Vintage, wallpaper, recycled wood: young people prefer a cheerful and sustainable decorating style.
The millennial generation is starting to leave its mark on decoration. The ingredients of a decorative style with which this emerging generation - those born between 1980 and 1995 - identify are not surprising, but they all define a current and booming trend. Thus, touches of industrial and vintage style, flexible furniture for multifunctional spaces, wood, personalized neons, wallpaper, plants, and natural fabrics will conquer home decoration in 2022.
Why is the millennial style in fashion?
The spaces in which this generation feels comfortable to stand out for being flexible and cheerful and without great economic resources. An article in The New York Times said that this is the generation that only rents, from clothes to electric scooters or furniture, not only because of their economic capacity but also because of the idea of consuming less and recycling more.
"Most of my clients belong to the millennial generation, and I think it's because I respond well to what they are looking for. For example, right now, I just finished a project for a young couple who inherited a house from the 1970s with furniture they didn't want to throw away because of its sentimental value, aesthetics, and sustainability. I have opened spaces to let natural light circulate and, in the end, they have been able to keep all the furniture that was there. This type of client wants personality, and the success of a good decoration is when you mix and match current and past things," says interior designer Elisabet Brion, who is responsible for the space in the photo above.
This generation with higher education languages has traveled and is aware of climate change. However, even though unemployment is now the main concern for young Spaniards due to the impact of Covid-19, climate change remains in second place for Spanish millennials with 34%, according to the Global Millennial Survey 2020 prepared by the consulting firm Deloitte.
"This decorative style is not only a nod to the 20s of the last century recovering brass, blues and all the energy of that time, but it updates this trend and rediscovers organic forms with another purpose, more oriented to respect the environment," says designer Simona Garufi, architect of the Netflix space in the last edition of Casa Decor (photo above), and who has put the millennial style in the spotlight. Neons are another element that characterizes these interiors, typical lighting of cafes and restaurants of the 50s and 60s.
The house rented in Madrid by blogger María Vázquez, from Dr. Livinghome, was an ode to millennial style. In the image, we see the living room, with a sofa from Maisons du Monde, to which the owner changed the legs and put a wooden board. For the coffee table, Vázquez used copper pipes, cut, and pieces of tubing.
To decorate a home in the millennial style, you need affordable pieces, without a doubt, but above all sustainable ones. According to Ikea, 4% of the solid waste in the landfill today is furniture. Hence, the Swedish giant seeks to provide solutions to extend the life of its products by launching the Save the Furniture campaign, one of its strategies to fit in with the mentality of a generation that, although mostly rents, expects to own in the future. 84% of young millennials and Generation Z (born between 1996 and 2012) want to buy in the future, according to El Economista (May 2021), the CEO of one of the most important real estate agencies in the country. Therefore, we are talking about the increasingly critical potential clients in the renovation and renovation sector.
A millennial-style home will offer decor somewhere between industrial and vintage, pastel colors, flea market items, and affordable furniture. Eclectic? Retro? Industrial and urban? It is not very clear how to define the millennial decorative style with a single word because it is all that at the same time. Why choose a single class when you can combine them all?
As we were saying, we have seen it in the living room of designer Simona Garufi, who the millennials have inspired in the streets of Madrid for her proposal at Casa Decor 2021. "Vintage appears everywhere. Reusing instead of buying is becoming a trend," explains Garufi. The professional also proposed flexible and multifunctional spaces. The reduced surface area of city apartments forces young people to design living rooms that are at the same time work, meeting, or relaxation spaces. In the image is the Madrid apartment of the interior designer and millennial Flor de Lis B. Ruíz, who defined her home as "clearly with an eclectic style," recognizing that she is inspired by pastel tones, soft shapes, and natural beauty materials. She also said that she likes to go to flea markets and that she has a preference for furniture from the '50s. "My clients see that I am capable of preserving and giving fresh air to these pieces because it is part of my personality. In Spain, we have a culture of throwing away and making everything new, but it's changing a lot, and in 2022, it's going to be a dominant trend," says Brion. Their projects stand out for lightening heavy vintage wooden pieces with cheerful wallpapers and a chromatic range of greens, blues, and powdered pinks. "I don't stop working, really, and it's partly thanks to commissions from a generation that already accounts for a very high