The next big design wave could be...
Michael Greene -- Furniture Today, November 18, 2001
I feel it in my bones. It's time to go back to the future in some furniture design.
Michael, are you nuts? That's all we keep doing in this Never-Neverland of ours. If it's not Sheraton it's Hepplewhite. If it's not Hepplewhite it's Mission. If it's not Mission it's Early American (remember?).
All of them beautiful and charming in their own way, if they're made with love and care.
But the Ol' Swami here feels that we've been stretching back a bit too much. The signals I've been discerning are just around the corner. A 50- to 60-year stretch would be more in keeping.
What brings this all into focus, Michael? Maybe a bad dream?
Uh! Uh! First of all, I've been seeing tiny publications featuring the elegance of simple styling and delicate light-hued wood finishes. Classic outlines with inconspicuous hardware and metal trims that have the elegance of basic-black fashion gowns that are great for all occasions, from the opera to 9-to-5 office attire to lunch at McDonald's.
Yes! It's the stuff that we Americans bandied around half a century ago and plastered with the rainbow colors of plastics. The stuff that arrived on our shores from Scandinavia in simple attire ended up being redecorated for mass U.S. marketing.
It's time, again, to re-examine the ideas from those shores because those stores here that have nurtured it for years are still leading marketers on these shores. Marketers who remained loyal to the original designs and didn't try to "readjust" it to fit the so-called American mold.
What brings these back-to-the-future thoughts to my little mind are two calls I received. One friend called to report that the two chairs and ottomans from Scandinavia she couldn't unload two years ago at a tag sale had just been sold at auction for $5,000 after being used in her home for over 50 years. She could have gotten $8,000 but the cushion fillings were finally falling apart. Wow-e-e!
The second call came from a buddy in Florida who bought a furnished apartment bearing the imprint of one Heywood Wakefield. It, too, has been enjoyed for over five decades, and if she didn't love the stuff she could auction it off for a sum that would pay for a chunk of her little apartment.
What's the point, Michael? Simple. There's a generation out there that never sat or slept on simply designed, fine-finished, Scandinavian furniture. Give them a break and yourself a profit by searching it out for your floors.
Thanks, again, for listening.
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