Unfortunately for us, financial instability and overall life uncertainty are part of the same big dark shadow hanging over our heads. In the cynical and fast-paced societal environment where we are bound to live, there’s one protection bubble we’ve been building for quite some time. A place that makes us feel safe and confident.

Let’s think about it. What things in life do we have control over? Taxes? Absolutely not. The cost of city transportation? Unfortunately not. Even when we think we do, we don’t. One way or the other, something will always be bigger and stronger than us. Instead, what is that one thing that makes us feel completely masters? That one scenario where we are the only ones making the rules? Well, as they say, there’s no place like home. Those four walls are our stronghold. When we’re scared, insecure, or cold, that’s where we go. It’s a place of comfort. Of certainty. There, we truly are untouchable. And our homes say a lot about ourselves. The internal disposition, the style, the structure, and the neighborhood are all pieces of a puzzle that we could call our persona or our identity. The way we build our own place gives an overall perspective on the way we see the world. If someone is really punctual, precise, organized, and diligent during their daily life, most likely they’re going to have a place that will reflect those values. Therefore, meticulously cleaned and always stocked with enough food to feed future generations.

The point is that if our homes tell us a lot about ourselves, they must tell a hell of a lot as well about society and the era we live in. Let’s imagine a scenario where the economy is not living its best years, and families are struggling to make it to the end of the month. It would be quite unusual to see properties filled with stuff in every corner. People would have to make financial adjustments and stick to the basics. To what is usually considered essential. We’d develop a mentality of scarcity, which would bring us to act accordingly in our normal life. Houses would be bare, just like our wallets. Let’s imagine the opposite now. When everything is going great and salaries are high, we feel allowed to buy more and more. A higher number of stops at groceries. Better clothes. Shinier hair. More restaurants. Better schools. If you had bigger disposable incomes, trust me, your house would look like a museum. And you’d have to get rid of something because spaces are unfortunately limited.

Those four walls are a reflection of trends that spread regardless of the area. If something takes over the fashion world, it will only be a matter of weeks or months before it spreads over to other businesses like beauty, interior design, food, etc. For example, that’s exactly what happened two years ago when the wave of self-appreciation and natural beauty took over the planet. Every sector of business was impacted because a macro-change was happening beneath the surface. A shift in our mentality moved our attention from the relevance given to perfection and fiction to the untapped novelty brought by the celebration of our persona and our own imperfections. People started paying much more attention to what they ate than ever before. Healthy food became the must-have and must-do to live a longer life. The beauty sector felt the consequences of a growing demand for transparency and maximization of our natural appearance. Our houses all of a sudden started including elements that some would have said did not match the one with the other. But that’s how we discovered the elegance and beauty brought by taking risks and being fearless. And inevitably, the fashion world was impacted as well, paving the way for new sustainable and ethical practices. As you can see, everything is intertwined and nothing is unmotivated. There’s always a reason why we do certain things. And all of this is a slightly longer introduction to what has been happening during the most recent times. As a continuation of the self-beauty macro-change, 2024 still showed old traces of mandatory transparency and truthfulness. In fact, people have finally realized the importance of being healthy and enjoying life as much as possible. We’ve understood how significant it is to spend some quality time with people we care about, doing things we like. We’ve discovered new faces of ourselves by getting to know our true untapped passions and dreams. We’ve come to deal with our long-term life vision, deciding what’s best for us. Remote work has been a great asset to our awareness, making us see with open eyes the beauty of the world. Money has lost appeal - certainly not for everyone but at least for a fat slice of people. No one can be bought anymore with the promise of a future higher salary if that means having no time to spend it. We don’t want to get to our 50s and look at life as a large bag of regrets and missed opportunities. And of course, all of this has a reflection on the way we decided to structure the nests of our lives. Amongst all the trends and major stylistic movements that took place in the last year, they all share a common baseline: imperfection, minimalism, quietness, closure with nature, hazard, and old/vintage take. There’s not exactly a single name above all that gives the idea. If we probably had to summarize everything together, we could probably call it “polished rawness”. Yes, a clear contradiction - guilty as charged. But it’s precisely the feeling that best defines the new line of values and interests people developed over time.

Imperfection and Hazard.

The self-beauty movements taught us a great lesson. There’s no perfection like imperfection. It made us look at the world for what it really is. A beautiful conglomerate of individuals, all different from each other, where the extra touch of charm and originality is not given by the impeccable detail. What makes the difference is that very same detail not being taken care of. That’s what makes us unique. The possibility to leverage the distinctiveness of our features, turning them into strengths. That’s how we’ve started to appreciate ourselves - even though it’s still a long way to go. If that is how we feel in our daily life, it’s no wonder how we slowly instilled our homes with the same vision. The perfect house where everything is extremely highly detail-oriented with nothing left to fate, seems to have walked past us. The new frontier is represented instead by locations totally contrasting when it comes to styles. A vintage oriental rug matched with a modern wooden dark brown small table on it seems to be so not in line that they end up being perfect together. We don’t really care anymore if styles are compatible with each other. If we like something, we welcome it to the family. But this new take on things is not only related to the matching we do when it comes to structuring our place. It involves, as well, the selection of particular objects that, standing alone, make all the difference in the world. The weirdest, the better. That piece of furniture that looks made into a laboratory for how insanely strange it is, works perfectly for us. That’s how seeing a lamp with a solid base consisting of a deformed old dirty small boulder, connected to an upper part made of a copper lampshade must be ours. Or again, how can we miss the opportunity of copping a minimal abstract induction hob set in a shapeless rock? We shouldn’t. We’ve matured a higher risk appetite, which motivates us to dare and try things out. Also because, at least in our homes, no one is judging.

Ronnie Sassoon & James Crump’s Soho Loft, Le Cime IG

Minimalism and quietness.

If there’s one rule we should have learned by now is: less is better or less but good. After a period where the fashion world was led by figures like Alessandro Michele, and a consequential style that we could summarize with “the more the merrier”, today shows a different interpretation. Everything starts from a deeper interest we all have in our mental and overall health. We sincerely care about our well-being and the joy of living well. To do that, we’ve started to put into practice effort and commitment to be able to see the world with that vision. Yoga, meditation, and contact with nature are all actions we decided to embrace because they would allow us to grow maturity and the ability to recognize what’s essential to us. With many preoccupations and second thoughts brought by our daily living, we have to be able to detect what are the things that can bring us joy and tranquility instead. If our wardrobes have been shrunk to the bones, keeping what is versatile and essential, our homes have gone through the same process. To see the world with clarity, we needed to be clear in our head in the first place. And to that, we needed to make sure that our place smelled of clearness. Way more frequent have become the investments we make when it comes to furniture. We only want the good stuff that will stay with us forever. It’s better to have a few selected items, where each one we researched and waited for, instead of knick-knacks whose overall value equals zero. And let’s be honest. There’s something reassuring and attractive about smooth surfaces and curated interiors. But pay attention, this is not a general minimalism. We’re talking about a warm one. A particular design style that infuses our walls with mindfulness and quietness. Who says we can’t bring simplicity, functionality, comfort, and style under the same roof?

Old/vintage.

We’ve slowly learned how to appreciate the intrinsic value of things. The originality and roots of our past. That’s why old pieces from past generations started to be part of our daily home life. If until a couple of years ago, the old grandma’s wardrobe gave us the creeps, the tables have been clearly turned now. Not only, it instills comfortable feelings of familiarity in our place, but it gives it a solid aura of timelessness. There’s nothing more important to us than authenticity. Impeccable looks and designs are way more than pleasing to the eye - no one argues with that. But until all they have is just exterior coolness, well, they’re disposable. Now, compare it with something that is instead lived through, with a history, a path, and a meaning. That’s unbeatable. There is simply no way on Earth something will ever come and take it away. Having an old piece in our place can make us feel close to a person we care about. Grandma, grandpa, mum, dad, sister, aunt, etc. The list goes on and on, but the point remains still. Sometimes we buy an old object as part of the global layout of our home even if it didn’t belong to anyone in particular. But it has maybe a life to it. An experience and a history that suddenly creates a connection with a memory personal to us. It can be the same chair you used to sit on when you were a child. Or perhaps, the very same marble counter we all used to have pancakes on. The world of interior design and furniture felt the same positive consequences of buzz and business that fashion has felt and is still feeling now with the interest in vintage and thrifted garments. Even if these are obviously different branches, the line below remains the same, underlying a grown awareness regarding the overall value of things.

Closure with nature.

Are we passionate about life and all the things that compose our existence? Are we interested in the health and conservation of the world we live in? Well, it seems to be that way. As we all know, every single business and the entire global population nowadays are much more vigilant when it comes to sustainable practices, so that we can live in a better place. Fashion has and is trying to do better - even if it can be quite challenging in this case. Beauty brands are actively proposing adjustments to create products that are the least harmful to the environment. The food industry is proceeding with further experiments that can hopefully create a healthier environment. Everyone is doing something. And all this trying that we witness on a daily basis does nothing but influence our judgment and the way we look at the planet. And this inevitably affected our vision of interiors. We could call it a green makeover, nature-driven approach, or simply biophilic design - an option that puts the respect of the natural world at the base of its method. According to the Cambridge dictionary, it’s about the “love of living things and nature, which some people believe humans are born with”. As humans, we crave to interact and connect with forms other than ourselves. We want to feel the world close to us - especially in locations we care about like our own homes. Therefore, the biophilic interior design is the perfect option to feel that closure some are so desperately in need to reach. Even though there’s no formula on how to pull off the perfect Mother Nature style, there are some guidelines people seem to be following when it comes to infusing our places with unique nature’s harmony. The first obvious detail that would turn our nest into a magical heaven of stillness would be the color palette. But earthy tones like beige and light brown, or shades of green are not the only choices at your disposal though. Amongst the reasons that make nature so beautiful to watch, there’s without any doubt the wide variety of locations and different environments. Therefore, if you are the kind of beach person, well, it’s plenty of calming colors going like shades of beige and light/dark blue. Not in the mood for a stroll on the beach? No problem. From the deserts to the mountains, we got all the inspiration we could get. The second piece to incorporate into our house is given by the presence of natural shapes. It wouldn’t be a truly original place without the authenticity brought by actual elements of nature, from which we can absorb shapes or textures. Plants, handmade vases, and rocks used as sinks are elements that bring us back to places. They turn our imagination on letting us fly with our minds. Then, how do these places look so bright and shiny? No artificial lights - for the most part - but just the naturalness conveyed by the sunlight. The spaces look wider, and calmer just like the heaven above our heads.

It’s not simply about home decor and stylish furniture. It’s not about the warmest and brightest color to make our walls pop. And it’s definitely not a game for which house is the coolest in the neighborhood. That is the reflection of our mentality, dreams, and aspirations. It’s one of the few things we have control over. But what we do is not dictated by our personal orientations only. It involves the events that take place in society. Therefore, for every business owner, seller, or whatever: if you want to know what the market wants, dig deep into people’s homes. Use social media to investigate and gather information. Try everything in your power to know as much as possible about what people are buying to make their places comfortable and cozy. Why? Because that’s where the secret is. Those four walls are nothing but the reflection of the minds of all human beings.

Raw Yet True

Masquerade of Authenticity

Vintage Revival