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Favorite decor trends of the 80's?

7 years ago



Do you look back fondly on the color schemes that wove their way through the 80's? Do you miss the CD racks and halogen lighting? What was your favorite?


Tell us! (photos encouraged)



Comments (42)

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    wait a minute.... are you saying cd racks and halogen lights are out? aiya.....no... its ok, both have moved to the basement, inching towards the trash/goodwill decision.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Italian Post Modernist furniture.

    American post modernist furniture produced by Knoll.

  • 7 years ago

    I agree. And flattering to people. It just got used in some unpleasant or insipid combinations.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Realizing that styles are often regional, our local newspaper ( Orange County, Ca) recently published an article on trends coming in 2018. One of the trends was 80’s inspired decor, done in a way “ we all wish it was done the first time around “. Wood cabinets returning with simpler profiles ... in walnuts, teak and French oak. Also floral patterns and saturated colors. Times are always “a changing” .... what’s “in” today will be considered “dated” sooner than we think for many on here.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I loved the Memphis movement in Italy - particularly items designed by Ettore Sottsass. I wrote a research paper on him for one of my design classes in the 80s. I bought a lot of copies of Casa Vogue (Italia) in the 1980s, and I still like that furniture. I also liked this seating by Michele de Lucchi.

    I also liked his First Chair. I've sat in one of them, and it was surprisingly comfortable.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I will watch this carefully to be reminded..but off the top of my head I am going to say NOTHING. The 80's were not for me. Pastels, micro blinds, vertical blinds...no no and NO.

  • 7 years ago

    The 80’s were much more than pastels & vertical blinds ... I didn’t like everything then, just like I dislike many of the things popular today ( e. g., wood look tile , battleship gray used inappropriately, Barn doors, ad infinitum. What many of us think is attractive today will elicit “ughs!” ten years from now.

  • 7 years ago

    Another vote for peach! I still have a peach living and dining room that go with my mahogany furniture. Southern Living rocks!!!!

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    It's always easier to say what you don't like, and there were a lot of things from the 80s I did not like either, but no more than what I dislike today. However, there was much, much more that I loved passionately from the 80s and almost nothing from today that I love as well (except my own work). Most of what I love from the 80s was from Italy, and in fact I never bought any domestic design magazines during that period. Office furniture from Italy in the 80s was beautiful, and many interior designers in Italy combined minimalism with antiquities back then, which was somewhat novel at that time. That is something that I still do. In the 1930s - 50s it was common to combine primitive art with abstract minimalism, but I do not see that continuing so much today.

  • 7 years ago

    In addition to the Post-modern / Memphis there's a lot of handsome Art Deco Revival/Late modernism that started in the seventies.

  • 7 years ago

    Laura Ashley floral fabrics in the bedroom with matching/coordinating bedspread, pillows, lamp shades, curtains... Pink roses as far as the eye could see!

  • 7 years ago

    I'm definitely on board with matching bedding and drapes but my parents did that in the 60s 70s and 80s.

  • PRO
    7 years ago

    Goodness, when I think of the 80's, I think of Mario Buatta in his heyday with the English Country House look and Colefax and Fowler at the very top. Yes, also lots of Laura Ashley bedrooms for little girls.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I find 80's stuff very easy to update. There has been much from the 80's on my CL and until recently I could buy all kinds of furnishings for practically nothing. At my age I can't think of forever furniture because I'll probably have another downsize before ...well, before the "home" or the end.

    I'm okay with my shiny brass side tables used as bunching/coffee tables, a Romweber credenza and fake brass dining table. The problem for most is looking past the color these objects are sitting in when shopping on CL. That's good for me. When I save its travel time!

  • 7 years ago

    None

  • 7 years ago

    Not sure I can think about much I liked about style in the 80s. I remember when we got ... wood toilet seats. We thought we had a great update. I also did a bathroom in peach - sponge painted white over it and thought it looked great. It didn't. We took out the "awful" 70s wallpaper and put up a much better 80s version - haha. I never want wallpaper again.

  • 7 years ago

    If the 80's were the era of the English Country House Look then I've actually never really gotten beyond that. That's still me today, although on a much more modest scale. Oriental rugs, Chinese porcelain, paintings, books everywhere, warm colors, comfortable mixed with sophisticated - that's still me. Mario Buatta, no, not so much. Spare Italian minimalism, not at all.

  • 7 years ago

    I can’t think of anything about the 80s either that I liked very much. I was still using antiques and flea market stuff, so a lot of it passed me by. I do remember the mauve and blue. Come to think of it I had a mauve and blue sofa and loveseat for a while and I hated it. I sold it a short time later and got two off-white loveseats instead. My apartment wasn’t very big.

  • 7 years ago

    Oh that's right Laura Ashley and Country..again NO.

  • 7 years ago

    Preppy Ralph Lauren

  • 7 years ago

    Leg warmers. Eerrrrrrr...no that’s fashion from the 80’s...

    Someday the future successors of hipsters will be all about ironic displays of framed needlepoint with sayings such as “home is where the heart is”, vinyl covered padded toilet seats, and wallpaper - different patterns for each room and hallway. Someone will decide to bring the color changing shirts (hypercolor?) to home design and it will ironically catch on, probably for the massive and puffy sofa sectionals and dining chairs (who wouldn’t want the heat from their back and rear to temporarily change the color of the fabric on stuff they sit upon!?)...

    Leg warmers and headbands. No neon. ;)

  • 7 years ago

    I still like the jewel tones, and I also still appreciate the Laura Ashley florals and colors.. I think I still have the remnant of a very sweet wallpaper border we used in our previous home in my daughter's room (it was a little girl room - she is now 35).

  • 7 years ago

    I'm another who used peach -- on bedroom walls. Yes, it's a flattering color. Not orange/not pink.

    I also had all the Laura Ashley decor books because I love English country.

    We had a ranch house, built in 1953. We replaced the kitchen laminate countertops with fake butcher block! LOL It was an eat-in kitchen and I painted my ladder back chairs yellow. We had to do everything ourselves as we couldn't afford to pay someone for cosmetic updates.

    I don't want to go back to the styles of the 1980s.

  • 7 years ago

    No idea if it's from the 80's or 70's, but I remember my mom getting a gorgeous Brazilian rosewood, and leather couch and chairs back in the early 80's.

    The arms and legs were one large, square wood piece and gave it a more modern look. It's the kind of furniture I would consider buying even today.

  • 7 years ago

    Vertical blinds. I don't care what trends say, they are perfect light and heat control for west facing or biiiiiiig windows, and provide good privacy control, too. They wouldn't work or be necessary in my current home, but I wouldn't hesitate to use them if they were the right solution.

    I loved Laura Ashley. My bridesmaids wore Laura Ashley (only 2 of them so it wasn't too overwhelming). My comforter is Laura Ashley from the mid-90s. I'd get it again today.

    TBH, almost any era fashion was fine, as long as it wasn't over-the-top and all-out. I always like a mix, you don't replace every. Single. Thing. you own just because style changes...do you? There's always the existing furniture, and the things you might get just because you like them.

  • 7 years ago

    Quilts

  • 7 years ago

    Memphis Group. Good to have a sense of color and humor in home design, too.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    If you look at 80's furnishings individually there really are some cool things you can mix in today's decor.

    However, there is one thing that really stands out in my mind and that was the over use of fake bushy plants or large faux arrangements everywhere that were dust laden. People didn't consider the cleaning maintenance involved. I just started sneezing thinking about it. This wasn't strictly eighties but for some reason I envision the eighties when thinking of a multitude of small leaved bushy plants. I don't dislike artificial greenery but do like moderation.

    "AW-CHOO»WAH "

  • 7 years ago

    Peach.

  • 7 years ago

    color-blocking

    stripes

    anything that looks like punk/new wave

  • 7 years ago

    This will date me, but I remember the Ivory girl - which represented a love of natural elements - might explain all the wood trim. I liked the use of wood, the movement towards granite even though my countertops are quartz (at least part natural materials) and the beginning of the revival of wood floors. I feel bad when I see natural elements - real clay bricks, stone and pretty wood painted - especially painted gray:)

    I don't like "matchy matchy" but I love pretty fabrics - probably why I have one foot in shabby chic - Rachel Ashwell meets Laura Ashley. I love rooms where the designer has coordinated the window treatments, upholstery, rugs without anything matching but working together - and with color!

    I also remember the 80's as a time when antiques were big and in my area, colonial style was in. I am not sure when the era of chippy furniture began, perhaps the 90s - I hated that. It was sort of early "farmhouse" and I disliked it because it was dangerous (often containing lead) and often an attempt to pass something that needed a good refinish as an antique that needed its patina preserved. No real farm wife wanted chippy furniture in her home.

    Todays "farmhouse" is just "country" reworked - an attempt to evoke a feeling of family and simpler times - real or imagined.

  • 7 years ago

    Wasn't it the 80's when the re-surge and interest in antiques became huge? I was in my 20s and very intrigued. Too bad the 20somethings are now intrigued by the likes of IKEA. :(

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    The younger generation is most “intrigued “ by the newest iPhone & social media ... I work out at a gym several times a week, I notice that most of the younger ones can’t even get through their workout without checking their phones several times, it’s an obsession.

  • 7 years ago

    Everyone I know uses their phone for music when they work out. That's why we check it here and there.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I fondly remember my pink and aqua sectional sofa. I think it would work well today, as the style has come back, even if the fabric hasn't. It would look great in a coastal sunroom!

  • 7 years ago

    while walking away from a restaurant we'd met to eat at that was closed for a private event, my sister made a rude-ish remark about my daughter being on her phone. happily my daughter heard her and replied 'yes, i just made a reservation for us at a restaurant a block from here'.

  • 7 years ago

    faux painting finishes!

  • 7 years ago

    I don't think I will recover the mostly peach flamestitch sofa covered in 1986-7.

  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    What year do you think this sofa is from? Is it 1980's? It's not my style and I don't need a sofa but I'm strangely drawn to it. It's been on my CL for awhile and is down to $75. The add says it's clean and has down cushions. What's wrong with me? I even saved it in my photos. I can see a sisal rug and cool chairs teamed up.


  • 7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Arcy, it was not the 80s when the interest in antiques became huge - it was the 70s. In the early 70s there was a huge interest in Art Nouveau; in the 80s there was a renewed interest in Art Deco. At least that's what I noticed in San Francisco and northern California in those decades. In fashion, there was an interest in clothes from the 40s in the 1970s and in clothes from the 50s and early 60s in the 1980s.

    I noticed that antiques were much more popular in the 70s than in the 80s, but that varied geographically. Antiques have always been popular in places like New Orleans and Charleston but less so in places like Houston, where new and modern were more appreciated. In the early 1970s Houston received a lot of antiques from Europe because there was a lot of money in Houston at that time from the oil boom, and Europeans thought they could sell their antiques there, but there was little demand, and therefore you could get European antiques for very low prices. If you went to New Orleans at the same time, the prices for antiques were considerably higher because the demand was higher. One thing I especially liked about Houston was the way it embraced new and modern design and styles in art and architecture.

    Another of my favorite designers from the 80s was Nathalie du Pasquier.

  • 7 years ago

    I second peach for all the reasons listed.

    Also calico and gingham. Laura Ashley yes, but don't forget Laura Ingalls! Anyone who grew up adoring Little House has an abiding love of calico and gingham I'm sure :)