The personalization implied by these trends throws the very concept of “trend” out the window, at least in part. While people continue to love and choose mid-century modern furnishings, for example, others will have the freedom to find an era they love (art deco, perhaps, or Victorian) and concentrate on curating pieces from that period, says New York Design Agenda. This will blur the trendlines into each other.
When the current cycle began to take shape, trend watchers understandably looked to COVID-19 as a factor. In an uncertain economy and spending more time than ever at home, we poked around in our attics, our parents’ attics, and the vintage goods marketplace for inspiration. What we found was furniture that was cozy, unselfconsciously ornate, and generally more amenable to around-the-clock living than the starkness of mid-century modern minimalism. What we found also happened to be around the corner, unencumbered by supply chain bottlenecks and various sorts of shortages that the commercial interests were struggling with. Shortcutting those bottlenecks further confounds businesses, who rely on selling products during a sweet spot between current fashion and “daring” ideas a year before their time (via Basecamp’s Signal v. Noise blog).
Trends can also be expansions of influence from other areas of life. Sustainability is on almost everyone’s list of furniture fashion trends, which might revolutionize the very meaning of style along the lines of “slow fashion,” a term coined by textile consultant Kate Fletcher to describe a clothing fashion movement promoting environmental consciousness and economic fairness, and resulting in collections that are intentional, higher-quality, timeless, curated, and multifunctional (via The Ecologist)… all of which are also characteristics of today’s furniture trends.
