I didn't think you were that old!!

I think futuristic for a while. I personally will be glad when Mid Century stops being popular as it was the stuff that was used to furnish the low end apartments I lived in in the late 60's through the first part of the 80's. I like comfort and it was not comfortable then and it still is not.

Boho/Maximalist/Neo-Victorian- I don't know if I am predicting or wishing though.

What was "in" 25 years ago? That's what will be back.

A quick look at the 90's and a recent trip to IKEA shows similar furniture

Who knows! No one seems to be particularly interested in interior design these days, if these forums are an example. No one wants to educate themselves, buy/read/clip from shelter magazines, buy/read books. They just want what they see on TV and what their neighbor has. They have little interest in quality as they quickly tire of what they chose and want something different.

I cant' say I'm particularly optimistic that good, timeless design will return, or antiques make a comeback in the general market. People just don't have time to bother with it and don't care that much.

Was classic design ever popular with the majority of people?

What was popular 25 years ago?

I have to agree about MCM, rather ugly and uncomfortable-looking to me. I'd love to see a return to color and classic furniture that feels and looks good. The gray trend is so shopworn and is barely livable, but everyone still seems to want those sterile rooms. I've pretty well given up and have no idea what will appeal to the collective consciousness next. Anything warm and livable would meet with my approval.

i don't know, i really did not appreciate mcm the first go round, this time around in the updated version i am more appreciative. I also see that it is great to mix with other styles the clean lines can be almost like negative space and allow your eye to move to more decorative looks.

Minimalist. Functional.

I have the same (negative) reaction to midcentury modern. I wonder if it's a baby boomer thing. I dont recall my house being furnished in that fashion, but I so recall in the mid to late 60's going to my dentist's office. The office was attached to his home, and the furnishings in the office were many cast offs from the house. That is my recollection and memory of MCM. It was not cozy or warm, or uplifting or anything beyond sterile.

I agree the styles and trends get recycled but with newer twists of course. It's funny though because initially I was repulsed by the grays but now through constant exposure - I am comfortable with it and even feel that it is a fresher look.

I am really puzzled reading that the 90's will be coming back. I have to say, I loved the chintz/Laura Ashley/ color trend that I guess was from that era.

I am hoping for color to come back. Right now so much is neutral and or gray. Nothing wrong with neutral if done right but I miss rooms with interest in using jewel tones and antiques. That is just me.... who knows if that will be "back in style." I think anything being "in style" for too long makes me grow tired of it.

If the historical cycle has anything to do with it, traditional and colonial revival will be part of the resurgence.

Colonial revival has always shown an uptick when the United States has a 25 year anniversary: 1870s, 1900, 1926, 1950s to the Bicentennial. In 8 years we will have the 250th.

The other thing that affects the cycle is what furniture starts to flood the vintage and resale market and is plentiful and cheap. The next cycle is starting to include a lot of "brown furniture" that no one seems to want right now, and stuff from the 1980s and early 90s. Designers will start picking up good furniture from this resource and use it.

It won't be just one thing, it never is. While lots of people in the 80s were doing the ruffles and geese thing, there was also Late Modernism and Post Modernism. The Midcentury revival and the Arts and Crafts revival both have roots in the 90s. There are tiers of design and different segments of the market are doing different things.

I dont know if it is a prediction, or just wishful thinking. LOL However, I would love to see a lot more bright colors, and rooms that make you happy to sit in, rather than the blah perfection of so many these days. One post on this forum right now, makes me want to visit and just enjoy a nice happy looking room. That doesnt mean, I would eliminate gray from a room, because it is a neutral, and I would much prefer gray than any shade of brown, tan or taupe, which have to be the most boring colors ever, unless the brown walls are a very dark almost black. Maybe again is wishful thinking on my part, but, sure am hoping there is a decline in all these boring white kitchens.

In my opinion, they move into eighties right now-but with even more brilliant colors. From what I can jugde

(I haven't been here through eighties so it might be our eighties looked a bit different)

I see lighter wood returning full force too-that's more nineties.

I do agree with Palimpsest it won't be one thing though..would be several things at once. Which is great, really-what's the interest if everyone is doing the same thing?

I can't agree more on this "The other thing that affects the cycle is what furniture starts to flood the vintage and resale market and is plentiful and cheap. The next cycle is starting to include a lot of "brown furniture" that no one seems to want right now, and stuff from the 1980s and early 90s. Designers will start picking up good furniture from this resource and use it."

That's how I started furnishing our first house here-with mcm pieces. It was before it became a trend-so was very cheap second hand, but superb quality. I do so love mcm-it reminds me of childhood. Our home was very warm and cozy. No sterile associations. And as I love and appreciate so many styles, easier to count what I don't love lol, I find mcm -or some of it-easy to incorporate into so many rooms.

..and yes, I noticed-within myself-a heightened interest in beautiful armoires, antique desks, fine china, etc. For several years already. I suppose I'm not that original-there will be other people like me lol. Velvet, wallpapers-has been my dream for many years. And it's in its zenith, from what I can see. So no, I don't see sterile rooms all around. I see wild blooming, actually. Some Art Deco is evidently here..numerous things are happenning. I also see more glam, lucite, gold, rounded lines..I also see appreciation for handmade and folksy and different ethnic motives, but that probably never really went away. I see Victorian too. I have perfect victorian-feel curtains btw -that I decided not to hang, but can't bring myself to separate with them.

Lucky me loves every color under the Sun..it's a proportion and combos that make me use it more or less. i don't find neutrals and true colors mutually exclusive, I love them all.

But a good book,say, or a movie, or a scene from somewere I travel, can push me into appreciating new color combos. It doesn't mean I'll use them full force, because it's only one house, after all, which is already quite colorful-but I'll will persistently look for ways to sneak them in.

Hmmm - I’m thinking the new trend will be a play on what we’re already doing only using different material combinations, textures, colors and the melding of different designs already existing. I see jewel tones coming into play in a big way. And then we’ll all sit around and pick apart the new color trend and how it brings the whole room down, lol. ;)

The 70's have to be next! I can't see the 80's ever coming back though...LOL.

Early 80s I was in teens Black Lacquer furniture

Loved the film Dangerous liaisons, but guess no chance for Baroque style to make a came back

I am hoping that a revival of Italian mid-80s Memphis style design will return - that was my favorite period, and I think it mixes well with mid-century (which I also love) and modern.

I would like to see a revival of Art Deco, but that furniture was/is pretty expensive.

The trend i would really like to see is first anything goes, but more importantly, that we buy big box for general stuff, but buy what is important to us from craftsmen. i love the thought that we are comfortable with cool ikea shelves along with a specially designed desk from a carpenter and let the overpriced ripoffs close.

This looks much like what I was doing in the 70s.

I fear that what we will see is a pendulum swing - so minimalistic MCM is “in” - so that means we will head to the other extreme such as high Victorian or Rococo with lots of saturated color. I am absolutely loving that no one wants (1) antique furniture (2) oil paintings (3) silver (4) gilded age china (5) antique crystal (moser & baccarat). As far as up & coming, well I have seen Maison Jansen furniture and their signature pieces especially out of Belgium double in price in the last 5 years. But I could care less what is “in” - I have always decorated my house for me so it is very eclectic incorporating family pieces from the pre Civil War through the 1960’s.

LOL bellburgmaggie :-)

I now have a tiny bit of hope! DGS1 has a summer job at a lovely 19th century inn, filled with gorgeous English antiques and accessories. It's a Relais & Chateaux property. He has commented to me that he loves that the rooms "feel like a home". Of course, what he's referencing is his own home and mine, which have lots of English antiques and lively fabrics! He's always been attracted to the highly contemporary so perhaps now that he's 18, he is realizing that when it's time to buy and decorate a "real" home, he'll return to his roots.

Hurrah for Relais & Chateau - love their hotels and stayed in them across Europe. Does anyone else find the MCM and some of the edgy modern to be too much like a hospital that is pretending to be a hotel. I cringe when I see it because that is what I am thinking. Cold, sterile, impersonal and waiting for my appendix to come out.

I like some modern thrown into the mix of pretty traditional English and French antique furniture. MCM is not on my list of top 10 favorites, though.

<Does anyone else find the MCM and some of the edgy modern to be too much like a hospital that is pretending to be a hotel.>

I'm not sure why looking like a hotel would be a problem, but I definitely do not find MCM or edgy modern to be like a hospital at all. Industrial may in some cases remind me of a hospital, but not MCM. What I do find oppressive is Victorian and English antiques - I get a headache looking at them, and I much prefer a less cluttered look, to allow my mind to rest and to meditate. I don't like minimalism to the extreme of causing me to wonder how I will be able to locate a wastebasket, but I do like an overall Zen look to a room. In fact, it is possible that Japanese style might become more popular in the near future.

For my own purposes, when trying to predict the future for American design, I look at what is current in Italy, as the Italian are generally a decade or so ahead of Americans in terms of trends, except for the cities such as New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago where trends also catch on fairly quickly.

I seriously doubt that baroque or rococo will come back into style, as it has always been intended for the elite rather than for the masses - that is until the Victorians made cheap reproductions of it. I seriously hope that does not happen again. A designer friend of mine told me that he thought Medieval style would become popular, but if that did not happen with Lord of the Rings, I doubt that it will.

What is enduring about MCM and contemporary furniture is that it is fairly easy to mix additional styles with it, if one so chooses, especially from other cultures, and I think that a multi-cultural design may become popular in the near future. I have already incorporated that into my own style.

Almost any furniture that is "first period" of its type or style tends to be pretty handsome and well-proportioned. After about 1850 is when furniture started to rehash older styles but " improve" on them and mix periods together and when mass production superceded design--and that's when the awkward and ugly became commonplace.

There really hasn't been anything more new than not since Late Modernism thirty odd years ago and that's why new furniture that isn't in the style of something predating that tends be pretty meh. There's nothing that comes to mind as "first period 2000" in furniture design for example. Architecture or industrial design maybe. And the issue there is that most people aren't embracing any thing innovative right now either. The meh rehash is what everyone seems to want.

I love Post-Modernism as an art form but it's original intent was as a statement not as a serious style of furniture.

I think that the mass market of abundance of stuff in home decorated is what is fueling people towards minimalism. People want less stuff to have to clean, rotate , and take care of. We have busy lives to live! I think we are moving towards more meaningful pieces in our homes, neutral spaces with splashes if color to make it easier on the eyes, and whatever quality of furniture we are able to afford. I see more mixing of styles and period pieces and I like that. It makes each home unique to that family and much more interesting. I’m optimistic about what is yet to come!

Mafleur- I wouldn't know how to envision 80's style if asked, but looking at the photos in the link, I think those were good examples. And, I wouldn't necessarily remember that "era" fondly, but those rooms were well done. Uplifting even.

My house sure didn't look like that in the 80's! :)

Nor mine! I was into country decor then (thankfully without the geese)!! Still love blue, but went through the peach and green stage with mauve. I remember lots of wallpaper too. I think some of decor will always be dictated by where one lives. Having lived by a beach my decor is lighter. I was born walking distance to the beach. Dark, heavy decor would have looked out of place. My mother loved to decorate and was very good for an amateur. She was able to mix pieces and understood the dynamics of scale and color. it was timeless. That’s the difference. With the right pieces, you will always have a classic beauty.

A woman by me that owns a successful decor store tells me she sees boho as very popular for the 20 and 30 y/o. She says older than that they are not going in that direction.

i don't remember a lot of that either, i do remember that dull blue with the geese with bows. ugh.

I did not see 80's in those rooms AT ALL. I survived the pastel era but I mostly ignored it.