This Style Influenced An Entire Generation | A Style Is Born

[Music] [Music] you've seen the style of furniture everywhere this chair this chair this tv stand this table their name mid-century modern and while they may feel trendy they actually have a really long and interesting history my name is ariel bessette and this is a style is born the show where we try to better understand the furniture around us and the design styles that influence the ways we live [Music] this series is brought to us by wayfair wayfarer is home to hundreds of unique design styles but today we're going to better understand how the mid-century modern style was born [Music] i'm currently renovating my 1850s farmhouse which is very interesting [Music] so design styles are top of mind for me while i've been learning a lot over the last year i'm really excited to learn more with you what i want to figure out is how did mid-century modern style come to be and why is it so popular again there's a lot of clues for understanding mid-century modern right in the name first let's break down modern because in the art world it means a very specific thing modernism was simply a rejection of victorian traditions look at art from the late 1800s and then look at art from the dareists in the early 1900s and then the abstract expressionists in the 40s this didn't happen by accident artists and creators were trying to build the world they wanted to live in to push things forward so that explains the modern part of mid-century modern but what about the mid-century part we're painting with a bit of a broad brush here but if we break down the 20th century into some decade chunks it can start to help us build a picture in the 1910s there was a lot of innovation but also the devastation of world war one by the 20s people are looking for luxury and while not everyone could afford great gatsby style parties things like nail polish and lipstick had become really popular with the 30s came the great depression and a lot of families were struggling to get by to say the very least and then world war ii hits by the time the war finishes in 1945 the world was a really different place than it had been in 1900 there had been so many advancements and changes from politics to science industry to workforce fashion media entertainment i mean the first computer was created during world war ii imagine entering the war not having any idea what a computer is and exiting the war in a world where machines can make really complicated computations things have changed and maybe one of the things that had morphed the most was the concept of home a lot of people wanted to move on from the war and find that safety and security that they couldn't have during the war and one way to do that was to rebuild a life with your family in a nice home probably in the suburbs we know that the baby boom happened in this period from the 40s to 60s this was a time when people fled to the suburbs started families bought cars settled down with the kids in front of their recently invented television sets and so it makes a lot of sense that they would want to fill those homes and style those homes in new and beautiful ways so now that we know a lot about what the term means and what was going on in this period of history i want to know more about the influences and the specific things that were really impacting these design styles i think we should turn to some experts so let's hit the books [Music] up first i think we need to talk about materials almost every source i looked at mentioned how much the materials of the time were influencing the stuff that was being made according to bradley quinn in his book mid-century modern although the mid-century architectural style was strongly rooted in the natural world vinyl linoleum formica and plastic linked the interior firmly to the man-made environment as well something else that came up a lot was talk of the future the space race and wanting to get to the moon and depictions like the jetsons or disney's tomorrowland all paint this picture of what could the future look like with our new technologies and the wealth we have post-war from toys to cars to furniture this obsession with space created a whole new aesthetic and it's plain to see look at what furniture from the very early 1900s look like and then furniture in the mid-1900s so we have a war that just finished mass production is happening a race to space new materials artists creating beautiful and functional things and a little bit more spending money i think what i want to do now is look at one very specific example that illustrates how all of these influences came together to build one actual piece of furniture [Music] [Laughter] let's talk about chairs a lot of this period's history and philosophy is well encapsulated in their chairs right before the mid-century there had been an art movement called bauhaus it was a german movement it literally meant construction house that tried to take the innovation of mass production and meld that with art according to the met the bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education the bellhouse movement got cut short because of the beginning of the war but you can see how that influence affected mid-century modern furniture that we know and love if you go to the bauhaus museum in berlin or to the museum of modern art in new york you will actually see these chairs on display how did a chair get placed in the same building as a monet or as a frida mid-century modern chairs are beautiful they're futuristic they're practical and they're aspirational when you see one it looks a bit like a piece of art which leads us to the chair i'm literally sitting on now let's talk about the classic plastic eames chair one of the most iconic pieces from this time from probably the most iconic designer duo of the period rey and charles eames were artists charles was working on design and architecture rey was painting in the abstract expressionist realm and both were working with brand new materials when the united states joined world war ii in 1941 all industries were suddenly redirected onto the war effort and the eames started out like this too the eems were granted money to develop work on new materials like plywood to engineer splints that were cheaper and lighter when the war had finished they opened the eem's office their main aim was to make the best for the most for the least like the iconic plastic chair i feel like we've gotten to the bottom of my first question how did mid-century modern furniture come to be but my second question we still haven't answered why is it so popular again i think i'm gonna need a little help answering this question so i'm gonna call my friend paige she's a prop stylist and literally designs rooms for a living so let's ask her so the first question i'm just going to ask you flat out for your theories here why is mid-century modern so popular again it's actually funny when i saw that question the first thing that came to my mind was it actually has never really gone out of style yeah because it came about in the 50s and the eems chair has never gone out of production since right i think what makes it so popular is that it fits really well with like any type of design so if you have modern style if you're eclectic if you like art deco you can throw a mid-century piece in there and it works and for me like why i love it is i it always adds in that nice touch of wood warmth so like if you have a really like modern space i guess or something like lights and you have a lot of white pieces it's kind of nice to add in that one piece like the wood credenza um to warm up the space and it also gives that really nice vintage touch that i think a lot of people are interested in including in their homes now do you think that it's here to stay i definitely think it's here to stay everyone has a mid-century piece but to me when i look at it i'm not like oh like it's trendy or anything it's like oh you have that really cool unique mid-century piece it like it pretty much goes with everything it's the perfect style what can we say it is i lost my century so clearly there's a lot of reasons why it's back a lot of scholars agree with what paige had said that it kind of never went out of style because it works so well with other trends personally based on everything i've read i couldn't help but notice the similarities between what's going on right now versus what was going on in that mid-century period obviously we're still in the middle of it so who knows what we'll kind of realize and be able to look back on and understand 20 years from now but from where we're sitting right now after the 2007 recession and throughout this pandemic period a lot of people are trying to make their homes beautiful and comfortable and a lot of people have started working from home so that's another reason to feel really comfortable in your house according to comscore 74 million americans completed a home remodel job in 2020 up 20 from the year before myself included if i was gonna be here all of the time i wanted to make it beautiful and so i turned to new furniture and a lot of the mid-century style pieces are so beautiful and warm and inviting and fit in really well with other pieces that i have at the end of the day though i think that the magic of mid-century modern furniture is that somehow it feels retro and nostalgic and romantic while also simultaneously feeling sleek and modern and futuristic [Music] thank you so much for joining me and wayfair on this journey to better understand mid-century modern furniture head over to wayfair to discover mid-century modern style for yourself as well as hundreds of other unique styles and pieces do you have a suggestion on what style we should do a deep dive on next let me know down in the comments and let me know what your favorite piece of mid-century modern furniture is mine are these tiny chairs i really hope you enjoyed this video thanks for watching bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Wayfair

Views: 526,705

Keywords: zillion infinite furniture, wayfair, wayfair.com, swapping carts, finishing touches, home, decor, furniture, how to, diy, tutorials, projects, online, shopping, home makeover, room makeover, interior design, home decor, home improvement, shop with me, roomspiration, mid century modern, mcm, furniture design, history of mid century modern, ariel bissett, mid century modern home, mid century modern design tips, where to shop mid century modern, mid century modern furniture

Id: x2BIlrvh8ec

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 30 2021