Why Are We Yearning for ’70s Decor Again?
Blob sofas and conversation pits may play into nostalgic longing, but designers say the trend also reveals something deeper.
As Published in Architectural Digest, August 24, 2022
Evidence is everywhere that ’70s decor is back with a vengeance—including in the living room of Elaine Welteroth, designed by Night Palm. Photo: Frank Frances
It can’t be a coincidence: rising interest rates, worries about inflation and the price of gas, and the triumphant return of the disco ball and the blob sofa all in the same year? Could it be that midcentury-modern style has decided to take a much-needed rest? Avant-garde Italian furniture from the 1970s, smoked glass, conversation pits, earthy colors, and wall-to-wall carpeting all appear to be back with gusto.
One of the trend’s primary indicators has been the furniture market: Gubi, for one, is reviving rattan designs by Gabriella Crespi for its new Bohemian 72 Collection. And at this summer’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, Bellini reintroduced two zaftig La Mura sofas, originally designed in 1972, along with Le Bambole, the soft sofa system that looks as though a chorus of bean bag chairs had been taught to sit up straight. Perhaps because ’70s design hasn’t yet enjoyed the same kind of attention in museum exhibitions or on the auction block that postwar modernism has, some of the era’s brightest stars are still a bit recherché. But for emerging and mid-career designers today (some of whom weren’t born until well after Studio 54’s doors closed for good), exploring the material history of the ’70s is all part of the creative process.
The bedroom of Elaine Welteroth, designed by Night Palm and seen in the pages of AD, leans into ’70s decor. Photo: Frank Frances
Among them is Tiffany Howell, the founder of LA–based interior design firm Night Palm, who sees the decade’s color palette and textures as catnip. “I’m very drawn to the cognacs, rusts, and chocolate browns of ’70s design,” she tells AD PRO. Beyond that, though, she loves how the laid-back way people lived gave rise to luxurious materiality. “The ’70s brought on the love of lounging,” she says. “The colors and fabrics created a sense of lushness and plushness. It promoted a relaxed and social atmosphere at home, which people feel drawn to once more after the weirdness of the past few years.”
Designer Marion Mailaender recently redesigned her own Parisian apartment in a building that dates to 1970. Mailaender is inspired by the work of Maria Pergay, the French designer who works extensively in sleek stainless steel. “I have an obsession with one of her giant stainless steel belt seats,” she says, “and I love the sunken living rooms—typical of those years—as well as the huge bathrooms with sunken bathtubs.” In her own abode, Mailaender chose ’70s decor motifs like white glass mosaic flooring and an all stainless steel kitchen. “We bought a brown smoked glass Carlo Scarpa table and chairs by Gae Aulenti for the dining room. I designed a very low sofa for the living room, and we usually sit on the carpet to have a drink.”
Marion Mailaender identifies artist Maria Pergay’s work in stainless steel as an influence in her interiors. Evidence abounds in her sleek, ’70s-inspired Paris kitchen. Photo: Romain Laprade
If you’ve noticed a pattern—that many of the most innovative designers active in the 1970s were part of the Italian avant-garde—then you and interior designer Alex P. White are on the same wavelength. “A constant source of inspiration for me is the 1972 exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art,” White says, citing the venue where American visitors got their first taste of Joe Colombo’s Total Furnishing Unit, as well as a NASA–inspired futuristic habitat conceived by a then 33-year-old Gaetano Pesce. “Even though the Radical Italian Design movement was short-lived,” White tells AD PRO, “the fusion of pop culture and design with the outrageous objects and presentations just seems prescient. The righteous freedom of self expression and their proposals for new ways of living reflect the best of ’70s design.”
White recently completed a project for a client who actually partied at Studio 54 and has “the stories and vintage collection to prove it,” he says. “She’s the kind of client who knows exactly what I mean when I say, ‘It’s 63rd Street Halston meets Donghia’s gray flannel.’” White approached the living space as an atmospheric after-party lounge-cum-library for small social gatherings. He chose wood paneling for the walls (sandblasted so it appears to undulate) and a Harvey Probber Tufto sofa that evokes the built-in look of a conversation pit. A circa-1975 Jeanne Claude Dresse metal-inlay coffee table is paired with a groovy mix of contemporary glass and ceramics by Jeff Zimmerman and Cody Hoyt, respectively.
A library designed by Alex P. White channels the 1970s with its plush, enveloping sofa and rich color palette. Photo: Chris Mottalini
Designers agree that the yen for ’70s decor goes beyond visual appeal. Rock Herzog, the LA–based creative who runs the Twitter feed @CocaineDecor, notes that comments on his posts of louche interiors from the late 1970s and early 1980s reveal the complex feelings many have about the decade’s designs. And those nuanced feelings may extend to memories of the era itself, too. “One of the most common retweet comments is, ‘I actually love this,’ with the inference behind it being, Even though it’s hideous.” Some of that comes from generational memory, Herzog says: “I’m 38 years old, and people slightly older and slightly younger than me can remember the bright, garish designs of the late ’70s and early ’80s. When I think of my parents when they were younger, I think of the sheer amount of burnt orange in my very early childhood home.”
Certainly there’s some nostalgia for the freewheeling spirit of the age. White says that’s because the ’70s had a certain uncensored quality. “I think we’re all still a bit envious of that carefree ’70s attitude: The hedonism and the decadence was wild and a bit sleazy, yet everyone was able to take risks without the same consequences we might experience today.” Mailaender agrees: “I think people are fascinated by those years because it was a glamorous, chic, and festive time. You immediately think of a world with gorgeous women dressed in Yves Saint Laurent going to a party at the Palace, the iconic nightclub in Paris that opened in 1978. Everything was very elegant, completely new, and very free.”
But there is, of course, the matter of the “weirdness of the past few years,” as Howell put it, and that’s another reason Herzog thinks people have been gravitating towards designs that push the limits of taste and challenge our aesthetic priors. “I think people needed more sardonic humor in their decor than the Millennial Aesthetic could provide,” he tells AD PRO. “That design style had whimsy, but it was also painfully sincere.” These days, that sincerity may be harder to stomach. “We live in deeply disturbing times. It’s very understandable that we would look to design styles with outrageous forms.”