Although I do identify as America’s first homeless interior decorator, I am in fact neither homeless nor an interior decorator. With respect to the professional identification: as I have said in the past, I don’t care what your house looks like. That said, I do think Sean Monahan is right that “boom boom” has some real descriptive value for the overwrought, public displays of consumption we’ve been seeing in the interiors world lately. I tend to see the style (rich hypersaturated color, prints, a Victorian/Gilded Age visual density, the return of brass tones) as the pendulum swinging back from the greige austerity of millennial Japandi (Japanese + Scandinavian). Its success is a product of how it distinguishes itself from this precursor trend: that greige trend rose and fell with the Kardashians, leaving in its wake gray wood laminate flooring in AirBnB’s across America, festering alongside all the necrotic BBLs.
Boom boom is helpful to me as a way to mark the resurgence of a kind of dense pre-War mishmash (you might see Art Deco light fixtures, wing back chairs, and an early 20th C wrought iron marble top bistro table all together). It can be composited with dead-eyed rich people condo furniture (a big blobby chandelier hanging over the whole mess) but it need not be. The pastiche is, I think, supposed to telegraph an old money eclecticism—the fantasy of multi-generational collecting by accretion (and a nice visual statement of Thomas Piketty’s “rate of return on capital is higher than rate of return on labor”).
The worrisome part of this new opulence is, I think, a kind of horseshoe convergence between a vaguely left-coded interest in eclecticism with its byword “curation,” and a right-coded interest in “tradition.” The wider color palette ostensibly telegraphs ease, play, and inclusion, but the aggregate effect is still neo-traditionalist. There is still the same lurking, loser aspiration to be sitting in the library of a home older than the one you are in. It feels like it is actually the perfect style for the problem the left finds itself in: a public performance of multicultural inclusion papering over private wealth-hoarding. To be clear: the right wing version of Nazi policies dressed in Nazi aesthetics—even worse! But it feels like the time has come for a new political alignment, and just maybe, a new look. Something’s gotta give.

I am quietly returning to selling stuff directly. More here. For my precious new subscribers: Landed cost (the final cost you pay) = the hammer price (the highest bid) + the premium (a set percentage added to the hammer price that the auction house takes) + shipping (you’re always on the hook for this) + sales tax
Also, now worth repeating: I don’t get a commission on any of these sales/am not involved in any way with these auctions. To the listings!
Me, after badgering my arch-fagesis into hosting a “Night of 1000 Stairs” and telling him I’ll just be wearing sweatpants because I feel under the weather. This auction is very cool; it’s mostly museum-quality fashion. Someone should buy this Geoffrey Beene dress for an event and someone should get married in this.
Mackintosh (1868-1928) was a Scottish designer who somehow designed postmodern furniture before modernist furniture was fully fledged. One of the greats. This has fun details, click through. Shoutout to friends of the stack Steven and Chase who will be spreading the Arcades gospel in Scotland soon.
Very nice forms and in great shape. Will go for cheap bc ppl r stupid <3
Great lines.
This is overpriced for me but I like it. When I launch Arcades in-house home designs I will have something like this (that will prob be even more expensive). I associate perforated metal with Ikea but I think there’s a lot you could do with it…
[Azealia Banks voice]: Liiiike, that is very sad.
Leonor Fini (Argentine, 1907-1996) truly one of the 20th century’s most glamorous women. Lovers, bisexuality, a who’s who of friends (Cocteau, de Chirico). Designed a perfume bottle for Schiaparelli. Nice little print.
Can you believe Fire Island season is upon us? Time to turn the brain off for 4-6 months!
lol
I know lucite can be hard for us, but I think this would actually sit kind of quietly and with some dignity in a room.
May the hammer fall ever in your favor!
Will your next dispatch include verbiage for the explanation to my roommate as to why we now have two toilets