Vintage Decor Is Making A Comeback
Designing your home based on the past will assure it a place in the future. Discover five eras of vintage interior design.
Home furnishing trends, colors and styles come and go with amazing speed, making it a challenge for even the most dedicated homeowner to keep track of what is “in” and “out” at any given moment. The need or desire to remain current can be time-consuming and expensive.
The terms classic and timeless referencing design and architecture are vague and hard to pin down, and they are often overused. Presently, the popularity of vintage style – referencing the past with a few tweaks – is one answer to the struggle to harmonize old and new concepts.
A quick glance at any recent home decor magazine reveals influences from the past, whether in the form of antiques such as grandfather clocks, armoires (large cupboards used before built-in closets) or Hoosier cabinets, which stored flour and sugar in kitchens before cabinets were commonplace and standardized.
Attempting to define “vintage” is a bit complicated, as its stem, “vinter,” (Anglo-French) in combination with “age,” dates back to the late Middle Ages and references wine. Merriam-Webster, like most other dictionaries, offers several definitions of the adjective vintage, among them “of old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality” and “dating from the past.” Cambridge Dictionary states that “to be called vintage, the piece should strongly reflect styles and trends associated with that era.”
So, vintage design is influenced by the past, and according to Britannica Chatbot, it evokes feelings of nostalgia and celebrates the cultural heritage of bygone times. But in the past two decades, the term vintage has been “thoroughly diluted and deconstructed,” argues Shutterstock, and it “suffers from overuse in popular culture.” Often, the term can describe any type of product or design that references older styles.
In today’s understanding of vintage style, five basic historical periods are seen most frequently.
