Following the Crowd
More of the Same
“I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don’t want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.” — Alexander McQueen
As the saying goes, there’s safety in numbers, the idea being that when part of a large physical group or mass, an individual is less likely to be the victim of a mishap, accident, attack, or other bad event. As a hypothesis it translates into ideas of fashion and style, both of which we use to define ourselves and to establish psychological identities. It starts early, when children, and in particular for teenagers, who use clothes and accessories to make statements about their choice of peer group, and to establish psychological identities; for some the right outfit can serve as a conduit to the popular clique, whereas for others, clothing choice allows them to fly under the radar. Indeed many teenagers experience persistent worry about what they’re wearing, readily acknowledging that they dress to fit in with friends, with the possibility of choosing the wrong outfit hanging over their head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles. In teen world a fashion faux pas has the potential to bring about social ruin, and to become a set-up for insults and ridicule. This is something that doesn’t necessarily leave us, and as we get older the choices we make, much as when we were teens, are often considered to be markers of success, social standing and pedigree. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster (1902-1993) once said that “Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life” (a quote often misattributed to Margaret Thatcher); and whist we can agree such outmoded, outdated thinking has little relevance in today’s world, a good many still have aspirations to “better” themselves, and as they climb the greasy pole they encounter previously unforeseen obstacles in terms of bias, snobbery and prejudice. Suddenly that same sense of unease once felt in adolescence can rear its ugly head, but this time, with regards that ultimate marker of adulthood, our homes interiors; and as a result, people are often scared to stand out, or to make choices that might mark them as “different”.
In this private house, Brussels, Pierre Yovanovitch demonstrates with aplomb how functionality and originality need not be mutually exclusive
The Gallery at Sketch, London, by India Mahdavi, a designer consistently unafraid to depart from the expected
For the interiors industry this can be a double edged sword, as on one hand, a good many people employ designers so as to quite literally ensure their home is decorated in the best possible taste, whilst on the other, it can be a nightmare trying to persuade them to do something new, or rather, something they haven’t seen before. To some extent this has the result of holding the industry back, as designers often end up churning out near identical interiors for whatever bracket of clients make up their bread and butter. There will of course be the occasional exception, but on the whole a client will approach either a named designer, or a firm, either because they have worked for friends, or because they want the exact “look” for which they have become known, and with which they are comfortable. This is essentially where visualizers become a designers best friend, as hyper-realistic renderings can often convince an uncertain client far more quickly than even the most convincing, and heartfelt explanations of design intent (needless to say, that doesn’t negate any last minute changes, for e.g. of a too vivid bathroom tile or particularly risqué shade of upholstery). In part this is possibly a reason for why we are seeing such an oversaturation of “design classics” used in contemporary interior design. For the past decade we’ve seen Jeanneret (1896-1967) cane chairs, Serge Mouille (1922-1988) “Spider” ceiling lamps and, increasingly, Jean Royère (1902-1981) “Ours Polaire” sofas and armchairs (most of them fakes or repros) in every other high end interior and splashed across the pages of design journals and glossy magazines (and in the celebrity homes of for e.g. Kim Kardashian, Elle Macpherson and serial house flipper Ellen DeGeneres). Such pieces have become so instantly recognisable as signifiers of wealth and taste that for designers they’re an easy sell, iconic classics they can sneak into a client’s home, thereby upping the style stakes, without raising any eyebrows. This worked for a good many years, but now, quite frankly, we’ve reached saturation point. It’s essentially the very grown up equivalent of a teenager lusting after the right backpack or pair of sneakers. In the realm realm of adulthood, this might translate to such “signature” pieces as the Hermes “H” belt (or in terms of interiors, their logo emblazoned “Avalon” blanket, used seemingly in every single staged show home), which have become victims of their own success.
An elegantly eclectic interior by French architect Charles Zana, featuring an armchair found at a Paris flea market
The reality is that for the large part the worlds 0.1% are not inherently chic, they rely on designers, tailors and stylists in order to advise them on what they should wear. There are, as one might expect, certain dos and don’ts dependent on social background, many of which have fallen by the wayside, but are still adhered to by those without the confidence to do as they like. The City of London for e.g. tends to adhere to the old adage “no brown in town”, with the government’s Social Mobility Commission finding that investment banks are less likely to hire men who wear brown shoes to an interview. It is often assumed such rules are born out of peoples own insecurities, or the British obsession with class and keeping people out. Of course in trying to adhere one can easily fall down the rabbit hole, as even after acquiring the requisite pair of inky black Oxfords, one might encounter that particularly niche sartorial dinosaur who considers, as regards sock choice, that “only the butler wears black”. When it comes to matters of the interior I think we can all agree with Picasso who said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”. Moving away from fashion and back onto the topic at hand, as an interior designer it pays to know the basics, both in terms of the history of art and design, as well an understanding of those key architectural principles of scale and proportion. The greater ones knowledge, the easier it is to pick and choose, with confidence, references from different eras and epochs, and to reinvent and reinterpret them in a way that is relevant to our time. Indeed a number of those designers considered radical within their respective era were heavily influenced by past movements, Eileen Gray (1878-1976) and Eyre de Lanux (1894-1996) for e.g. with their use of traditional Japanese lacquering techniques, or, to a greater extreme, architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House (1924), with its walls of patterned concrete blocks inspired by the Mayan temples of Uxmal, Mexico.
The twentieth century saw constant and unrelenting “newness”, from Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941) simplifying and streamlining classic eighteenth century French shapes in the 1920’s and 30’s, to Pierre Chareau (1883-1950) taking Art Deco into the machine age with his now iconic Maison de Verre (1921-1932), the austerity of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), Walter Gropius (1883-1969) and the “International Style”, which was subsequently hijacked by the cynical and self-interested Philip Johnson (1906-2005), drained of its substance and humanity, regurgitated as the yawn-inducing banality of post-modernism (with all of its tedious inside jokes, quotations and put-ons), which coincided with the advent of 1980’s yuppie culture, the ipso facto corporate takeover of the art and design world, Richard Rogers (b. 1933), Norman Foster (b. 1935) et al, followed by the jagged edges, sharp angles and tortured geometries of Daniel Libeskind (b. 1946) and Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), once described by The Guardian as the “Queen of the curve” whose fractured, fluid forms evoked the chaos of modern life. Design and innovation go hand in hand, and its down to those patrons of the arts, the likes of Marie-Laure de Noailles (1902-1970), Dominique de Menil (1908-1997) and Maya Hoffmann (b. 1956), three women steadfastly sure of their own style, that we have seen such radical advances in interiors and architecture. If only en masse people were as sure of themselves, and their stylistic choices, we would see far greater variation in everything from furniture to colour palette and the overall materiality of interior spaces.
A typically original and inspiring interior by Caroline Sarkozy and Laurent Bourgois of CSLB studio, demonstrating the designers’ consistently impeccable detailing
Unlike fashion, for the most part, those items we choose for our interiors are far more finite, and less transient; whilst both industries talk of “investment pieces”, we’re less likely to change a sofa, or dining table as often as, say, a pair of shoes, and one key difference is that when it comes to our interiors, it’s something we see, and inhabit, almost every day of our lives; we can’t just store an armchair away in the wardrobe. Resultantly, and understandably, people are reticent to spend large sums of money on something which they might quickly grow tired of, or in time, come to regret, and accordingly, they tend to play it safe. Connected to this is a fear that any particularly outré purchase might result in mockery and derision. Mirroring, i.e. the behaviour in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern or attitude of another, can be a means of dealing with insecurity and bolstering self-esteem, or, mirroring individuals of higher power might create an allusion of higher status (which might go some way to explaining the somewhat baffling nature of the “Kate Middleton effect”). One can very easily see how this might translate into the realm of interiors, as by copying for e.g. the homes of celebrities, it takes away the often-overwhelming responsibility of personal choice. This is something the high-street knows only too well and has seen the rapid expansion and popularity of brands such as Zara and H&M Home — who pedal cheap trend based products, touted as “must haves” by a mass media conscious of its advertising targets. Whilst easier said than done, the world would be a far more interesting place if only we were to trust our own instincts and worry less about what the neighbours might think. That being said, equally, if not more so, those in the design industry have a responsibility to stop churning out identikit interiors, to produce original designs (within reason, as after all, almost everything has a reference point) and to persuade clients that there might just be an option other than a Prouvé “Standard Chair” (which in any event died a death after it was seen rolled out across the Whole Foods Market cafes) or Eames an lounger. That’s not to say such items should never be used again — but perhaps a sabbatical is in order.