love the old majolica dishes!

I adore this place. I don't notice any date-specific trendy decor. It's personal and refreshing.

Emilie, your excellent suggestion is flat-out the easiest way of learning to distinguish between what's good design & what's merely trendy crap.

Sometimes beauty & trendiness overlap, and sometimes they don't, and unfortunately, when things are brand new, it's often hard to tell the two things apart. That's because the wonderful glow of freshness--good in itself, like the sparkle of dewdrops glistening on a piece of garden-fresh fruit, or the rosy bloom on a young child's cheek--can obscure what would otherwise be obvious to everyone: that the apple's rotten & the kid's a brat. Clever marketers know all about that little trick. They use it against us all the time.

There were some amazingly handsome interiors done in the 197Os, and there were some that were awful--see Lilek's hilarious but cautionary volumes if you don't have a shelf full of vintage Better Homes & Gardens & Family Circles around--but back then, most people couldn't tell the two things apart, simply because both were equally new. For a lot of people, New = Good.

Of course, if you had shown the same people comparable rooms from, say, the 193Os--when those rooms were themselves 'new'--almost everyone, even people with no eye for design, could easily tell the good & bad pieces or rooms apart, but the same analytical eye that works so well when we're looking at old pictures is seldom as dependable when we look at more recent stuff. It's that seductive aura of newness that throws people off. The good news is that the ability to look past the sizzle and tell the two things apart can be developed, and that one of the best--not to mention easiest & most amusing--ways to sharpen the eye is to look at old books.

Age has a wonderful way of stripping away the illusory appeal that comes from mere transitory freshness, and it reveals things for what they really are, and for what they were all along to people who know how to see through the marketer's rosy mists. Like Jesus said "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed." That has a broader application than is generally supposed.

Can you say "country geese?" Are they really as hideous as most people say they are nowadays? If so, how is it that so many millions of women thought they were adorable back in the day? Has mass taste really improved that much? Or how about whitewashed cutouts of howling coyotes? Or flouncy pillows in hunter green & burgundy? Or sun-moon-&-stars on everything in sight? No, those things were always cheesy gimmicks straight off Madison Avenue, but when people saw those geese & those coyotes in the glossy magazines, all primped & powdered & lit up like stars awaiting their big closeups, they fell in love. But not with the things themselves, only with their wonderful g-l-o-w. But that glow doesn't last forever. Open up an old Home Decorators catalog from a while back and you'll see what I mean. It's like a chamber of decorating horrors in there.

And why should that be? The poet said "A thing of beauty is ajoy forever." So why aren't we joyful? Is the wooden coyote any less cute than he was then? Is the gigantic tassel-wrapped seeded-glass lamp any less elegant? Are the strings of faux chili peppers any less festive? Is the fat chef any less laugh-inducing? Is the big iron star any less striking? They're exactly whatever they were then. And yet, somehow, the thrill is gone. It's like watching a rerun of an old Ed Sullibvan Show: you wonder what you ever saw in that stuff. It's so predictable. So embarrassing. But it's a never-ending cycle--unless you get off the merry-go-round. One of these days, a lot of folks will look up at the dusty plastic curlicue doodads hanging on their walls & wonder "What was I thinking?" Their daughters will look at the ghost of some hackneyed saying peeking through the paint on their twenty-foot high wall & wonder "Why didn't somebody stop me?" But a lot of those same people will turn around & hop on whatever bandwagon comes along next. To each his own. It's a wonderful thing, the circle of life.

Anyway, looking at old books is quite the education. It sharpens your eye, and, in time, it will render you less susceptible to buying a piece of gimmicky, derivitive junk, simply because it's new. But you won't have to avoid buying new & trendy stuff, either, simply to avoid buying something crummy. Remember, if new doesn't necessarily mean good, it also doesn't automatically mean bad. Trends are neutral. It's what's behind the trend that matters, and looking at older publications--even ones as recent as Emilie's example above--will, in time, allow you to tell at a glance which trendy new things--or looks--will appeal to you for years to come & which are doomed to sit unsold at the yard sales of 2010.

magnaverde's comments (manifesto?) on trendiness are well taken, but was citing jesus really necessary?

Yeah, I agree with KTG (I think) that there's no such thing as a classic that is always in style. Tastes in historical pieces change with the times. Like in the 80's arts and crafts movement was very "classic". Today, while I'm not selling my little journey stand, but I searched "arts and crafts" and "mission" and cound not come up with a single example on your site featuring this style.

what's wrong with citing baby jeebus?

These rooms look better than most of the ones featured in the current decorating magazines I have at home.

i liked magnaverde's thoughts, but thought the biblical reference was a little self-serious. perhaps my comment sounded more harsh than it needed to be - my bad.