30 years of interior design trends

The Nineties was the decade the interiors brag was born. It was the first time that having a particular object in your home instantly signified that you knew what was hot (or not). Take Smeg’s FAB fridge, a streamlined retro rectangle in red, launched in 1997. A refrigerator with no corners — revolutionary. Those who invested were sending a clear message: “I am an aesthetic adventurer in my choice of curvy chiller.” Early adopters were insufferable. I know, I was one. In Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit the lettering on Wallace’s fridge has been pointedly altered to spell “Smug”.

On the kitchen countertop, more curves. Creative cred was established with Alessi’s “conversation piece” Juicy Salif, the curvy lemon squeezer by Philippe Starck (1990) — the one that looks like something from The War of the Worlds. In fact, the squared-off corner was at its lowest ebb by the end of the Nineties when the iMac G3 launched in 1998, in all its turquoise and white space-age glory. From memory, it was illegal, under New Labour, for anyone in the creative professions to be without one.

Left: 1990 — Alessi’s Juicy Salif was more art object than practical citrus squeezer. Right: 1997 — Smeg’s retro-styled FAB fridge was the kitchen essential of the late Nineties

NICHOLAS YARSLEY

Which brings us to Farrow & Ball’s domestic domination. Gaining popularity throughout the Nineties, by the Noughties the muted heritage shades of the F&B palette were the official colours of the Middle Class Good Taste club. For an extended period after Elephant’s Breath was unveiled in 2005, every MCGT kitchen extension featured EB (or, whisper it, a colour-matched version), along with Crittallesque glazing and The River Café Cook Book. Combining the covet factor of a revered brand with the comfort of mashed potato, that cosy mid-grey became as unstoppable as a charging pachyderm. “Grey first began appearing in the early 2000s in magazines and was regarded as very modern and cool,” says Kate Watson-Smyth, who wrote a book about how to choose the right shade of grey. “From being the colour of undercoat and unfinished objects, it became the new magnolia.” She says that true colour connoisseurs opted for a darker shade. “I never liked the ubiquitous Elephant’s Breath but preferred, instead, Farrow & Ball’s Downpipe, which I used all over my house in 2012. I was asked about it so many times that eventually I only had to type the letter ‘D’ on my phone and the full word would appear.”

Hard to believe it now, but shades of grey were chic for a long, long decade and a half. Our love affair continued until about 2016, when Rose Quartz was named as one of Pantone’s Colours of the Year. Then, the embrace of what was considered a pretty, girlie colour felt risky, thrilling. Transgressive even. The natural paint specialist Edward Bulmer had developed a dusty pink called Cuisse de Nymphe Emue (“blushing thigh of the aroused nymph”, because F&B hadn’t patented silly names) to use in his private projects. Nymphe officially made its way on to Bulmer’s paint chart in 2015 and went on to become a bestseller. The rest is design history. Millennial pink — more casual and cosy than Gen X grey — covered the walls of a generation. Initially giving “unconventional, edgy and daring” vibes, it was only when the trend for mocking millennial taste on social media took hold that pink began to feel like the white trainer of paint, signifying “staying in my comfort zone”.

On the floor, meanwhile, the fitted carpet had gone the way of the recessed ceiling spot and the short curtain, into style oblivion. Thanks to one big player, the rug was transformed into a home brag. Long before the high street started employing influencers to create clickbait collections, the Rug Company pioneered the designer collab, with a host of fashion houses from Marni to Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen lending their creative talents and brand names. The hottest property was Paul Smith’s psychedelic Swirl. Launched in 2000, it became the rug of the decade, taking up residence on the carefully sanded and oiled original floorboards of every smart Noughties living room. The designer rug was born.

2005 — Farrow & Ball’s Elephant’s Breath became a must-have in the Noughties

By this time even design professionals were buying designer homewares. The luxury lighting specialist Lee Broom remembers treating himself to the Alessi Big Shoom bowl by Nigel Coates. “It was for my first flat living on my own in London, in 2002. It was totally white, including the floorboards, and furnished with 1970s vintage finds, smoked glass and accents of chrome. The Big Shoom bowl was the focus piece and the only object of any value. No one but myself is allowed to clean this bowl and it still sits proudly on the coffee table of my home today.” The Big Shoom is a mirror-polished stainless steel mini sculpture, a star that outshines all other accessories, illustrating both the purpose and the downside of the statement piece. Living with homewares that are permanently doing jazz hands can be exhausting.

Which is why we fell so hard for the concept of the Considered Home when, in 2007, Julie Carlson founded Remodelista, her online guide to creating rigorously unshowy, obsessively curated, quiet interiors, featuring practical classics in modest materials. This Californian website, launched the year before Goop, preceded a genteel tsunami of the refined and understated, documented by lifestyle magazines such as Kinfolk (set up in 2011) and Cereal (founded in 2012). The objects of desire on the Remodelista-approved list signal membership of a different style tribe from the Shoom society. As the owner of several Remodelista icons myself (brown Betty teapot, cedar clothes airer, Swedish concrete loo brush holder), I have given thought to what we stand for, and it is mostly about creating a calm, harmonious habitat and one-upping the owners of the statement rugs. We can’t stand those guys.

Whenever there is a backlash, a counter-revolution isn’t far behind. Enter maximalism in the 2020s. Instagram changed everything, obviously. When the app launched in 2010 those squares were windows into real homes, and within a decade we were copying and pasting ideas from fellow posters, including, in no particular order: rattan peacock seats and Swiss cheese plants; scallops on everything; Ikea’s Sinnerlig pendant lights; Camaleonda sofas; Anissa Kermiche’s viral bum vase and her Love Handles, which said of its buyer, “I am cheeky and quirky and am supporting artisan ceramicists with my shelfie.” This kaleidoscope of consumables in our phones set the stage for an outbreak of bold colour and OTT Morrisesque pattern, rich textures and fancy trim, layered with the random bric-a-brac beloved of grandmillennials. House of Hackney’s extravagant floral prints, such as Artemis, were the Zoom backdrop to many a Covid cocktail. And fans would soon discover the maximalist move-on — decadent designs from Divine Savages, Susi Bellamy’s trippy prints and the psychedelic papers of Kit Miles.

Left: 2020 — House of Hackney is a favourite of the new grandmillennials. Right: 2024 — East London Cloth has made the café curtain an interiors must-have

In the years since the pandemic a thousand “cores” (grannycore, Regencycore, Beetlejuicecore) have come and gone, troubling nobody but the TikTokkers trying desperately to make them happen. There was a moment (and this could have been a cottagecore phenomenon) when crafty home improvers were adding skirts to storage, shelving and under-sink areas — particularly effective in snazzy Colours of Arley stripy cottons. Relatedly (perhaps file it under cafécore), the café curtain by East London Cloth, hung on an aged brass rail by deVol, remains the drape du jour in the sash windows of west London, perhaps because it says, “I am au fait with the hip design labels of Bethnal Green.” The home brag has always been as much about showing that you are in the know as displaying what you buy.

In Style’s early years many of the furnishings guaranteed to add instant cachet to your living space were by great Danes, 20th-century architect designers such as Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen. Thirty years on, the home brag hotlist is almost entirely female, composed of in-demand decorators who have created off-the-peg home collections. Invest in cupboard pulls by Beata Heuman, Nicola Harding’s cerulean blue side table, a gingham lampshade from Salvesen Graham, or Tatjana von Stein’s super-glam sectional sofa, and you can rest assured that your home is saying “finger on the pulse” as well as “stylish for the next three decades”.

Interiors brags: 1994 v 2024

Then Matthew Hilton’s smooth and curvy leather Balzac armchair was the smartest seat
Now It’s all about thesquish. Buchanan Studio’s stripy Studio chair is the one to covet

Then Dulux Brilliant White emulsion
Now Bauwerk White Fox limewash

Then Statement pieces ruled the roost: “Look at my swooshy Paul Smith rug and my pillarbox red Componibili cabinet from Kartell”
Now Stealth wealth rules. Think Rose Uniacke’s whisper-quiet Petersham couches and the Soane Britain Argo wall lights that only those in the know can spot

Then Showing off with how many en suites you have
Now What do you mean you haven’t got a boot room?

Then Sabatier chef’s knives in a professional-looking roll
Now A handmade Japanese steel santoku kept in its individual box

Then Philippe Starck’s Juicy Salif for Alessi out and proud on the countertop
Now A Mexican elbow kept in the drawer — until we actually need juice

Then For home scents, the noses in the know loved Diptyque’s Feu du Bois and Baies
Now The brag is the niche label Officine Universelle Buly or anything by Francis Kurkdjian

Then Getting out the sledgehammer and knocking through a wall
Now Spending our weekends sewing a café curtain

Then Everyone was installing a wood-burner, like those clean-living Scandinavians
Now It’s all about the ground source heat pump. Do you want to see our new EV charger?