If vintage style is your preferred interior vibe, you will love this new granny-chic trend. Style director Louise Hilsz shares how to incorporate the elegance of the past, by mixing some modern creativity.
What is Grandmillennial?
If, like us, you are constantly feeling the urge to 'comfort decorate' your bang on-trend. 'Grandmillennial' aka granny-chic is an interior design term that has been bandied around since September 2019 and first coined by writer Emma Bazilian in an article for America's House Beautiful. Bazilian believes: 'Ranging in age from mid-20s to late-30s, 'grandmillennials' have an affinity for design trends considered by mainstream culture to be stuffy or outdated." Think Laura Ashley prints, kitsch colours, frills, and embroidered linens, as well as recycled furniture - which we like. So what is grandmillenial style? Well, it is a bit nana, but not that full-on English cottage vibe. It's opposed to the minimal, Scandi aesthetic that has dominated interior design mood boards for decades. Instead, grandmillennial style is all about mixing old and new, upcycling (which is good for the planet) to create a feeling of comfort and nostalgia. Traditional elements with a modern twist are eclectic, a design trend that creates a homey, well-lived-in mood in your home. This new trend is a step back in time with elegance but a bolder, quirkier twist. Popular with millennials, hence the name, who appreciate the past by collecting vintage fashion or learning a forgotten craft, such as knitting and embroidery, but want to marry old and new with a touch of unique flair.
Our style director shares how to get channel this charming style in any room in your home.
Be Bold With Colour
Don't be shy with granny-chic interiors. Avoid a white and black palette of minimalism design and embrace bold, brave, and vibrant colours. Mix pastels with rich colours and patterns to create rooms with distinct characters. Make a statement with brightly coloured furniture that one would not expect, like a green cupboard decorated with blue china and gold accents, making for an eye-catching combination. Feel free to mix and match different hues and patterns to make your space feel more carefree and effortlessly chic. Use colours liberally in your up-cycled furniture, bedding, textiles, drapery, walls, and fixtures.
Be creative incorporating floral patterns. It can be as simple as adding floral linen, bright, decadent floral wallpaper patterns, framed art, and ceramics. If you have your nanas floral painting? Hang it. Finally, fill your vases with freshly picked garden blooms.
Be careful that you don't replicate nana's house. It's all about a careful balance of frivolity and restraint - resist displaying your entire collection of cabbage plates, just choose a few. Having a considered edit of objects displayed together allows for those pieces to really shine, rather than getting lost in the clutter.
Bordallo Pinheiro Cabbage Tall Salad Bowl, $153. Jonathan Adler Versailles Hex Vase, $639. French Country Collection Silver Pineapple Candleholder’s, $99. Seletti Eudossia Hybrid Porcelain Fruit Bowl, $75.
See the DIY transformation.