Journal

Why Mid-Century Modern is Here to Stay

November 8, 2016  |  classic design trends, inspiration, midcentury modern, style
Why Mid-Century Modern is Here to Stay

Clean lines, tapered furniture legs, and low profiles all make up the look that is Mid-Century Modern. This is a look that our minds compute as simple and timeless; it’s a look that’s here to stay.

Mid-Century Modern is the Helvetica of interior design. It works with everything. Victorian wallpapers with their big floral prints, Georgian brick buildings, and Gothic Rose Windows all have had their time to shine. Eventually though, they prove too much. Their eccentricities become dated and eventually they wear out. Mid-Century Modern is the basic black dress in a party full of prints.

Jill Founder, the founder of the design magazine Sight Unseen, said “When this stuff was designed, it was specifically made to be democratic and to be lived with. It makes sense that it has a wide appeal. It’s beautiful materials, classic simple shapes that can seem timeless. It’s not like a blob chair from the early 2000s. It just kind of goes with everything, somehow.”

This style of design work first originated in the Bauhaus, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s so impeccable. At the moment we as designers are waiting for the next big wave of unconventional design work to rush over us. We are waiting for the new Art Nouveau staircases, and a fresh Arts and Crafts Tiffany Lamp; we are waiting, if you will, for the next printed dress to wear to the party. This is good and fine and all, and we should wait with bated breath and hearts full of hope, but let us not forget that we still have Mid-Century Modern. We still have a classic black dress.