Art deco is starting to challenge mid-century modern’s dominance, says Vinterior founder Sandrine Zhang Ferron in this interview as part of our Art Deco Centenary series.
Dezeen asked Vinterior for data about the popularity of items tagged “art deco” on the online vintage homeware marketplace – and even the platform itself was surprised by what it found.
In the second half of 2024, the volume of art deco sales tripled.
Art deco brings personality
The uptick in popularity may be tied to increasing nostalgia for the style around the centenary of the 1925 expo that introduced it to the world, but Zhang Ferron suspects there is more to it than that.
She suggested that people are also increasingly looking for ways to inject a touch of personality into their homes.
“I think people just want to reject the total look and express personality through an assortment of pieces to create an interior which is unique to someone,” she told Dezeen.
“Art deco comes in because you have all these very precious materials – marble, brass. Sort of traditional but bling, which makes those good statement pieces.”
Notably, art deco on Vinterior is particularly popular in the mirrors and lighting categories.
“So maybe people like to add a touch of glamour with decorative objects,” said Zhang Ferron.
“We also had a lot of interest for art deco armchairs or statement storage – so like a statement sideboard or chest of drawers in precious walnut wood.”
Like British designer and art deco aficionado Tatjana von Stein, who Dezeen also spoke to as part of our Art Deco Centenary series, Zhang Ferron suggests the style can be most effective in the form of one or two pieces in contemporary settings.
“Art deco can be quite massive, and obviously if you live in a London flat it can be quite hard to have full art deco – not everyone has a penthouse.”
“So you could mix a beautiful pair of Halabala chairs with more understated furniture, and then it’s like a centrepiece. So it’s having this statement piece just to add a touch of personality and make your friends and neighbours know that you have a different style.”
“All new furniture wants to be mid-century”
This search for uniqueness may also explain the appeal of art deco for some people as opposed to more universally popular mid-century modern furniture.
“There are so many brilliant mid-century designers, so the shame is that everyone is copying them,” said Zhang Ferron. “All the new furniture brands and retailers are just taking mid-century icons and doing something similar.”
“So maybe it’s hard to have something that looks different that is mid-century, because all the new furniture wants to be kind of mid-century – so maybe it’s a rejection of something that has become too popular.”
Mid-century modern design has historically been Vinterior’s bread-and-butter.
“It’s definitely where we started – I think most of the 200-product inventory we had at first was mid-century,” said Zhang Ferron.
“It remains, still, very popular, but I think now people are really looking to mix and match, so we are seeing a lot of popularity as well for British antique furniture, and mixing with more chintz-type furniture, more maximalist styles.”
Doing so requires design confidence, and bold art deco can be harder to style than the more straightforwardly tasteful mid-century modern.
That chimes with Zhang Ferron’s own personal experience.
“I really started my passion for vintage in mid-century,” she said. “Maybe that’s where I felt it was more approachable. As it was 10 years ago I was really into more understated, clean lines – not too much clutter.”
“Where maybe now I’m maybe more confident in going a bit more big.”
Following a recent renovation, her own bedroom is “deco-inspired”, with the bed framed by a semi-circular headboard and pieces that use art deco materials including a walnut chest of drawers.
“When our interior designer showed it we immediately fell in love with it,” she said. “It was not inexpensive, but it’s a really statement piece in the room now and everyone notices it.”
“People are rejecting throwaway culture”
Zhang Ferron was born in China and raised in France, though she has spent most of her adult life in London. Her own background is not in design, but finance.
She got the idea for Vinterior after spending three months trying to source a good-condition yellow Poul Volther chair that she had set her heart on.
“I thought, okay, surely there is a better way to do it, and quit my job in finance, learned to code, onboarded a few London dealers to start a website with 200 products, and that’s how I started,” she explained.
The website launched in January 2016 and hit £1 million-worth of sales the following year. It is now the UK’s largest second-hand furniture platform.
Zhang Ferron believes the concept of buying used furniture is now much more widely accepted than in the mid-2010s.
“When I started fundraising I met a lot of objection – people saying the market is not very big, you just have a niche of people who are passionate about mid-century furniture or antiques,” she recalled.
“And obviously today, buying second-hand and the circular economy have more prominence – obviously fashion has led the trend with resale,” she added.
A recent Global Data report said that 8.6 per cent of the UK furniture market is second-hand sales after several years of steady growth in the sector.
“People are definitely more open-minded about buying second hand,” said Zhang Ferron. “When you think about it, why would you buy new? You have to wait for a very long lead time, it’s twice the price at least.”
“So consumers are shifting, and obviously it’s great too to know that you are saving some items from landfill,” she continued.
As people grow more comfortable with the second-hand economy, art deco’s association with luxury materials may become increasingly appealing to buyers, suggests Zhang Ferron.
“I think people are rejecting throwaway culture, I think people like to invest in good quality pieces, and obviously art deco is all very noble materials, like marble, precious wood, leather,” she said.
“So maybe that just seems more durable and can retain its value if you want to resell later.”
The photography is courtesy of Vinterior.
Art Deco Centenary
This article is part of Dezeen’s Art Deco Centenary series, which explores art deco architecture and design 100 years on from the “arts décoratifs” exposition in Paris that later gave the style its name.
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