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Design Perspectives

Improving on Yesterday - Once More
Giving a fresh look to design styles of the past helps us connect our present with our future.

by Karla Nielson, Allied Member, ASID; WCAA

I often tell my interior design students how privileged we all are to live at a time when the entire history of the world—its styles and richness—are laid at our feet. We can choose from the best of any era’s design and furnishings and suit the selections to each individual client’s style. Not only that, but every year in the world of interior fashions and apparel (a great influencer of furnishing style), the scene changes and the mode becomes fresh—even though it is invariably borrowed from an earlier era.

It is often said, “There is no such thing as a new color, only old colors with new names.” However, we can say that there certainly is such a thing as revisiting a style and giving it new coloring—meaning colors that were not a part of the original style. This is perhaps the very key to contemporary interior design, and also the reason our clients need us.

When we select a style from yesteryear and give it new life, it is like creating a new look with a familiar charm, like something we have known before. It’s almost a deja vu experience. We might liken this to renewing an old friendship with someone from an earlier part of our lives and finding we both have grown into interesting, charactered people with deeper viewpoints and more appreciation for the beauty (as well as the trials) that life has bestowed on us.

Indeed, a beautiful room can spawn feelings that take us back, yet make us feel renewed and refreshed and better off for the reacquaintance.

IN FASHION ONCE MORE
In my 30-plus years of working in and teaching about interior design, I have observed that each time a historic style becomes fashionable again, it has qualities that are more beautiful than the original style—less rigid, more forgiving. Perhaps this is due to the eclectic nature of today’s lifestyles. Perhaps it is because most advanced economic cultures (i.e. those with a considerable amount of discretionary income per capita), have been exposed to so many styles of interior design that there is, overall, a higher level of discrimination.

This is good, as it allows us to lean with more confidence on the opinions and tastes of our clientele. There is less need for educating many customers than there was as little as 10 years ago. Much of this is due to the high quality of interior design periodicals and education widely available to the public and to design professionals as well. People today are better educated than at any other time in history. As a result, we know more about interior design in a historic sense as well as an aesthetic one.

RETRO INFLUENCES
To a great number of people today, the word retro means revisiting mid-century modern—the post-World War II “happy days” of the prosperous 1950s, which gave rise to much new modern design. Cleaned up from any prior decoration and introducing a new genre of design and vocabulary, this style was originally fairly spare and cold. In my memory, it was a time when homes were too under furnished, too clean, too sterile and with more than a little poor “modern” design.

Yet the experimental 1950s gave birth to a style that was quite uniquely American fueled by rock ’n’ roll, jalopy or hot-rod racing and the freedom to experiment with hair styles and dance styles. It was a fun time when the youth were ready to make a new name for themselves in the creation of a brave new world of hip-hop design.

Smooth black-and-white linoleum tile floors, chrome-plated tubular steel and new products such as laminates and vinyl upholstery were all influenced by the sleek and pyramidal step shapes of the Art Deco era, the foundation for the acceptance of the New Modern style that followed the revolutionary ’50s era.

What’s going on in today’s retro styling? For one thing, the entirely white walls and the surgical-scrub cleanliness of the real ’50s have been replaced with wall coverings and fabrics with pattern! Today’s surface and product designers have added pattern and decoration and pulled together the design elements for a more cozy, warm effect. They also are filled with images that evoke a simple and optimistic past, much relished by many Baby Boomers who have fond memories of a simpler era.

RELIVING THE FEMININE SIDE
New for spring 2004 is another nostalgic look: the reminiscence of the feminine side of the glamour era of the 1930s and 1940s. This trend expands the definition of the retro style to a broader audience. This high-style look was seen at the end of the Beaux Arts architectural era in which beautiful detailing and great style from accurate interiors inspired architects and designers to create pure styles. Fashion was not just for interiors. The way one dressed was a key factor in succeeding socially.

Dress was decidedly feminine and masculine, respectively, and both sexes wore neat, precise-appearing clothing. A recent issue of the daily e-mail fashion magazine, WGSN Daily (Worth Global Style Network), reported that when prominent United Kingdom retailer Marks & Spencer unveiled its spring/summer womenswear collection for 2004 the focus was on retro glamour. If you saw the movie “Pearl Harbor,” the women’s clothing is an example of the inspiration for this new look.

Also predicted for this spring season is a change towards feminine, retro-influenced glamour eras from the 1920s and 1930s through to the 1950s and 1960s. This key look for spring is the Art Deco style from these eras of tailored elegance. This is a very soft and feminine look in whch key pieces include tea dresses, short cardigans and small, waisted jackets.

How does this forecast impact interior design? Fashion is often the precursor of interior design styles because first we wear the style, then we live in the style. With a return to feminine design as a strong element, we welcome floral prints and embrace the mixing of styles.

Examples of this newfound freely feminine look are seen in the bedroom vignette photograph featuring light spring floral nosegay patterns from Seabrook. This room evokes a gentle, simple feminine feeling. An example of gracious yesteryear gentility revamped for today’s interiors is seen in the other bedroom photograph in which beautiful fabrics from Waverly are inspired from the 1940s era of keen historic interest.

STRAIGHT LINES, COMPLEX DESIGNS
Another retro look that continues strong today includes the complex William Morris patterns associated with the Arts & Crafts era. Often we see keep rich colors along with frank and open oak furniture originally designed by Gustav Stickley, but made more livable for today’s intimate lifestyles.

The perennial charm of this style of interior is that it is deep, dark and cozy. It somehow feels “real” as compared with, say, cyberspace. All the elements—fabrics, textures, surfaces—are very tactile. They seem to want to be touched. Many people connect with this style as a part of their own history and want to make the style belong to them. It is a style of contrast—the straight lines of the wood furniture, the wall coverings, the draperies, the moldings, the floor planks—as compared to the complex and rich designs of the fabrics and fringe. The entire visual experience is rewarding.

Concurrent with Arts & Crafts was the Early Modern Organic Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright. His angular designs were inspired by the dual influences of Pre-Columbian South America and historic Japanese design. Many earthy, environmental interiors today focus on Wright’s designs as the key decorative element among frankly structural materials.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER
So many reasons exist for going back in time to recapture a style, to make it fresh and then to own it. The feelings of connecting to the past give greater security and satisfaction to the present and a future that has not lost touch with things and people who went before—which have made us what we are now.

Remembering is at the core of our being. Many people want to connect the future generation to the past, a desire with great nobility, for in preserving memory we foster appreciation, gratitude and love for the past.