We're having much more fun

We're really enjoying the new directions design is heading in this year.
Top Picks For Fall 2008 Design trends.

Rules - Out the Window!
Shabby Chic - Double Out!
Knock-offs of Originals - Out!
Matchy Matchy decor - OUT!
Themes of an Era - Out!
Minimalism - Out!

Intentional breaking of design rules - Totally IN
Industrial Moderne - IN
Unknown Originals with a Past - IN
Absurdism - IN
Futurism - More on that in a sec but I declare it IN
Excess - IN

I LOVE "in/out" lists and as long as they match my my own ideology, I love reading them.
That's why we follow certain design blogs.

I think it's a reaction against the co-opting of Mid-Century design by Mega Chains like Potterybarn/UrbanOutfitters/Anthropologie etc. One original 1940s hand carved machine/foundry mold is sexy, a shelf of 20 indentical reproduction machine cogs, never used for their intended purpose is sad. Like the 40 something posing as a teenager with surgically enhanced and rendered body parts, the 400, jeans artifically aged and embroidered with faux vintage designs. It just misses the mark. It's a little Souless.

Personally I get more joy out of a naive original painting than I ever could out of a giclee of a masterwork. Giclees are embarassing design faux pas. They scream Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart. Poorly rendered DIY also gives me visual hives.

While shopping for a home we saw more than out fair share of HGTV inspired mis-steps. The one that stands out the most was the Gold and Purple checkerboard wall with a metallic overglaze. Very trading Spaces circa 1998. It might have been cool, possibly maybe, if the home owner had really taken it and run with it to the finish line. Unfortunately they had "finished it" with a 90s Mardi Gras poster of CATS IN MASKS (seriously??) and some purple candles. Maybe it could have gone somewhere if the furniture had somehow worked with the screwball Mardi Gras theme, but the sofa was PLAID and the coffee table was that icky sicky grandma 70s colonial maple.
There was no cheese factor, it wasn't intentional. It was just sad.

I like a little cheese. I like Absurdist Design. I like Mix-n-Match. Personally I love a 'super sounds of the 60s' streamlined sofa paired with a french wingback. I like hyper modern chrome paired with South American santos. I dig a console covered in oyster shells and coral holding framed photos of Brini Maxwell and 30s glamour shots of film stars. I don't like one painting centered on a wall, I like a collage of 10 paintings creating a wall.

Someone asked me recently 'what makes an item Hollywood Regency'? Oooh. I had to think about it. For me it's a gut feeling and I didn't have a good cut and dry answer. High gloss white consoles might be Hollywood Regency but anything in high gloss white is not automatically hollywood regency. Gilt and Goldleaf are often mixable into a Hollywood Regency look but you couldn't just spray paint anything gold and call it HWR.
Sadly I see this a lot these days. Probably the most eye-hive worthy was the spray gold patio chair. Ew. Where to start?
Cast Aluminum chairs are very cutting edge hot right now. But not all vintage cast aluminum chairs should be stripped and polished. The cabbage rose covered gaggy cast aluminum chairs from the 80s? Not HWR, never will be HWR even if stripped and polished for DAYS they'll still be covered in cabbage roses. Cabbage Roses are (not in my own book) Hollywood Regency. Cabbage Roses will always be associated with Shabby Chic and will never make the cross over to high style. Daisy Dukes will never be acceptable day wear and cabbage roses will never cross over into the light.

I think Shabby Chic will always be a downhome trailer look in my mind. Don't get me wrong, I like Southern Culture, Paula Dean is my favorite cooking chanel hostess and reruns of Designing Women are also favorite can't sleep tv picks. BUT, the southern culture on the skids look of shabby chic with never ever sit well with me. Maybe it started out well with good intentions, maybe the thought of the guest room of the old family home in Pass Christian MS was the original inspiration. White chenille bedspread, glass beaded roses in an old Gorham silver vase on the white painted bedside table, smell of faded Claire Burke drawer liners, a copy of Dinner at Antoines for sleepless night reading.

But then it was co-opted into an industry formula - Subtle florals favored by Grandmama turned into candles in every flavor and funk of comfort stench Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Maple Mayhem.. cotton chenille was cheaper to produce in polyester, great grandmothers hand tatted lace and doilies could be replicated in cheap lace, faded sea grey morphed into sludgy blue, the old 200 year old corner cupboard painted and painted again by generations of wives was replicated with chippy paint.. somehow silk flowers got mixed in.

Honey, silk flowers are for graves when you can't get out to visit very often. And even then you ought to have the decency to feel a twinge of guilt about leaving fakes on a grave. It's not right.

I did grow up with a family home in Pass Christian and a Southern branch. Grandmother from Altanta and Grandfather from Beulah, La. I get Southern culture. "Shabby Chic" as a look has devolved into a tacky-bad fake. Luckily my other set of grandparents were Ct Yankees who retired to Florida, I think I got the best of both worlds.

So currently I'm veering towards absurdist decor. It's one of those things you either get and will realize you've always liked pairing a collection of toy robots on a florentine side table or you don't get it and will secretly hate it.