SELLING SETTEE: DÉCOR THROUGH ADS AND WORDS, and lessons for the consumer

Yes, things used to be better

Dear Snoops,

We’re going to keep it simple today. And, a little bit complain-y (but with a generous pinch of HOPE!).

We operate on a simple guiding principle, and we will quote here from the excellent book UNDERGROUND INTERIORS: DECORATING FOR ALTERNATIVE LIFE STYLES (1972):

"Finally, there is a need for people today to live in an environment of their own making, one that they have influenced in some way, to counter their feeling of impotence in other faces of their daily existence.”

FEELS VERY RELEVANT, RIGHT? Let us have one place we can feel un-alienated, where we perform mostly for ourselves.

In this light, we’ve recently been pondering like, HOW interiors are communicated to us and in particular how furniture is SOLD. And, why for us, given the fact we’re really super duper into domestic interiors, it seems totally exhausting to witness most retailers and even mega-great brands try and SELL.

Here are some brief thoughts on the subject:

THOUGHT 1.THE WORD “ICON(IC)” AND ITS SYNONYMS ARE LOBOTOMIZING

The fact is that furniture is being sold to us like it’s a godd*mn investment – and we’re sorry, BUT BUT BUT you’ll spill on it, you’ll scratch it, ideally a lot of things will happen to it (w*nk!) because you don’t live in a f*cking museum. Retailers and their ad agencies will use words like “ICONIC”, “TIMELESS”, or even “NEW CLASSIC” (YIKES!), etc., to lobotomize you. They seek to remove from you a critical response — how can you, you pedestrian, decide you DO NOT LIKE an icon, a classic, a masterpiece?

SURE, history is very super exciting, and somewhere in there you might find some person and their sh*t that you connect to. But, must you connect to and value all “ICONS”? We’d say No.

All of those things, AT ONE POINT, had to be sold for some other reason. Remember that you, in fact, don’t need your décor to be “ICONIC”, you need it to be enjoyable to you.

JUSTIN T*MBERLAKE BY STEVEN KLEIN.

THOUGHT 2. ON THAT NOTE: WE REVIEW FURNITURE ADVERTISING THROUGH TIME

Furniture ads are just not what they could be, reflecting the sub-par retail experience (no WONDER we’re just obsessed with handful of swaggy vintage sellers online).

Like, this is something FOR SCALE super pal MEARA sent us the other day:

1. We’re kinda tired of styling where the furniture still feels like its off-gassing from the factory. And, 2. The moment is modern?! Truly has there been a more tardy and generic statement? WE’RE ANNOYED.

Advertisements USED TO really just say “DO IT YOUR F*CKING WAY”, and that was because furniture – EVEN THE FANCY STUFF – was cast as FOR YOU, not because you want to participate in “the moment” (which, by nature is FLEETING). Examples:

VERY HUMANIZING

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP L: It reads “TOGO, KIMBO, SAFI… ANY WAY YOU’LL BE FINE”; a SORIANA sofa with a granny and her cat (how chic!); a veritable poem about the BAMBOLE chair, with a nipple-exposed woman totally coming down from a party'; “A SAMURAI AND A ROSET CHAIR? WHY NOT.”

To contrast, here is how the SORIANA is sold today (not an ad, but a website promo shot):

We suppose the consumer of today - so lobotomized by years of “ICON” - are now so unimaginative that they need to see a sofa in a living room context to understand it as something that should be in a living room? Where is the granny and her cat - LONG DEAD, sadly.

Anyway, back to the positive stuff, here is LIGNE ROSET using literal language of “WHY NOT?” (1970s):

This is actually the most compelling composition of the beleaguered TOGO sofa we have seen – not pure MODERN context, but like, with some stuff gilded French oils.

This is not restricted to the VERY DÉCOR-PERMISSIVE 1970s.

In the GAP-PEAK-ERA late 1990s, we have a sofa by Philippe Starck for Cassina called “THE LAZY WORKING SOFA”, which is THE most absolutely perfect flawless name for a sofa. So f*cking upset we didn’t come up with that. And, here are some iits promo shots (of where there are several):

LIFE IS LIVED THROUGH FURNITURE.

Totally cinematic in style, and kind of FURNITURE AS BACKDROP TO STORY, with the IMPORTANT aspect of this images being the life around the LAZY WORKING SOFA. It is not sofa as art piece, not as plinth-ready museum-collection-worthy precious objet d’art. It’s just a darn sofa, okay.

NOW… back to the contemporary era, and ads were like this (i.e. trying so hard to be “fun”/“funny”):

No comment. But if we had to comment: NO. Alternative comment: is this the long shadow of SEX AND THE CITY?

That was 2017. Really not that long ago, considering it can take you 9 months to actually have one of these puppies DELIVERED.

Or this (2022) (i.e. trying so hard to justify $20K price tag):

Also: there is a real hegemony of completely POO-BROWN interiors and furniture. That’s a subject for another time.

This is as if this sofa is some kind of STONE HENGE sculptural apparition. Looks like it was stolen from the Levant and set up in the British Museum. ABSOLUTELY hilarious they have the tagline of “LIFE AND OTHER STORIES” – does this seem like “life"? What exactly is the “story”?

YET, EVERYTHING IS KINDA CYCLICAL?

So, there’s some circling back in 2023. L-to-R: The BAMBOLE ARMCHAIR (remember from above?); a Le Corbusier + Pierre Jeanneret + Charlotte Perriand chair (for CASSINA, middle) shot in 2023; PIN-UP MAG celebrate’s TOGO’s 50th anniv. also 2023:

Pick your fave. Notably, the latter get the more playful treatment and are min 50 years old.

But there is some more of a dimensional human story telling in the past. The BAMBOLE ad had that version with a very long kind of poem-text (again, above), that starts off describing the chair as “yielding and alive, supple and active, that hugs you, because of how it is made inside.” (Rough translation.)

In 2023 we don’t tell stories in selling, we just say “Masterpiece”, and “Classic” (LOBOTOMIZING WORDS) that accompany social media videos – as if that’s all you need to know? (YES, PIN-UP DID A BIG TOGO FEATURE, TOO. And, we do love PIN-UP. Just making a point here.)

And, to return also the LIGNE ROSET ads, they weren’t about “COOL” people using furniture. They were about ANYONE being able to use ‘em.

AND YES, of course we are GENERALIZING. We’re not writing a PhD on this (or anything, ever) but in our casual consumption of advertising of past and present, the Furniture World does seem to take a more and more a dehumanized, Fashion-ified approach to quality stuff. It’s like, chic-looking people playing with or posing on chairs, rather than some kind of deeper and more direct story about CHAIR IS FOR PEOPLE, YOU ARE A PERSON. Even if you’re on a party come-down, even if you’re a granny, even if you like historic portraits in oil.

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SOME CONCLUDING SEMI-THOUGHTS

We absolutely ADORE perusing a brick-and-mortar. Mainly because often buying things online leads to big disappointments (lots of the pretty, angular sofas are also stuffed to be a stiff as a f*cking rock).

Anyway, LOTS of amazing sources for the unnew (CITY BY CITY SHOPPING GUIDES COMING!) – but for new stuff? Literally the most excited place is IKEA – SO SUE US! And why? Because the “Showroom” floors are set up like you’re snooping through people’s homes. There’s like, a pot on stove and things. There are signs of human life, oddly, that are as if IKEA employed set decorators and not merchandisers. (Maybe they did.)

Where Design Within Reach, or a big brands showroom (we have been to so many), or wherever the heck else, don’t give you that. They give you library-level quiet, a clear-liquids-only rich relative’s place, a “just-so”-ness that feels like “HOW COULD THIS FIT INTO MY ACTUAL LIFE?”. These spaces all CLAIM to be “designed like a home” but they are designed like no home we’ve ever felt comfortable in.

They don’t display furniture to live with. They display furniture to gaze upon.

The IKEA shopping energy.

THE LESSON FOR THE CONSUMER OF TODAY:

ANYTIME ANYTHING IS SOLD YOU PURELY BASED ON ITS PAST CREDENTIALS, you should remember that YOU ARE NOT IN THE PAST. Think about what makes sense to the you of today.

Sure, we all need convincing, but there are a LOT of people finding time-tested things and giving them a Purpose For Today beyond just kinda useless words.

They are…

… to be listed by us soon. We’re taking it easy today.

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Of course we love and prefer unnew stuff, and this has been a lot about NEW, but we also want really thoughtful big brands with histories of, like, wild and fun new entries into the canon of “DOMESTIC THINGS” to keep on going.

But, for that, we think they need to start talking to us, the consumer, in a totally different way.

Until next time, LOVE AND GOOD LUCK