In my conversation with design psychologist Sarah Seung-Mcfarland, we discussed the trends and the thread that connects them: nostalgia.
Whether it’s 70s Revival, Neo Deco or grandma-chic in interiors and fashion, or biopics for the cinephiles, every creative on earth must’ve had the same thought at the same time: I wasn’t there but I really wish I was.
Sarah was right: we are obsessed with big anniversaries. With the 10th, 50th and 100th anniversaries of 2016, the 70s and the roaring twenties, it’s only natural to celebrate the occasion with souvenirs from these iconic decades. But with the noise of three big moments in time, we’re forgetting that we have our own roaring twenties to create.
The Obsession With Archives
I think it’s wonderful that we honour the past. As someone who grew up with many siblings, I can say there is something about watching people do something before you. You study their style of doing it, you look at the circumstances in their time that led them to make their choices and you take notes, eventually doing it your own way with your own experiences and knowledge.
The issue is that we’re missing that final part. Yes, the design eras before us were unforgettable. There’s so much to draw inspiration from and we have similar issues to designers of the 20s and 70s, like war and economic downfall. But even if those designers were transported to our day, their styles would change because their challenges, influences and perception of the world would be different.
So why don’t we? I am yet to see a designer trust in their own judgement and do something completely new in mainstream design. And micro-trends don’t help. In a scramble to be unique, we’re recycling cliché after cliché. This doesn’t mean everything has already been done. It means that we need to get back to innovating.
The Fear (And Deification) of Technology
There’s a reason why burr walnut dressers, tiled coffee tables and painted murals are trending: They’re handmade. Luxury is and always will be about exclusivity. We now live in a world where craftsmanship and passion are rare. Mass production is so easy, and design concepts can just be imagined (or stolen) with the press of a button.
Somewhere between the desire to get something quick and cheap and offloading our renovation planning to ChatGPT, we missed a core part of what makes design so wonderful: striving. From drawing plans to execution, everything a human makes is striving after brilliance. To outdo last season’s piece. To outdo oneself. To be a patron of that is to be a patron of human excellence.
Facing job insecurity, creatives turn back to their predecessors, who didn’t have to worry about 3D printers replacing sculptors.
So I sympathise. But I also say that the consumer is waking up to this reality too. Cutting out the middleman hasn’t made the world of design less impressive. However, tech designers make one flaw: assume that consumers dislike flaws.
AI is slowly starving design of connection and making consumers realise that they took the middleman for granted. “You cannot separate the art from the artist” doesn’t just apply to monsters.
So… How Do We Do It?
It’s not an easy or straightforward process to find your style. And it’s impossible to find inspiration from anywhere other than your environment when you don’t operate in a vacuum. So ironically, I’d say it’s by doing what designers of the previous decades did: draw inspiration from those who went before, look at the challenges and influences of the world today, and adapt shapes, motifs and styles until you come out with something that looks like the piece of a puzzle. I’m not talking about puzzles. I’m talking about you and how you fit into a complex world.
The most interesting thing about my conversation with Sarah was that she said that she thought the 90s had nothing to offer when she was in them. She looked at decades before in fashion and interiors and thought the 90s couldn’t even hold a flame to them. But in hindsight, she now recognises the 90s to be one of the most iconic decades for design.
It’s our time to do something memorable. And I think that while we’re doing it, it won’t feel noteworthy. But when the next generation talks about the 2020s, so long as we can say we did it our way, I’m sure they’ll have wonderful things to say about us.
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