Everything old is new again
A case for following trends, what you can learn from the trend cycle, the best of the mainstream and an old home decor trend I'm revisiting.
I grew up in a big city but I spent much of my time in middle and high school in smaller towns where I often felt out of place among my friends. The context shift between city life and small-town life was difficult for me.
At home and with people who were also from big cities, being different was good and normal. It meant you were creative and smart. There was altogether more variety and diversity was accepted. Everyone was carving out their own path, own style and own interests in a mass of people and it was a worthy endeavor. In the smaller, suburban towns where my friends lived, being different was weird. Everyone was around the same income bracket, spent their time at the same few spots, wore the same clothes, listened to the same music and watched the same films. If you didn’t do those things, you were an outlier. I loved vintage clothes, jazz and old films and the only Marvel movie I’d seen was a few clips of Iron Man when my dad was watching it one weekend in the back house. I couldn’t relate and didn’t know what the other kids were talking about most of the time.
I tried to insulate myself from that feeling of being an outsider by believing that different was better. At least I wasn’t part of the crowd or riding the bandwagon. I want to be different — who cares what they think! Just be you. And, sure, there’s plenty of wisdom in those statements. Groupthink isn’t the best way to map out your life. When you are young, it is so important to learn how to think for yourself and hold fast to your convictions when the tide moves against you.
But, when I look back on it now, I do wish I had participated in mainstream culture a little bit more and had joined in on the things that other kids were doing. I think I would’ve had more fun and been less lonely.
For all of their terrible qualities, trends and popular culture bring people together and there’s a wealth of good in that. All my life, I’ve had a sort of disdain for trends (probably out of self-preservation) that meant I never participated in them. It’s yielded mixed results: I have my own sense of style and my own unique hobbies and I’m happy with who I am, but sometimes I still feel out of place.
Trends are about fitting in and while this is often seen as a negative (conformity: bad) one of the most useful outcomes of a trend is that it gives something context. Trends tell you when and where something originates; an idea, an item or even a person. They set context.
I’ve been thinking about this within the realm of home design. I spent an hour on the phone a few weeks ago with a designer who spent much of her career restoring old homes to period-appropriate decor. (It was for this story, if you’re curious.) One of her biggest design tips when renovating an old home was to reference the materials and styles that were popular at the time the home was built. In other words, investigate the trends.
The reason that this is so important is that every home, every space, exists within a specific context and that context determines how a million other decisions were made. The size of the rooms determines the scale of the crown molding. The year it was built determines the materials used. As old homes have been updated with contemporary design sensibilities, that context is lost and things begin to look out of place. Maybe it’s the scale of the kitchen cabinets in relation to the room or the too-light finish of the hardwood floors that would never have been the choice when the home was built. By returning to the styles that were popular back then, a home can gain a sense of correctness, a sense of place.
For all of the years that I’ve disdained trends and sought to be different, I’m having a bit of a reckoning right now. I’m curious about trends — the old trends that I could revisit to make my house feel more contextually appropriate and the new trends I could participate in alongside my friends — and I’m beginning to see their purpose. Everything exists within a context.
There’s a merit to letting things belong to a specific era; letting a home be of its period, letting your wardrobe choices correspond to the year you’re living in or letting your interests follow what’s popular or shared at the time. It’s not about conformity; it’s about ease. It’s natural to move with the flow of culture. None of us are immune to the context within which we live. It shapes us.
Today’s newsletter is about trends, how they can be good, why it’s worth participating in them and the types of items that resurface each year. Thanks for being here.
WHAT TO LEARN FROM THE TREND CYCLE
The styles and items that come back again and again
My mom’s closet is a treasure trove of pieces that have been in style and out of style and then back in style over the last 30 or 40 years. In high school, I wore her perfectly preserved 90s Laura Ashley dress to a dance decades after she purchased it. My grandmother is the same: she keeps quality items well-preserved in her closet, which means that I was able to borrow a chic Longchamp Le Pliage tote last summer when they came back into style with raging popularity once again.
Some fashion experts say that the length of the trend cycle — usually thought to be about 20 years — has shortened due to the impact of social media and fast fashion. Now, an item can be in style one day and out of style weeks later because brands keep producing new things to keep people interested.
Just this year, I’ve been reading and seeing that preppy style is back (the glory of 2000-2010s prep style, which was an iteration of 1980s and 1990s J.Crew … which was still an iteration of 1940s and 1950s style… you get the picture). Boat shoes are coming back for the summer and, guess what, Vera Bradley is back, too. Break out your wristlets and quilted tote bags, ladies!
While many of these trend resurgences can be attributed to fast fashion brands and consumer culture, something I’ve noticed is that the items that do come back into style have a set of similar traits. Most of the time, they’re quality items made with quality materials (cotton sundresses, quilted bags, etc.). They have some sort of brand notoriety: Vera Bradley, Laura Ashley, Longchamp, Levi’s, etc. And they belong distinctly in an era because they were widely recognized and loved at that time. They’re authentic and, in a sense, honest. It’s not a reproduction; it’s the real thing.
Trends get a lot of disdain from people who want to be unique and different and above the rest, people who think they have uncontested “good taste” (whatever that means). But, really, there’s plenty of value in participating in trends; you just have to know how to navigate them. It’s the materials and the makeup of the item that allows it to come back again and, because of that recurring trend cycle, it’s eventually turned into something that can be understood as timeless. Quality items of quality construction — even if they represent a specific era, trend or taste — endure. A few of my favorite trends in fashion and design are examples of this: white, slipcovered sofas, block-print fabrics, chintz, blue-and-white decor and bows on everything.
It can be good to be part of the crowd.
MAINSTREAM GREATS
Beloved for a reason
An uncontested style icon across generations: it’s not original to say Jackie O. is your style inspiration, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You can’t argue with her relaxed elegance.
Sargent Stripe by Soane Britain — a classic ticking-stripe, a popular pattern in 1980s shabby chic decor and now, again, in the trend toward English cottage-style design.
An old J.Crew catalog cover. “Normcore” at its finest.
I’ve seen intaglios everywhere lately, especially framed intaglios with floral designs. I like this fun, bright one from Pentreath and Hall. They have a few styles depicting famous literary figures; this one is Dante Alighieri.
A block print fabric remnant from India via the George Washington University museum.
A white house surrounded by greenery — classic, even if white houses get all sorts of flack now.
Was “Goodnight Moon” read to you as a child?
Classic ballet flats by Repetto — they may be having a resurgence, but I don’t think they’ve ever been out of style.
Bowood by Colefax & Fowler in the green and gray colorway. It’s a pattern by a British designer that’s been a fixture in home design, especially Southern homes, for the last few years. To me, it represents the trend toward English design — it’s classic and it shows its origins very clearly.
A universally agreeable show. You can’t say you don’t like Friends.
LATEST (OLD) DESIGN FASCINATION
Covering everything in colorful tile
I think I’ve shared before that we bought a flipped house and many of the original details were pulled out and replaced with contemporary pieces. We’ve more or less been returning the house to a more period-appropriate look little by little since we bought it.
One day, I’d love to redo the kitchen and the bathrooms, all of which now have gray color palettes and contemporary fixtures, to their former glory. I don’t have any photos of the original rooms, but I think it’s highly probable that they had decorative tile throughout, as was common in the area and for homes built in this era.
I’ve become a bit obsessed with vintage tile and decorative tile borders in the process of researching old homes. Let me show you why.
In this 1930s Spanish Revival home in Santa Barbara, featured in the Los Angeles Times, I love how the pale yellow tile pops with the black border. I’ve noticed that, frequently, black is used to border a paler, brighter color in vintage tile combinations. And always, always, always, there is a border (even if it’s not black) that frames the tile and usually some sort of trim, like that pencil trim toward the top.
I’m not sure when this kitchen was designed so the tile may not technically be vintage, but either way, I love the combination of the two tiles with diamond patterns in Lee Radziwill’s Paris apartment. This photo was taken by Eric Boman for Elle Decor — see more of her homes. Again, black is the accent color here.
How sweet is this vintage bathroom? One thing I’ve noticed is that every space with vintage tile has some kind of border that frames it. You can see it on the walls here, with the thinner blue trim at the top, but also on the floor, how the blue tile frames the edges of the diamond pattern and extends up the wall slightly like a baseboard. I think it gives it a more finished look than a sea of of tiles without borders.
I really can’t get over how beautiful the decorative trim tile can be in some of these bathrooms — this one has water lilies and frogs. (Photo by Greg Premru for an article in Arts & Crafts Homes.)
If we ever renovate the house, I’d love to do tile countertops in the kitchen and walls of gorgeous, colorful tile in the bathrooms. Or, like they say on the internet right now, if I won the lottery, I wouldn’t tell anyone, but there would be signs: vintage tile everywhere.
VARIATIONS ON THREE THEMES
Build a whole room scheme from these inspiring pieces
Remember how 90s kitchens had really strong themes? The entire room’s design was derived from a single inspiration: roosters, fruit, or an Italian villa — something like that. Going big on a theme with a daffodil garland, a shell dish or a lemon candlestick and make up a whole room around it.
GOOD CHOICE
The author everyone’s raving about right now
I bought a copy of Dolly Alderton’s “Good Material” from a newsstand in the airport while waiting for a long-delayed flight over the weekend. It’s the third of her books that I’ve read (and the most recent) and I tore through it in about 24 hours. Add it and all of her other books to your list!
All the best,
Mary Grace