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What Is Art Deco Furniture?
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Full article with thanks to: artdecostyle.ca/art-deco-style-blog/category/Art+Deco+Interior+Design
Art Deco Style Furniture
Furniture of the 1920s and 1930s was the epitome of sexy!
Glamorous mirrors, glossy woods, slick metal finishes, lush leathers, jewel tones and exotic embellishments are all characteristic of Art Deco style furniture.
Vintage furniture is making a huge comeback and Art Deco sofas, tables, armoires and chairs are in hot demand today. Here are the most common Art Deco Furniture Characteristics.
Characteristics of Art Deco Furniture
Mirrored Furniture
Art Deco style was at its height during the Roaring Twenties. The economy was flourishing and society started taking an interest in luxury goods. One of the most luxurious and glamorous investments would be mirrored furniture.
Coffee tables, dressing and vanity tables, dressers and all types of other furniture were being manufactured out of mirrors. If that isn’t glamour, I don’t know what is!
Lacquer
And for added glamour, the woods would be treated with a high-gloss lacquer finish. This gave the pieces a very rich and sleek look. This is typical of Art Deco style.
Less expensive woods were used as well – maple, oak and ash for example. To give the woods that rich, slick look, several coats of lacquer would be slathered on top.
Wood Inlay
Wood inlay was a very popular furniture style during the Art Deco era. This style can be seen in classic Art Deco sofas and armchairs.
Marquetry
Another popular style was marquetry, “the craft of covering a structural carcass with pieces of veneer forming decorative patterns, designs or pictures.” (Wikipedia). Dressers, armoires and dining tables would be embellished with this type of craft.
Typical Art Deco marquetry patterns were very geometric in shape – for example, zig-zags, sunbursts and chevrons.
Metal
The 1920’s are commonly referred to as the Machine Age. This is when industry and manufacturing saw a huge boom.
Factories started pumping out products at lightning speed. The rise of sophisticated machinery allowed for mass manufacturing of all types of goods…planes, trains, automobiles and a multitude of other common everyday products like radios, refrigerators, lamps, etc.
So it’s only natural that furniture would also have a futuristic machine aesthetic. This was most easily achieved by using metal accents and finishes.
Leather
To keep with the theme of luxury and glamour, only the most buttery-soft, rich leathers were used for furniture. Armchairs, sofas and ottomans were upholstered in the finest leathers. Typical colours were black, brown and tan.
However, the leathers would also be dyed in super bold Art Deco colours like cherry red and tangerine orange. The Roaring 20’s were a time of great prosperity and happiness, so sunny, bright colours came into fashion. These colours reflected the overall cheerful spirit of the times.
Today, leather is quickly going out of fashion for sustainability and animal cruelty reasons. If you are looking for Art Deco-inspired furniture, always choose faux, vegan leather.
Luxurious embellishments
Another furniture trend that arose during the Art Deco era was luxury embellishment.
Art Deco furniture pieces would have added accents of luxurious stones, quartz and jewels. Some of the more popular accents were onyx, jade, ivory and murano glass.
Interior accent pieces like lamps, chandeliers, wall clocks and radios would contain elements such as these as well. All of the pieces together would create a very rich, modern and overall luxurious look.
Full article with thanks to: artdecostyle.ca/art-deco-style-blog/category/Art+Deco+Interior+Design
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