Saturday, January 14, 2012
You can complete your sentimental journey at home, writes Kya deLongchamps, by mixing some personal stuff.
THERE’S one style that politely re-introduces itself at least every five years. It may be described as country casual, light romantic, nostalgic, vintage. This year according to the Trend Book, a design industry standard for what’s happening in interiors, it’s simply termed ‘sentimental style’. Whatever it’s dubbed this look is reassuringly familiar, every time it comes to call.
You can buy an entire room from a showroom floor, and many contemporary packages have a flat screen television thrown in to sweeten the add-water-and-stir experience. What these rooms do not include is any soul whatsoever. There’s no feeling of accumulation, of having collected and placed things that are truly personal. Older things, things that look like they were handmade or even homemade, appeal to our deeper senses, the part of us that longs for the uncomplicated comfort and memories of home.
CYCLES OF STYLE
Forty years ago, a nostalgic look would pick up period cues from the 1940s and decades before synthetic materials, gleaming appliances and modern popular styling swept away Edwardian and Victorian classics. Baby boomers wanted their comfy front rooms, scrubbed pine tables and childhood toys back. Dated furniture, worthy or not, heaped into skips in the 1950s was enthusiastically fished out of landfills and auction rooms in the 1970s. Art Deco and Art Nouveau became popular yet again.
In the 21st century, we ‘discovered’ the hip creations of mid-20th century, found we love minimalism and are creating our own era of interiors. Still, the influence of the quietly styled, traditional, fuzzy-edged room, layered with years of family living in unassuming vintage pieces, remains a popular choice, even if it’s reserved for intimate escapes like the bedroom. Sentimental style, is really quite daring, as it bares a little of your heart. It’s unpretentious, contented, inviting, and it sings out something about who you really are and your deeper response to the things around you.
YESTERDAY TODAY
Today, you can take get sentimental over post-war printed fabrics, home hewn American Shaker, indulge in the enduring appeal of English country casual, or flirt with the romance of French Provincial. The atmosphere will be the same. It’s lighter in tone than say the vintage style of the 1960s to 1980s where sofas were barricaded in pneumatically blossomed cushions, every curtain strangled in pelmets and tie backs, twee ornaments wrestled together on every surface. Today, we know that less is more, and that lesson is surviving as we discover that it not only looks better to have less stuff and reduce the visual chatter of patterns, but it’s far easier to live with.
MIX IT UP
There’s nothing to say you can’t mix up some contemporary favourites with older things, even antiques, but rude urban chic in glass, chrome and jet blacks will sit uneasily in this roomscape. It doesn’t have to be chokingly feminine, but think charming rather than challenging. Looking around the major retailers, you’ll soon spot the sentimental quarter in their collections. IKEA, for example, dub it Light Romantic, with brass beds, drifts of blossom and a white ground lifting even very modern lines to ethereal heights of romance. There’s nothing wrong with shop-bought sentiment, it’s how you feel that counts. Pick up some lavender bags next time you’re in the chemist and throw them into your linen drawers. One single breath and you’ve begun that sentimental journey at home.
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