Here’s some intriguing news. Kim Palmer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has written an article on the recent appearance of Victorian elements of style in modern furniture design and home décor. “Victorian furniture is making a comeback,” we are told.
From avant-garde Dutch designer Maarten Bass and his “Smoke” chaise, to online retailer Brocade Home with their mass-marketed ornately carved beds, to Pottery Barn with their dragonfly bottle stoppers, Victorian is back in vogue.
Evidently it’s not so much nostalgia for the Victorian era itself as a return to femininity in high-tech times. Along with heavily carved furniture and mirror frames, we are seeing art with religious undertones, a shift in color from reds and greens to plums and pinks, and the reemergence of the silhouette.
A return to femininity? I don’t think there’s enough femininity left in our society to return to. But if Victorian elements are being put into pieces of furniture manufactured for the mass market, I’m left to wonder what the trickle-down effect will be on real antique Victorian furniture.