Will Contemporary continue to dominate case goods styles?

This is a really intelligent way to anwser the question.

I can't answer for evenoyre, but I just don't think it takes any great talent to spatter paint on a canvas (Jackson Pollack) or paint cubes (various artists). How does one discern any meaning to such things? Is is like the ink blots during a psychological exam? How do tell good splattering from bad splattering? It's much easier to look at a painting that gives you some sort of idea of the message it's trying to convey.

Today's Consumers feel they are creating homes that are more modern than their parents homes. They are less concerned with industry nomenclature and focused on fashion driven styles. Most of the retail industry does not concern themselves with the interior design nomenclature that strictly defines furniture styles. So although I am not an expert, I feel the overall marketing research is skewed because of the confusion about definitions. However, the general theme is that consumers want to feel like they are buying more modern looking furniture so, more furniture will be tweaked to fit the demand. Might be more interesting to show actual current sofa styles to consumers, retailers and designers and have them select from 5 or 6 style definition options.
Bottom line is that being "right" about nomenclature won't necessarily help you meet clients needs. Nor will calling everything modern or contemporary make it easier to understand and predict what today's consumer wants to buy.

italian after the war is contemporary,design that is clean sleek and free form is also ..........modern is 1945 and after until italian 50.s 60s came out and was unique looking...the rest is from books all copies of design for the last 500 years
some egyptian furn looks contemporary all sleek and lean w clean lines very italian looking ,why bother w transitional ,casual ,etc all made up by our industry.

we offer a broad range of furniture which meets your specific needs, including side boards, wall units, bookshelves, wardrobes,coffee tables, chairs, sofas,

kitchens and bathroom cabinets.

Terms are mostly relative.So its best to understand who your client is and then you can discuss what the term relates to.Without knowing the relative frame of reference the client is coming from terms are generally meaningless.

NO. It doesn't now.

The definition's are changing fast.If it has chrome it could be contemporary or modern but hasnt gold returned,are dark tables passe and isnt light woods a factor? The key is they are all in and it all depends what context you are speaking about and what the client sees it as.
If the sofa is deeper there is a good bet its contemporary but are there not any short cool people anymore?

I do agree this is a very stimulating conversation. First of all one has to understand the meaning of contemporary, the term has so many meanings and branches that it causes it to be misunderstood. Contemporary furniture seems to be simpler, less gaudy and a bit more compact than other furniture. I tend to believe that as a society we are busier than ever, and have less time; not only that but as human growth happens spaces tend to get even smaller. And the demands for pieces of furniture that serve different and don’t take much space are very high. Contemporary furniture has achieved that and I am under the impression that it will continue to flourish.

Thank you for stimulating this great conversation. This is certainly a topic of some interest to us and we’re glad for the opportunity to continue the dialog.
As we began to work on this year’s case goods style survey, we indeed took a look at several definitions for the major style families and determined just which specific styles belonged to which particular major style family. In addition, we reviewed major manufacturers’ websites looking for style types and we interviewed our own writers and two style authorities for their thoughts.
We decided that four major style families or groupings (plus an Other category) would best capture our needs: Contemporary, Country, Traditional and Casual/lifestyle. And we defined each style family according to representative, specific styles we thought belonged within it.
• Contemporary, e.g. Architectural Modern, Art Deco, Asian/Oriental, Industrial, Mid-Century Modern, Mission/Arts & Crafts, Retro/Post-Modern, Scandinavian, Urban/Loft.
• Country, e.g. American, English and French Country, Cottage/Lodge, Mediterranean, Pennsylvania Dutch, Shaker
• Traditional, e.g. American, English and German Traditional, Campaign and Plantation, Colonial, Formal French and Italian, Neoclassic, Victorian
• Casual/Lifestyle, e.g. Coastal, Rustic, Transitional
It’s a basic tenet of research that we must rely to some degree on respondents, in this case furniture retailers, own basic understanding.

To really understand how ridiculous this is you need to go to Vaughn-Bassett's web site and look at their collection called: "Contemporary/Transitional/Shaker/Mission Collection". Will someone tell us what style this group is? And its name starts with the word ""Contemporary." Neither Shaker nor Mission are contemporary or of our times. Transitional denotes moving from traditional design to something more of our times,so it is not contemporary. So what is contemporary?

Well Judi, I am surprised we have not had a response from you. You should be concerned about the efficacy of your research. If the people who answer the questions have an infinite number of definitions of what contemporary is, then how can the bean counting have any significance?
Mr. Wolman's response does not hold water because if you cannot have some kind of common definition that is shared by the industry as a whole, then using the term contemporary is meaningless as far as market research is concerned.
The word contemporary as applied to furniture design appeared in the 1970's as Mediterranean was becoming the Black Plague and modern was being eclipsed. At that time it was a term applied by Southern manufacturers who did not like modern and were introducing what we might call a soft contemporized traditional that was not as "extreme" as they felt modern was. The term contemporary means "of our time". It does not refer to traditional. However, as a buyer, when I look at what passes for "contemporary" today, it appears to be traditional design of a minimalistic nature. It has little to do with modern. It is a generic mish-mash of vanilla moldings for companies that are incapable of establishing a real design direction. It is a style which lacks any semblance of fashion or innovative design. Such boring product is what drains more and more discretionary income from our industry. I think the original question should have been, "Will the No Look look continue to dominate case goods styles?"
Where do you stand on the efficacy of the research, Judi?

How do you define any group? We would have to boil it down to each specific style once you start that.
Most people know the terminolgy and work within those loose terms because if not there would be no understanding at all.If I said a mid century sofa,are you talking a depp sleek mid century sofa or one that depicts a 1959 style that wasnt as deep.There is no end to the definition if you dont put them in relatively loose groups.
Traditional/Transitional/Modern or Traditional/Contemporary/Modern are fine.

Completely agree Robert. Contemporary is completely misunderstood and overused, and most serious contemporary retail stores will tell you there are a dearth of truly contemporary case goods.

Judi there are some basic fallacies in your approach to research here. How will the dealers know what the style categories are when the industry itself does not know what the categories mean? Define contemporary for us. What passes for contemporary today is not contemporary. At best it is cleaned up traditional. What categories would Mission and Arts & Crafts fall into since they existed before the term contemporary was ever used? Would mid century modern be contemporary or modern? When the people who design such research don't understand the terminology of the industry themselves, how valid are the results? I don't even think the customers walking into the stores know what the styles mean. They certainly have an infinite number of definitions for contemporary. So when you ask if contemporary will continue to be the dominant style, you have a real problem because in essence you don't define it for the survey takers. You assume they know what it means. We have names of collections for Arts & Crafts that are called modern. The word contemporary has lost its meaning when a lawson arm sofa is called contemporary because it does not have welts. So how valid is the research when the terminology used to write the questions is incorrect? Can you correct this or will you just continue to do the same thing in the same old way?