All About Art Deco Interior Design Style! How to incorporate into your space

Hello my dears. We are going to focus on a design style today. We haven't done this in a while and this one has been in the back of my mind. I really want to talk about Art Deco with you. So in 2020 we had a lot of predictions surrounding this particular style and thought that it was just going to take off. Now I've seen it be fully embraced in the commercial setting and it looks really fabulous in hotel lobbies and restaurants, but I haven't seen it go full board in the home design arena. That's okay. I think that we can learn a lot from this style and it's been, I mean it's been a hundred years. We're going to focus on the roaring 20s and there was a lot of opulence and drama and really distinctive streamlined elegance that kind of hasn't been done since. So I think that we can learn a lot from this era and we can take pieces of it and add it into our own spaces. A lot of times I'll be like waiting on that last piece to make the room just pop and it needs a really great mirror or it needs some amazing piece on the coffee table. And I feel like the Art Deco is a really great resource for us to turn to in those situations where you need that last final piece just to bring in the drama and the elegance. I think this could solve the problem for you. So let's start at the beginning. You could probably guess that it started in Paris and made its way to the United States and it really started infiltrating the interior design world in the 1910s and carried to the beginning of World War II, so early 40s, but really took off in the 20s. So we call it the roaring 20s. It was the end of World War I. People were celebrating. They were optimistic. They were ready to get on with their life. The economy was booming. Aviation was an all-time high for the first time and so people were getting really comfortable traveling. Of course that meant you could get different pieces of furniture and decorations. It was just readily available unlike ever before. There was a lot of man-made opulence. They weren't afraid of technology and the industry that was taking off. You'll see a lot of really rich materials, really an overabundance of details and designs and expense. In fashion, we see the flapper dresses, of course, and there was a lot of swing dancing and the long cigarette holders. You'll see in the interiors just a lot of glamorous, opulent living. It's also known as the Jazz Age. If you want to get a full picture of what life was like, then you could watch a show like The Great Gatsby and then take a look at what's still going on in New York. I feel like New York, actually, if anyone was doing Art Deco well, New Yorkers are. You can see it in a lot of the architecture, so the Chrysler Building, Radio City Music Hall. If you've been to Disney's California Adventure, there's a lot of influence in that architecture and you can take a look at the detailing on this fence at the front, very Art Deco. And then the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California. If you'll notice this style in old concert halls and movie theaters, that's just kind of a no-brainer. It just looks classic and dramatic and it's the perfect style for those types of areas. Okay, let's do an overview of what we're talking about with Art Deco designs. The first thing I notice is colors. They love the jewel tones, so that's going to be your Emerald Green, it's going to be Sapphire Blue, Ruby Red. They did not hold back on those colors. If they weren't doing jewel tones, they're probably doing Black against Gold. Lots of contrast. I love contrast in metallics. And if it wasn't Black, it was probably Dark Gray. You'll also notice the use of geometry everywhere and very linear geometry. More triangles and rectangles and straight lines than circles. If you were going to bring in anything rounded, there was a favoring towards like the shell shape or the fan shape. And they took these shapes and they would repeat them over and over again in mosaics and patterns and textures on clothing and details on walls and lighting. They loved the straight lines and just kept bringing those shapes together. If you're interested in the history of interior design, I have a whole course that is one of the classes is the history of interior design. It's my Elite Decorating Academy and we focus on everything you would need to know to become an interior designer or just to finish off your own new build. Whatever reason that you could need to know extensive interior design knowledge, I've covered that in this course. We talk about colors and undertones, how to put a floor plan together, where to source items, how to deal with contractors, and the current trends, how to mix design styles. Our graduates have already started their own businesses. So if you're interested, I'm going to put the link below and I'd love to see you in my Elite Decorating Academy. So maybe you're thinking, I do really like Art Deco. I don't know that I would live with it all the time. But you're interested in using it periodically. I think it's a really great wedding theme. I think it's a really great New Year's Eve party theme. So maybe that's going to be where you use it. I also see how people are using it just in pieces like this in the Waldorf Hotel here. They're bringing in natural elements, so wood and wool, and mixing it in with some of those old details of the Art Deco era. All right, let's break it down even more and talk about the way you would layer a room using these elements. We'll start with flooring. Clearly, you could use any of the patterns and shapes that we talked about in your flooring. You could do that with stone. You could do it with rugs or tile. I'm really shy with using trending tiles because I hate the thought of having to break tile and replace it. So it might not be something I'm going to do. But you could look into doing maybe a rug with some lines and triangles and rectangles in it. Just keep a lot of pattern and a lot of contrast. Okay, as far as fabrics, you're going to do velvet. Velvet, velvet, velvet, velvet, everywhere. A really good example would be like a tufted stool out of vanity that's covered in velvet and it has that bullion trim around it. Bullion trim is something you can find on Etsy. It's just a long six-inch tassel look, and you can just hot glue it around the bottom of an armchair or a sofa if you want to bring in just a touch of Art Deco. And of course, I mean, just think anything opulent. So faux fur would be fabulous. How's that for alliteration? And then as far as throw pillows, I mean, I don't see these very often, but this would be a time that I would use round throw pillows. You can find them on Etsy. And they have the pleat fanning out from the center. That's a very 20s look. And then as far as the shell or the envelope of the room, you could use wallpaper with any of those Art Deco patterns and designs we've talked about. You could bring in mirrors. I really think mirrors are going to take off more and more, so especially the mercury glass mirror or that antique mirror look. For windows, stained glass windows look great, and you can buy overlays that you just lay on top like contact paper and get maybe just even like a transom over a door would look good with that stained glass look. And again, if you're gutsy enough, you could do tile maybe in a powder room or something. This is sort of that fan design we talked about or a backsplash in a kitchen. And then for furniture, a lot of the shell style that I was talking about previously, that's actually called channel tufting. When you have the padding and the fabric going in about every six inches, like stitched into the back of the chair, that's called channel tufting. And any of the fan look or the shell look would be perfect for Art Deco. This style of furniture is called waterfall, and it just means that the corners are rounded. You can find these on Facebook Marketplace. So the rounded corners, that waterfall look, but especially if you find a piece that has a huge round mirror, that is definitely from the 20s. You're going to see also in lighting, that's kind of a theme where they don't really love circles, but when they do them, they do them big. And then velvets, back to the velvets and the bullion, we see that here with the jewel tone. Anytime there's a lot of metallics or marble involved, it could be a good Art Deco piece. And then let's talk just for a moment about symmetry. So you may already know this, but symmetry is anytime you have something that you can divide directly down the center and you have a mirror image on either side, so the human body has symmetry. Art Deco design loved symmetry. You'll often see just straightforward, you know, bed with matching nightstands, pendants coming down on both sides, exactly the same on both sides. If you are dealing with asymmetry, you have to work hard to get both sides to balance visually and you bring in weight or color to balance out. We'd have to balance out this black chair on the left by adding in more color and weight, even though there are technically two chairs that's not symmetrical. Okay, a couple more fun ideas in the furniture department. We'll call them furniture. One is room dividers. There's some really fun ones out there with the patterns and the opulence of Art Deco that you could look at. I added in this one with the mirror. I thought about not adding it in because it has more of a Victorian detailing on the top, but I do love that it has that sort of stair-step look around the edge. And then, of course, those mirror tiles are fabulous for what we're covering. And the last suggestion I would have for furniture is to think about bar carts, and you can use them in pretty much any room in the house, but they did a lot of partying in the 20s, and so you could bring in bar carts and style up different things in the bathroom or whatever. And I would specifically bring in circles for this, either like from a bird's-eye view or from the side, and these are readily available. You can find these on Amazon or wherever you get home decor. It brings me to my favorite topic for this era, and that is the lighting. So this is a chandelier, which looks like a flapper dress to me. Anytime you see something that reminds you of a flapper dress, it's probably from the 20s. Absolutely gorgeous. If it doesn't look like that, then it's more of an industrial-looking like this one in this nursery. And, of course, we have the globe look going on. You'll see more of those. I love, love, love sconces from this time period. They have a very Chrysler-building look to them. So these are some wall sconces. These would look really good in a bathroom. And then this, you're going to see a lot of. A lot of the human figure or animal figures in metallic, and then holding a globe, and the globe is the light, and then some peacocks. Now these you're going to spend $500 on, or you can get one at World Market for $50 right now. So there's a wide range in prices for a lot of art deco pieces right now. OK. Wall decorations. Mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. You can't lose if you want to bring in mirrors. And these are both have really straight lines in that stair-step design. I added this beautiful little medicine cabinet in because I love the detailing of it. I thought it was really unique. You can always add in signs. I think that the fonts during this time period are just so iconic and bring in so much drama and glamour. And then the art is almost, I don't want to say cartoony, but it's simpler than other time periods. You know, we didn't really do oil paintings. More almost anime. You guys probably, you art majors, would probably have a better word for what I'm saying, but the art's pretty simple. If you wanted to do words for your artwork, I suggest F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote The Great Gatsby. And then here's a couple of examples of what I mean by how distinct the fonts are. OK. I'm going to say details to add to the finishing layer of the room. OK. We already talked about the human figure, animal figures in metallics would be great. Of course, anything with feathers or the fan, a feather fan, would be fine. And pampas grass, I feel like could work really good as a stand-in for feathers, especially if you have a corner, you know, that you're trying to fill and you want to add in more of a statement piece, bring in some pampas grass. Next, I want you to consider your dishes and maybe bring in some of those detailings and patterns that we talked about earlier. Places like Wayfair have really great selection right now. You can dress up your drinking glasses. I see really great drinking glasses when I'm out thrifting. Crystal is good, really detailed crystal. And then I love the idea of putting your perfume in a perfume bottle like this. This one's $10 off of Amazon and that's just a fun way to elevate your everyday. If you have a corner that you need to fill and you're not going to do the pampas grass idea, I suggest doing the palm tree look. This is actually a palm plant. This one is six feet, I think it's $90, yeah, $90 on Amazon. And so you don't have to spend a ton of money, you could get a faux plant. And the banana leaf plant is another good one that goes really well with this look. For coffee tables, look at mirrored trays and of course, like whiskey to counters are good for, I mean, not just a bar cart, but I use them in the bathroom for a mouthwash. I put my lemon juice in these. You could do, I don't know, olive oil or vanilla or something in your kitchens and I just love them all grouped together. Each one just feels like a piece of art and grouped together is just a really stunning collection. All right, where do we find all these things? You've heard me touch on these things as we're talking, but just for fun, I went on Facebook Marketplace and I typed in Art Deco and wanted to see what popped up. And within seconds, I found some lights, I mean, there's our girl holding the globe that we talked about. I found this sweet little floor lamp, which I may get for myself. And these are all like $50, right? Collection of art and even found this armoire, which is a few hundred dollars, which is still a really great deal for something like this. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. There was so much that came up on Facebook Marketplace. And I don't think that Ikea actually has a ton of Art Deco pieces, but I am going to give a shout out for these martini glasses because I have them and I think they're fantastic. Really great price, really stunning design. So I recommend those from Ikea. And then Anthropologie has a good selection of, you know, Art Deco inspired pieces. I love this mirror. I love this set of mirrors. I mean, you can buy them individually, but I love that they have this feather influence there. Love this light. And then they have a lot of smaller pieces like trinket dishes and things that have that the mosaic repetitive patterns going on that we talked about. Other places you could look would be CB2 or Wafer. I've seen a lot of things on both of their websites. Hopefully that gives you some ideas if you need to add in some drama to your space, bring in some Art Deco. If you are interested in other design styles, I think it's fascinating to really break it down and figure out how to bring the pieces together. I've done, I have a playlist actually, I'm going to link that for you, but we've done Bohemian, we've done Cottagecore, we've done English Cottage, Mid-Century Modern. A lot more traditional styles are in that playlist, but if you're interested, you can check those out and let me know in the comments below if you've got some other ones I can focus on. I think that would be fun to visit with you. Alright, thank you so much for watching, take care, and I will talk to you next week.