfortunately, in London there is neither purity nor light and white declines almost instantly from pristine perfection to a grubby, dullish grey, co-ordinating nicely with the February clouds. So, if you have decided that your fashionable, urban home must be dressed in up-to- the-minute cream and white, how do you manage to keep it looking crisp?

A rigorous attitude to maintenance and easily cleanable materials are, I'm afraid, the only answers. "The problem with white is that people leave it far too long before they clean it," says Jan Katzer, owner of specialist cleaner KCP. "London is a particularly dirty city, where the resin expelled from cars adheres to dust and sticks to upholstery, walls and lampshades. You need to clean three times as often in London as you would in the country."

Katzer helps clients devise a cleaning schedule for everything from headboards to bedspreads and believes that, in the city at least, white upholstery should be cleaned at least every six months.

"Upholstery should also be protected with a professionally applied fabric protector. The protectors that used to be available to the general public did not penetrate fabric sufficiently - they often lasted for as little as a month. And though good-quality upholstered furniture will often arrive with protection, 50 per cent of that comes off with each cleaning and needs to be reapplied regularly."

Katzer - who, in his 15 years in business, has seen too many white sofas left beyond repair - believes prevention is better than cure. "Most people think of cleaning only when things get really dirty, but cleaning after a long period will often reveal marks that have sunk deep into the fabric. At that point, though we do warn them, clients frequently say, 'I wish I hadn't got it done'."

White paint is perhaps the easiest element of interior decoration to maintain, and market leader Dulux, whose customers constantly clamour for a magic formula to keep it bright, has recently made two breakthroughs.

"The most important thing is to choose a paint that is the right paint for the job," says Dulux marketing director Kerris Bright. "We have developed a kitchen and bathroom paint which is both humidity- and stain-resistant. It's particularly good for those areas behind the bin, where we tend to splatter tea bags and coffee grindings."

Dulux has also addressed the fact that, though British homeowners are unusually daring when it comes to experimenting with colour, they're more reluctant than their American or European cousins to redecorate, repainting rooms only every three to four years. As an incentive to the 85 per cent of Britons with white and not-quite-so white ceilings, Dulux developed Once, a single-coat paint that meant we needed only totter up that ladder a single time to get a glistening new perspective.

Interior decorator Carol Bennett feels that many of the difficulties related to white can be resolved by careful design planning at the outset. "We try and get clients to be practical. You can still create a light effect with white walls and sofas but using a darker carpet. I always recommend loose covers rather than fitted upholstery and washable fabrics, like faux suede, rather than those that need dry cleaning," she says.

To the unwary, the creamy attractions of limestone can present an unexpected hazard, since it is particularly prone to marking, even from such seemingly innocuous sources such as make-up or bath oil. Bennett suggests using in its place a ceramic tile called Fontainebleau (from World's End Tiles, 020-7819 2100). "It looks just like limestone but is, of course, wipe clean." As for window treatments, she has been won over by the ease of US-style shuttering, releasing her clients from that ongoing battle with grimy blinds and curtains.

But damage limitation can only go so far. Bennett herself recently let her own pale flat to a friend with two teenage boys. "It was beyond belief. White doesn't work with families and animals."

Not everyone would agree. Lucinda Chambers, Vogue's fashion director, has always favoured a white look at home. Now in a household of five males - three boys, aged three to 13, her husband and a male au pair - she still has white-painted floors, white upholstery and walls tinted with John Oliver's pearly Casablanca.

"I feel about it like a whitewash - it's easy to renew. With children it's fine - the top of the wall is clean and the bottom of the wall is clean, there's just a buttery tidemark in the middle," she says. "The other day, however, the au pair finally said, 'Lucinda, I'm going to paint the kitchen'. Relax is the name of the game. If you want everything pristine, you can't have white.