Homeowner's Guide to Furniture Styles
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Scandinavian
What Americans often call “Scandinavian style” happened concurrently with the Art Deco and Regency movements, even if it hadn’t come to full circle here in the U.S. Some consider the Golden Age of Scandi style to be the 1930s, but it was really more midcentury when it landed stateside.
Scandinavian style is marked by natural, warm woods and materials, and its subsequent harmony with nature. It’s also prized as much for its practicality (size, function) as for its style (minimal, inviting). Styles popularized by designers Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl and Hans Wegner remain perennially popular.
This style surged most recently with the Danish interiors concept of “hygge” and Japandi styles. (Plus, you know, IKEA.)
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Midcentury Modern
“This one is the easiest one for people to recognize,” Wright says. The furniture style popularized from the 1950s to 1970s was led by designers and firms like Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames, Herman Miller, George Nelson, Knoll, Lane, Eero Saarinen and more.
Angular legs that taper outward and natural materials like teak, walnut and leather characterize the minimalist furniture. Informed by Scandinavian design, it featured well-made pieces with solid wood construction. But laminate and metal also came into fashion, and modular pieces (customizable wall units in particular) became popular. Wright snaps up these pieces when she finds one for her shop.
The widening perspective of design, made possible by economic boom time and commercial air travel, also meant other elements started to trickle in, including the Space Race (Sputnik lamps, bubble lamps, egg chairs).
If that wasn’t enough, Wright says, “even though you had clean lines, a lot of sculptural things were still happening at the time. Broyhill’s Brasilia furniture has a lot of curves in it, for example.”
Midcentury modern had a real resurgence when television’s Mad Men came on the scene. Many midcentury pieces are now considered timeless classics, but the general market has cooled on this style.
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Retro/Kitsch
There was a LOT happening from the 1950s through 1970s, and not all of it fit into the midcentury modern category.
Experts don’t seem to have a great catchall for it, but this category could include anything from Atomic/Space Race pieces like boomerang tables to hippie macrame plant hangers to boho wicker furniture sets and upholstery that featured chenille, paisley, velvet and mushroom motifs.
Some of these pieces and motifs have trickled down to cottagecore and found a little recent resurgence.
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